AI for insights and analytics
The most utilised consultant in the practice has 61 percent realisation because two fixed-fee projects overran by 300 hours. AI analytics reads the time, billing, pipeline and resourcing files, sets utilisation beside realisation, and answers the practice head: who is contributing, what is overrunning, and whether the bench is covered.
These are the questions consulting firms ask. Each one maps to a measure our tools compute from your files. The AI model chooses the measure and explains the result; the arithmetic is done by our code, and every total is checked.
| The question | The measure behind it | What comes back |
|---|---|---|
| Who is busy, and who is actually earning? | Utilisation against realisation | Utilisation and realisation per consultant, and fees earned per available hour, ranked. |
| Which projects are overrunning their plan? | Project margin against plan | Hours and margin against plan by project, with the fixed-fee ones over budget. |
| Is there enough sold work for the bench? | Sold work against the bench | Sold hours by week against available hours by grade, with the gap. |
| Which proposals are we winning and losing? | Proposal win rate | Win rate by count and value, by practice and client type, with the lost proposals listed. |
| Which clients use one practice where they could use three? | Cross-practice share per client | Practices used per client against the norm, with the fee gap. |
| How many weeks of backlog do we hold? | Backlog in weeks | Contracted and unbilled work over the run rate, by practice. |
Every figure below was computed by a tool from the rows and checked before it was shown. The lines sum; the percentages match; each line opens to the rows that make it.
Where is realisation being lost?
Fees written down against standard value total $1.9m this year across 3 practices, mostly on fixed-fee work that overran. Operations practice accounts for $940k, 49% of the write-down.
| Operations practice | $940k | 49% of the total |
| Technology practice | $610k | 32% of the total |
| Strategy practice | $350k | 18% of the total |
| The 3 lines sum to | $1.9m | 0 unexplained |
Which operations projects overran?
3 projects account for $850k of the $940k written down in the Operations practice, 90% of it. All three were fixed fee, and two were scoped by the same partner.
| Northline supply chain redesign | $380k | 300 hours over plan; fixed fee |
| Harrow Group cost programme | $290k | 210 hours over; scope change unbilled |
| Vale Logistics integration | $180k | 140 hours over; fixed fee |
| These 3 are | $850k | 90% of Operations practice |
What changes for next quarter?
Scoping, not effort. The practice head reviews the estimates on the next three fixed-fee proposals, change requests are billed as they arise, and realisation is reported beside utilisation on the monthly sheet.
| Operations practice head | Review scoping on open fixed-fee proposals | This month |
| Project leads | Raise change requests on Harrow and Vale before the next invoice | This week |
| Finance | Report realisation beside utilisation by consultant | Monthly |
Each measure has one formula, one source and one meaning. They are computed per partner and practice and in total, and every one carries an identity that must hold before it is shown.
| Measure | Formula | From | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utilisation against realisation | Chargeable hours ÷ available hours; fees billed ÷ chargeable hours at standard rate, per consultant | Timesheets; billing | The busy and the unprofitable |
| Proposal win rate | Proposals won ÷ proposals decided, by count and value, by practice, source and size band | Proposal log | What to stop bidding on |
| Sold work against the bench | Hours sold by grade and skill, by month, against hours available | Signed work; resource plan | Work that cannot be staffed; people with nothing sold |
| Cross-practice share per client | Practices with fees at the client ÷ practices relevant to clients of its type | Project ledger | Single-practice clients |
| Partner book concentration | Share of each partner's fees from their largest client | Billing by partner | Books that depend on one buyer |
| Repeat business rate | Fees from clients who bought in the prior year ÷ total fees; clients not returning, by prior fees | Billing | Whether delivery leads to the next project |
| Project margin against plan | Actual margin − margin at sale, per project, with overrun hours by grade | Project ledger; timesheets | Estimating and scope problems, by practice |
| Backlog in weeks | Signed undelivered fees ÷ average weekly revenue, by practice | Signed work; billing | Who needs to sell and who needs to hire |
| Client fee concentration | Top ten clients' share; largest client share | Billing | Dependence at firm level |
| Day rate realised | Fees ÷ days delivered, against rate card, by grade and client | Billing; timesheets | Discounting that did not get decided |
Each measure is worked through, with the export it comes from and what to drop, in Commercial KPIs for consulting and professional services firms.
From your question and the measures declared for consulting and advisory, the model picks the one that answers it, and the period and comparison the question implies.
Deterministic code reads the rows, computes the measure, and checks the identities below. The same question on the same data gives the same answer, every time.
The AI model writes the sentence around the result, naming the partner or account behind it. It states no figure that is not in the result, and every figure links to its rows.
| Time | Available hours = chargeable + non-chargeable + leave |
| Realisation | Chargeable hours at standard = billed + written off + work in progress |
| Proposals | Proposals = won + lost + withdrawn + open |
| Backlog | Opening backlog + signed − delivered = closing backlog |
The exports consulting firms already produce. Column names are mapped once and the mapping is reused. A file is the way in; scheduled delivery and connections to your systems come with the plan, and every source is listed here.
An answer is a list with an owner and a cadence, or it is a chart nobody works.
| Measures | Owner | Cadence |
|---|---|---|
| Sold work against the bench; backlog | Practice heads; resourcing lead | Weekly |
| Utilisation against realisation; project margin | Practice heads; project leads | Monthly |
| Win rate by source; repeat business | Managing director; practice heads | Quarterly |
| Cross-practice share; concentration; day rate realised | Managing director; finance | Quarterly |
Because utilisation rewards hours worked and realisation rewards hours paid for, and only the product of the two says what a consultant contributed. Fees earned per available hour, as a share of standard rate, ranks the practice by contribution, and the tool shows all three so nobody argues about which one to believe.
Yes, when time is loaded weekly. Hours against plan by project are computed as the time comes in, and a fixed-fee project running ahead of its phased budget is flagged with the hours and the margin at stake. The project lead decides whether to raise a change request; the flag arrives while that is still possible.
Time by consultant and project, billing by project, the plan or budget by project, and the pipeline export for proposals and sold work. Grades and available hours turn sold work into bench coverage. Consultant names can be replaced with identifiers before upload.
Fees billed by project sum to the billing file's total, and every write-down is a line with a project behind it. If the practice's own realisation figure differs from the tool's, the difference is a list of matters, not a mystery.
Utilisation · Realisation · Win rate · Capacity plan · Concentration · Write-off
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Bring a few thousand rows. The data map opens next, every column mapped once, and the first question is answered in minutes. Free, in your browser, no account.