About Billennium
Founded in 2003, Billennium is a global technology consulting and outsourcing services company that provides high-quality IT solutions for enterprises in various industries.
After years of sustainable growth, Billennium has a global presence with 12 offices worldwide. Its 1500+ IT experts offer 24/7/365 support to enterprises anytime and anywhere. They provide them with a wide range of skills and services, including Staff Augmentation, Managed Services, and Technology Solutions. As a result, Billennium has created a highly flexible and efficient cooperation model to meet the needs of all customers, regardless of industry.
- Industry: IT Services
- Size: ~1500 employees
- Use cases: Profitability Tracking and Forecasting, Resource Planning, Resource Management, Reporting
Overview
When Billennium first decided to look for a comprehensive tool, it was already a large business. Still, with that size came complicated processes handled in oversimplified tools – and they were about to reach their limits.
By the time the company reached 1500 employees, it had become apparent that the tools offering basic resource management and time tracking only covered a fraction of the necessary processes. Without finances, forecasts, or skill management, the managers were limited from expanding their skills, optimizing their projects, and generating additional profits for the company.
As long as the two tools weren’t connected, we had to live with unintegrated data. We were looking to strengthen our financial perspective, which we only obtained by implementing BigTime.Łukasz Sawicki vel Sawczenko Head of Performance Management, Billennium
Still, Billennium’s Directors, Łukasz Sawicki vel Sawczenko, Head of Performance Management, and Piotr Kawęcki, Head of Business Delivery, refused to bulge and adapt their processes to the unsustainable tool. Instead, they decided to look for solutions tailored to the needs of IT services companies, using the experiences of dozens of similar companies enclosed in the tool, and tailor their processes accordingly.
Having found BigTime, they didn’t need to look any further. Instead, they decided to use their skills to help their organization embrace BigTime’s features in a record-breaking time – all with over 1500 people on board.
Using BigTime’s implementation process, Billennium trained all its employees and reshaped its processes in three months, achieving complete data transparency. By doing so, it unlocked advanced calculations, utilization management, financial forecasts, and more, giving its managers all the tools they needed to boost profitability and productivity in a competitive environment, along with the added value of expanded planning and control horizons.
What Did Billennium Need to Bridge The Gaps?
With only basic resource management and time tracking, Billennium’s data could not be used to drive any improvement or optimization. For a company of this size, this posed a significant risk.
With no overview of utilization, future allocations, and costs calculated in Excel, Billennium risked facing an excessive employee bench and declining productivity statistics, which could ultimately impact the company’s overall performance.
Due to a limited tool scope, Billennium could only analyze information on project execution and past budgets—provided they were first calculated in Excel spreadsheets. However, once the data was available, the processes could not be optimized or impacted. In short, existing tools limited Billennium’s potential, highlighting the need for solutions supporting future growth and operational improvements.
The Challenge: 1 Implementation, 1500 People – and Just 3 Months
The expansion of processes required significant adjustments and broad knowledge. Still, when paired with over 1500 employees, the implementation was an even greater challenge.
Fortunately, when a scalable, battle-tested process provided by BigTime met with Billennium’s managers’ experience and determination, the implementation became not only possible and smooth but also exceptionally quick.
Preparations
Before the implementation began, Billennium and BigTime took time to prepare plans to guarantee its success.
First, the responsibilities were divided among two product champions:
- Łukasz Sawicki was responsible for managing the data.
- Piotr Kawęcki, who was responsible for business operation processes.
Based on this division, the conjoined forces of BigTime and Billennium created a list of tasks containing all the activities required for the implementation to begin. Those actions were then monitored in a designated tracker, allowing all parties to oversee and complete the process on time.
Live Tests
With all the necessary data and processes rearranged, Billennium was ready for the first test of BigTime’s capabilities. Its aim was simple: to determine whether or not the two environments can match and integrate properly. In Piotr’s eyes, there was only one way to do that: to use the experience of similar companies in the tool to reshape and strengthen Billennium’s processes.
This pioneering decision significantly simplified Billennium’s processes, making them less time-consuming and more accurate than ever before. Simultaneously, the managers’ learning curve was minimized, helping them quickly familiarize themselves with and take over the key processes. Thanks to such an innovative approach, the test was a complete success powered by both teams’ dedication and comprehensive knowledge.
Go Live
With promising initial test results, Billennium was up for yet another challenge: data transfer—not just for one team but for the entire business of 1500 people and all their projects.
Both Billennium and BigTime accomplished that goal, too. The former provided advanced analytics, and the latter designed an implementation framework. The data were quickly imported from old documents and tools to the new ecosystem, and soon, the results of the transfer were seen in Billennium’s financial statements.
Feedback Loop
Like any other highly advanced IT services company, Billennium’s journey did not involve transferring the last megabyte of data. Instead, the company adopted a more proactive and future-proof approach and created an organization-wide feedback loop, helping the business better communicate and address new challenges with BigTime.
As a result of this process, Billennium was able to monitor the changing needs of its departments and, with help from BigTime’s team, expand the capabilities of both the tool and Billennium’s team, facilitating further growth.
Integrations: Data-Driven Processes Taken One Step Further
As Billennium offered customers dozens of different services with different billing models worldwide, it encountered some unique challenges requiring a more personalized approach – and BigTime provided it once again.
Taking into account the specific problems of large businesses, BigTime has offered a variety of integrations that could later be used to expand the system with both bespoke solutions and other systems. Billennium utilized this capability to use the tool’s data for its own BI solutions, reflecting its operations’ characteristics. As a result, it gained a whole new overview of various projects, locations, statistics, and more, further boosting its operational advancement.
Results
With a complete overview of people, plans, and finances, Billennium finally had all the data it needed to improve its management processes on every level.
When combined with adjustable roles in the system, such an efficient information flow contributed to managers’ decisions. With the right data, they effectively became the CEOs of their projects, actively improving their performance throughout their duration and generating additional income.
The changes on the project level were then paired up with company-wide improvements. Active utilization management, instant skill matching, and real-time analysis of every project and allocation helped Billennium improve its key performance indicators, boost profitability, and raise its profit margin.
Thanks to BigTime, Billennium gets to enjoy benefits such as:
- Record-breaking utilization boosted by over 14%. Billennium improved its planning, making the most of its employees’ time and generating profits from every working hour. It also reduced employee benches and cut costs, further contributing to better financial performance.
- Improved financial performance. According to both Łukasz and Piotr, the changes in essential processes and project management resulted in tangible benefits, including optimized operations and, consequently,
- Optimized KPIs in the projects. Having the data to act on, project managers took control of their operations and maximized their performance, providing the company with additional income and themselves – with attractive bonuses.
