In this presentation I have described my management philosophy and methods that I have developed and actively use through my teams to deliver impact and customer success

1. Industry experience and background
Ambareesh Kulkarni

5. • 23 years of Industry experience, with 16 of those in
Professional Services and in Customer Success roles
• Proven track record in establishing Professional Services as
a Strategic, Customer-Success focussed, Revenue
generating and Margin contributing organization
• Enabled Professional Services organizations to go beyond
implementation and own Customer Success
• Developed growth strategies based on Innovation, Solution
selling, Partnerships and building Trusted Advisor
relationships
Professional background
Global Expertise in Enterprise Software companies

6. • Worked for 11 years at Actuate and held various roles ranging from hands-
on implementation consultant, project manager, trainer and regional
director in Professional Services
• Lead a cross disciplinary team that won Actuate’s largest combined
software + services deal
• Strong industry, technical background and ability to communicate at ‘C’
levels contributed to my success at Actuate
• Lead a Global, Professional Services team at Accelrys (Biovia), a Spotfire
partner
• Again at Accelrys, lead a team to close its largest Software and Services
deal at DuPont
• Transformed the existing Accelrys PS team focussed on delivering scientific
consulting services to one that delivered Enterprise Consulting services
Professional background
Strong Analytics, BI and Business Process Integration background

7. • Over the last 6 years at 1E, I have consistently delivered year-over-
year growth and made strong margin contributions
• Augmented focus from implementation services to delivering
ongoing Customer success by transforming Professional Services to
Client Services
• Built and managed a Client Services team that now includes
Professional Services, Training, Customer Success (enablement) and
Technical Support
• The new Client Services group under my leadership is now mainly
responsible for managing the customer from on-boarding to
renewals and expansion
Professional background
Transformed Professional Services from Cost to a Profit Centre

8. Values and what’s Important
Professional Services mission
In the subsequent sections I have described
my management philosophy and methods
that I have developed and actively use
through my teams to deliver impact and
customer success

9. • Focus on customer success, through measurable and
quantifiable impact
• Grow, while influencing Software pull-through
• Run Professional Services in a profitable manner
• Create and build industry presence
• Attract and retain key employees
• Disperse information from projects and customers to
various groups within the Organization
Define Mission & Charter
Values adopted to embrace and deliver Customer Success

10. • Take the risks out of customers projects
• Bring deep and multiple skills to projects, thereby
reducing the need for multiple resources
• Understand typical Business Processes, and devise
ways to Optimize and Automate them
• Measure and quantify customers savings and
business impact delivered
• Complement technical skills with domain knowledge
Become a Trusted Advisor
What should Professional Services do for customers?

11. • Direct access to product experts
• Accelerated implementation times
• Improved operational efficiency
• Increased and rapid return on investment
• Intensive transfer of knowledge and best
practices, focused on the unique characteristics
of customer implementation and environment
Why engage Professional Services?
Demonstrate value on every engagement

12. Cost of not engaging Professional Services
Accelerate time to value with Professional Services
Impact
Loss of
impact
Time
Production Full AdoptionPilot

13. Revenue, Bookings & Margin
Professional Services Operations

14. • Consistent, Predictable and a Repeatable
methodology will lead to successful projects,
high maintenance renewal rates and
Referenceable customers
• Referenceable (happy) customers will deliver
high quality Revenue
Professional Services as a Profit center
Repeatability, Reference-ability and Revenue

15. • Aim for 20-30% attach rate
• 20% should come through software pull through
• 5-10% revenue to be delivered by the efforts of the
professional services team
• Build at least 2 quarters backlog to manage
consultant utilization effectively
• Design bill rates, implementation methodology
and resource plan to deliver 20-30% net margin
Professional Services as a Profit center
Revenue, Backlog and Margin

16. Measure and Monitor numbers
Provide full visibility through performance dashboard

17. • Develop Services offerings (targeted and focused packaged offerings) that
can be offered to existing customers
• Invest in a PS Engineering team whose main focus should be to build
“solution accelerators” that can be sold as services offerings
• Consider offering Managed Services or Resident Experts for ongoing
maintenance and upkeep of the solution deployed
• Compensate PSO Senior Management on bookings, revenue and margin
and the PMO on project success
• Expand core consulting offering to include Training as well. Run and
manage Training as a separate profit center
Building sufficient backlog
Think of Services as a product too

18. The graph below shows how the customer engagement tends to drop post initial implementation
(gray line on a downward slope). Post implementation is where the services team has the
opportunity to offer follow-on services (shown by the black lines) and generate additional and
steady revenue from customers
Continuous Engagement
Keep delivering value

19. Designed to deliver Customer Success
Professional Services Organization

20. • Automate and manage day
to day Operations with a
Professional Services
Automation System
• PSA’s provide real-time
visibility into resource
scheduling/availability and
project profitability
• Early detection, will ensure
that Utilization targets are
met and projects are run in
a profitable manner
Professional Services Operations
Automation is critical

21. • 24 X 7 support through a
globally distributed team
• Key escalation engineers
located in major regions
like EMEA and the US
• Dedicated Sustained
Engineering team to
accelerate resolution of
product issues
• Systematic RCA (root
cause analysis) of issues
on a quarterly basis
Global Technical Support
Running operations by the numbers

22. • Leverage Training to
secure renewals,
maximize adoption and
reduce churn
• Build a community of
experts to support
implementation and
enhancements of
solutions
• Reduce support
overhead and costs by
having trained
customers
Education Services
Maximize Adoption and reduce Churn

23. • Built a de-centralized
model for regional
autonomy and
performance
accountability
• Central PMO, for quality
control, standardization
and escalation
management
• Global coverage
Professional Services Organization structure
Designed to deliver implementation and project success worldwide

24. • Align all teams that own
and impact customer
success under VP,
Customer Success (my
new role)
• Measure and influence
Retention and not just
Renewal rates
• Drive Software & Services
revenue by delivering
customer success
Professional Services  Customer Success
Natural Evolution

25. 1. Achieving savings & business impact
2. Buying more
3. Trained & Certified
4. Following Quarterly Business Review cycle
5. Customer is an advocate
6. Part of community
7. Low support costs
8. High customer satisfaction rating
Customer Success
What does it look like?

26. THANK YOU
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without permission from the author.