We recently conducted an important Business Systems review of professional
services businesses in partnership with the Association of Consulting
Architects Australia. This review was conducted to assess the use and
effectiveness of the various business systems across the Architecture,
Engineering and Consultants industry.

There are a myriad of Business Management Systems available to businesses
and the industry to manage your finances, projects, clients and documents.
We have collated the results to review the effectiveness of business systems
across accounting, time and invoicing, project control, resource management,
client relationship management (CRM), project information and contract
administration.

It is interesting to analyse which systems are the most effectively used in
running AEC businesses. Our results show:

• Only 2 accounting systems are considered effective or very effective – Xero
  and one other
• The level of effectiveness of project control systems is very low
• Union Square is considered the most effective project control system
  (although it is not used extensively)
• 44% of our respondents did not have a resource management system. Of
  those that do, the level of effectiveness is very low
• Less than one in five businesses have a system specifically designed to
  manage resources
• 28% of firms with more than 5 people do not have a resource management
  system in place
• 60% of businesses do not have a system for managing customer
  relationships
• More than 40% of businesses do not have a formal document
  management system
• The most common platform for managing contract administration is still
  MS Office, Word, Excel
• There are no systems across project control, resource management, CRM
  and document management that are consistently rated “very effective” by
  our respondents.

If you are interested in purchasing the full set of results for $145, please contact Callum Bruce, Head of Business Systems, at cbruce@m4d.com.au. Alternatively, contact Callum on 03 9645 8834 for a free phone consultation.