From Silicon Review Magazine: TOP Step Consulting – Empowering Professional Services Organizations to be Profitable, Scalable, and Efficient
“Since 2007, TOP Step has served over 270 organizations across the globe. The company was awarded “Best of the Best” by SPI Research for a seventh consecutive year and ranked as one of the fastest-growing private companies by Inc. 5000 in 2016.”
With a customer first approach and proactive information dissemination to the customer community, TOP Step Consulting positions itself as the primary organization to engage with related to PSA (Professional Services Automation) decision making, deployment, and enhancement. TOP Step’s focus on Professional Services consulting singles it out when compared with other consulting firms as the company strives to meet and deliver on all challenges in this space. Many of its solutions involve coordinating with other parts of the organization such as finance due to which the knowledge base has to be extensive to address end-to-end solution considerations.
“We position ourselves as one of the top Professional Services Automation (PSA) solution providers in the industry. To maintain this position, we strive to keep on top of changing technology by partnering with the PSA vendors we support,” said Jodi Cicci, President and CEO.
TOP Step Consulting is also actively involved in many Professional Services Industry organizations including TSIA and PS Village to contribute to and learn about the evolution of best practices and business processes. This information provides insight for customers as the company works to introduce change and establish process and solutions for more efficient and productive workforce.
Company History
TOP Step Consulting began in 2007 in response to the need for business consulting within the professional services industry for a SaaS Professional Services Automation (PSA) solution called OpenAir. The company focused on customer empowerment through knowledge transfer and the implementation of best practices within professional services and project-based organizations. It quickly became viewed as the leader related to NetSuite OpenAir. TOP Step expanded to include FinancialForce solutions in 2014 to continue the path of PSA experts and best practices while also diversifying options for customers to consider. The company strives to be the top provider of consulting services for PSA solutions and assisting customers in selecting and deploying the best fit tool.
PSA Focused Solution Offerings
PSA focused solutions such as Business Efficiency Assessments and Deployments are offered by TOP Step.
Business Efficiency Assessments ensure technology is aligned to your business model and therefore the technology is working for you instead of changing how you do business. Deployments follow a proven methodology of customer engagement and business modeling to ensure that data capture and metrics reporting help organizations realize the investment benefits of the PSA tool.
TOP Step also provides Project Management Office Consulting to businesses to help them deliver projects more successfully and to have more predictable project execution and management of their projects.
Clientele
A majority of the company’s clientele are from the technology and media sectors. However, TOP Step aims to assist any business or organization that needs to have better efficiency with its project-based work. “We value each client equally, whether they are a small start-up or established corporation, and they range from media and tech companies or companies needing to improve global operations and business efficiency and productivity,” said Jodi.
Here’s what clients are saying about TOP Step Consulting
“Having a consulting partner like TOP Step Consulting that understands the Professional Services industry, helped us to successfully define business processes, and align them with best practices in FinancialForce PSA. The experience TOP Step brings from having worked across a large customer base, and with complex global organizations in the past is invaluable. The speed and effectiveness in which the initial deployment was completed is proof of that. Ultimately, our success is not just with the software, but with the capability of the partner who helped us implement it. We are very pleased with both TOP Step Consulting and FinancialForce, and we look forward to continuing to work with TOP Step into the future.” – Philip Williams, Senior Director Global Operations, AppDYNAMICS
“The TOP Step Consulting Reporting Workshop was right on the mark and absolutely what we needed. Not only did we solve our reporting challenges, but we also benefited greatly by spending time with the experts who truly understand how to use OpenAir to support the business. TOP Step really gets it. They listened carefully and shared numerous tips and tricks and provided creative ways to solve our unique challenges. TOP Step understood where we were coming from, presenting the information in a very engaging and helpful way – one that we could digest and use into the future. TOP Step Consulting are true professionals and clearly the experts.” – Joel Mischke, Controller, ECS Team
“TOP Step Consulting worked with us in solving our resource management challenges. Our business is cyclical in nature with very high demand periods. It is critical during these periods of time to understand our resource availability and utilization. TOP Step helped us configure our OpenAir system based on our unique business model and the challenges we were facing. We now have the information to manage our resources efficiently and effectively.” – Joshua Keene, Partner, Johnson Lambert & Co. LLP
Improving Resource Coordination for iModules
Business Challenge
iModules implemented NetSuite OpenAir late in 2014. Although they understood the benefits of using a Professional Services Automation system, they quickly realized that they had not initially configured the system that best matched their specific business model. iModules had installed and configured a system with minimum functionality, which led to frustration and low adoption of the system. One of iModules’ primary needs was to improve resource coordination, including the ability to forecast resources and report on resource utilization.
Solution
iModules met TOP Step Consulting during the SuiteWorld conference and were pleased to discover that guidance and expertise were available to help iModules configure NetSuite OpenAir to meet their particular business needs. A decision was quickly made to bring in TOP Step Consulting to conduct a Business Efficiency Assessment. During the two day workshop, iModules and TOP Step Consulting worked through the challenges iModules faced: workflow, roles and responsibilities of individuals within each department with the system, and understanding data and information needs. Once this first critical step was completed, iModules and TOP Step then reviewed the NetSuite OpenAir configuration to determine where the gaps existed. Out of this, TOP Step documented actions and recommendations for configuring the OpenAir system, including functionality changes, reporting adjustments, and staff training needs. Lastly, iModules prioritized the actions, and TOP Step laid out a plan for implementation to ensure adoption and achievement of iModules goals.
The Virtual Company
TOP Step is a virtual company with staff across the United States. A majority of its customers are headquartered in North America or Europe, resulting in a global customer footprint and international expertise.
The Road Ahead
TOP Step will continue to look at building out specialty practice areas for other automation tools beyond NetSuite, OpenAir and FinancialForce based on the market demand.
“Our mission is to enable and empower Professional Services organizations to be profitable, scalable, and efficient through change management, process enhancement, technology deployment, and skill set training with a Customer First approach.”
Knowing the Key Executive
Jodi Cicci, President and CEO – Jodi has been implementing software systems for over 25 years in both commercial and government organizations. After quickly rising through the ranks of software developer, project lead, and project manager, she moved into operational management roles within professional services where she began paving her way toward being an expert in setting strategies for operations efficiencies using process and tools. Jodi had led large organizations in establishing a Project Management Office and compliant processes for companies to obtain CMM certification. She has worked with many global organizations to establish standard business operating practices by deploying PSA tools. In one particular case this involved 23 worldwide offices and accomplished in less than 1 year. Because of the breadth of understanding business operations, technology and cultural differences across the globe Jodi has developed TOP Step into a leading provider of business operations efficiency services.
One of Jodi’s many passions is for her customers to have the knowledge and information they need to be successful. In working with any customer, business understanding and how the business runs is always first – never technology. This passion to ensure her customers have the knowledge they need is also evidenced in her leadership to help establish customer advocacy programs for NetSuite OpenAir and FinancialForce including the user community, user forums, and informative webinars.
Prior to her OpenAir involvement, Jodi held the position of Global Project Management Director for Software AG, Inc. with global responsibility for PS tools and business process efficiency. She worked with both commercial and government customers in her leadership roles in Software AG, Inc. as well as her previous experience with Lockheed Martin.
“We have experience that comes from running PS companies and therefore understand the needs of professional services organizations. We map productivity based on the business model of each individual business.”
