Kantata gave a momentum update for 2023 that was a bit light on detail. In its previous update at the start of the year, it celebrated 150 new customers in 2022. In this update, the company did not reveal any numbers, instead listing some of its new customers, including Black Diamond Advisory, Eliassen Group, Ready Set Rocket and West Cary Group. According to LinkedIn, Eliassen Group is the largest, with over 1200 employees. They also represent the breadth that the two Kantata products can offer regarding industry cover from technology consultancy to marketing services firms.
However, Enterprise Times recently spoke to Michael Speranza, CEO of Kantata, and he revealed that the firm has added over 400 customers in the last two years, which might infer that the growth rate has increased.
Michael Speranza, CEO of Kantata, commented, “The universal truth among all professional services firms is that how they engage their resources is core to their success. By leveraging Kantata, our customers become part of the largest professional services community while gaining access to the information and tools they need to secure new business, ensure optimal resource availability, and achieve project excellence. This synergy propels growth, optimizes financials, and delights clients and team members.”
Kantata did not reveal any other financial or operational metrics within this release. While private companies rarely publish revenue numbers, Kantata seems particularly reticent with this announcement. It focuses more on how its solutions can help professional services organisations.
Two offerings, one Professional Services Suite
Kantata is the brand behind two solutions within its Professional Services Cloud portfolio, Kantata OX and Kantata SX. What isn’t clear from the announcement is which solution each new customer selected. This is an interesting tactic by Kantata as it prefers to blur the lines between its solutions under the umbrella of the Professional Services Cloud.
The strategy is that Kantata offers a choice of solutions that will fit most professional services organisations, whether a large multinational or a small marketing agency. Its new customers come from various sectors, including advertising and creative agencies, IT consulting businesses, embedded services organizations (ESOs), and management consultancies.
The Professional Services Cloud will, in time, have functionality that works with both solutions, bringing a degree of efficiency to its development roadmap, and there is certainly knowledge sharing across the teams with Kantata SX expertise, helping to improve the integration for Kantata OX to Salesforce.
Existing customers such as Esri and Hakkoda have seen improvements in forecasting and planning. Kevin Ochs, Professional Services Business Management Director at Esri, stated, “The real game changer of Kantata is the windshield view of our plans. Any accounting system will tell you where you’ve been, but Kantata gives us an accurate, up-to-date, living and breathing plan.
“Kantata shows us our future demand — if we expect to be short or over-staffed we can turn some dials to hire and proactively make decisions that will influence the future.”
Corey Ariss, VP of Operations & Technology, Hakkoda, explained, “The thing that I fell in love with the most was the resource planning functionality. Being able to visually see where people were staffed, what percentage are staffed, and where we can actually allocate them further, that was the primary driver for choosing Kantata.
Meeting the growing market demand
Kantata highlights Forrester’s research that indicates a growing need for modern, innovative professional services solutions. Key highlights from the report, published nearly a year ago, indicated that:
- 90% agreed that vertical SaaS for professional services drives material benefits for their organization. 73% of those not using vertical SaaS solutions believe their organization would greatly benefit from vertical SaaS for professional services
- 64% said they planned to increase their budget for vertical SaaS for PS
The PSA market is huge. Reportlinker.com noted that the “professional services automation market is expected to grow from $10.34 billion in 2022 to $11.45 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.8%.”
(NB: This report refers to Kimble Applications and Mavenlink rather than their now combined entity Kantata.)
Kantata believes that its Professional Services Cloud addresses the needs of organisations by improving productivity, optimizing resource allocation, and enhancing forecasting accuracy. However, Speranza’s focus is deeper than that, as these are table stakes for PSA.
His vision for Kantata is for it to deliver to clients the employee and client success that will enable them to succeed. The capabilities of Kantata will help drive the core of business success, fostering growth, efficient financials, contented clients, and thriving team members.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This is a positive update from Kantata, though one that lacks substance. The company has won significant deals, notably Deloitte Central Europe, over the last year. With the investment and consolidation (BigTime Software, Certinia, Dayshape, Deltek, and Planview) in this market over the last couple of years, Kantata, as one of the leading companies, is one to watch.
Kantata will also be present at Dreamforce in three weeks, where it is a Navigator sponsor. Though it does not seem to be hosting any sessions.
