How Splash! can help your consultancy maximise its profitability

Splash! was built to drive the profitability of consultancies with tools that maximise profit realisation, optimise deal pricing and streamline operations through automation.

Riverflex CEO Victor Hoong and Tech Lead Hassaan Zaidi explain how the automated digital platform enables smart and sustainable scaling of a business and how the need for such a platform came to be.

Why Splash? And how does it align to the Riverflex vision?

Victor:

Having a platform of now 1300 independent consultants, we’ve grown very quickly over four years, entered 4 different markets and worked with over 20 top clients. We operate with teams of independents to deliver consulting work. Our model and our way of combining specialist talent with our own team, and methods and standards, deliver really great outcomes for clients. In order to keep track of the unique skills and talents that were brought into Riverflex, the use of technology was needed.

The Splash! portal was created not only as a way to signal to the market that independents could come and join, but to manage all the contracting and onboarding information. Tedious paperwork tasks are automated by the portal. Having contract administration compliance and documents all in one place also cuts down on the amount of time spent on onboarding. Aligning to the vision of creating an ecosystem of specialised boutique consultancies at Riverflex, Splash! comes in by helping to make this process more efficient.

What problems does it solve?

Victor:

When looking around in the market, other solutions seemed too complex and didn’t focus on running a really profitable consulting service Our team learned from experience that it is not possible to scale a consulting business on spreadsheets. This led to the idea of Splash! and what potential problems it could solve for boutique consultancies. 

Hassaan:

We noticed that keeping the data on spreadsheets makes it very hard to identify what you can do to improve your business. Having a platform that combines all the information and data that is linked to your business, projects and clients, which you can then share with other team members, brings a lot of value to one’s business. The goal was also to try and find a tool that could operate efficiently on a small company. By codifying the spreadsheets we worked with at Riverflex, this was made possible. Now that we have all of our information on Splash!, we can build on top of it. We are thinking about how we can connect more people and more businesses together to Splash! and how we can enable it for other consultants to use that information to their advantage. 

How will Splash! actually help boost a consultancy’s profitability? The dashboard will give clear metrics of what will happen in the future of a given company and will counteract any danger. The platform will highlight where profitability is beneficial and where it could be harmful, as well as potential risks that may arise in a project, so you can shift your focus to them.

What makes you really excited about it?

Hassaan:

The idea of collectives and how you can manage them on Splash! is a very different idea than how traditional consultancy businesses are being operated. We want to build this concept of creating and managing your own collectives and then being able to share those with your client or other consultancies. He further explains that through Splash!, Riverflex is moving towards creating an ecosystem of different consultancy businesses working together which results in very useful relationships and is what he is most looking forward to with the launch.

Furthermore, along with the information that Splash! helps to compile, Riverlex is hoping to supply new technology to supplement the data. For example, machine learning, which can potentially take the profitability of your business. , of course, for that, we need more engagement in the product. 

How do you see it change the market?

Victor:

When developing Splash!, we kept going back to the Riverflex vision of doing consulting differently. There has already been a rise of independent and boutique consultancies in the market and they are successful because they’re niche and specialised in what they do. A platform like Splash! can enable many more of these consultancies to thrive. In addition, it will allow many more joined-up ecosystem of boutique consultancies that clients can go to and engage in, rather than just going to the usual suspects. Furthermore, if every consultancy now starts to create their collectives, we’ll see a set of network consultancies like Riverflex working together and collaborating to deliver to clients as well. This in return would change the face of consulting as an industry.

You just launched a beta, what can users expect? What is the longer-term vision, how do you see it evolve over time?

Victor:

Users can expect all the basics from the beta. This means they will be able to log into Splash! and get updates on their latest projects. They will see which ones they are running and understand where they are at in the process as it explains whether you are proposing, contracting or running that project. Moreover, the health of the projects can also be seen as well as along with regular forecasts every couple of weeks. Users can expect a stable platform that is quick and easy with no distracting data or information. Additionally, as a consultancy, you can expect a management solution that enables you to manage profitability, project operations, automate your contracting as well as your relationships with independents. This will help users build a collective of independents that will support you in the future.

For the longer-term vision, Riverflex hopes to enable more workflows between the different people that are involved in a consulting engagement. By managing the relationship of not just the consultancy, but also of the consultant and the client, a richer relationship will be seen that over a longer period of time, will have more value.

Hassaan:

At this point, we cannot imagine running Riverflex operations without Splash!, it just links back to the same idea that if more people are getting on board, then the beta program is collecting feedback and getting more ideas from them and how they want to use the system. They will use this feedback to understand users’ problems and try to solve them in the product so that it can also solve problems for other consultancy business models.

Additionally, Application Programming Interfaces are another big thing they are looking into in their long-term vision. Integrations to accounting, timesheet balls and other project management tools is something that’s definitely on our roadmap for the coming year as well.

This modern, automated digital platform that aims to be a comprehensive financial project, contracting, and network management solution will continue to develop over the coming months and could revolutionise boutique consultancies. By driving profitability, digitising business processes and managing resources pool of permanent and freelance resources, Splash! will benefit any consultancy looking for an automated solution. 

Learn more about Splash!

To gain access to what Splash! can offer, Riverflex is offering an exclusive beta trial that will let users test this network management solution.

To sign up for the beta trial and to get an exclusive look into Splash!, check out our Splash! webpage.

For more information or specific questions, feel free to contact Victor Hoong (victor@localhost) or Hassaan Zaidi (hassaan.zaidi@localhost)

Contributors to this article

Victor Hoong is the Founder and Managing Director of Riverflex. He has a background in consulting for the past twenty years with a focus on Customer and Digital Transformation and has served companies such as Ahold Delhaize, adidas, IKEA and PVH(Tommy Hilfiger/Calvin Klein).

Hassaan Zaidi is the Technical Lead at Riverflex, and has been building and improving the Riverflex platform to empower independent personnel and organisations to harness the true power of open talent ecosystem using technology. He has hands-on knowledge and experience building large-scale web and mobile applications as well as building and leading technical teams.