The gist

Conscious Minds , a creative content studio, implemented Parallax to get real-time information and forecasts that could help the studio maintain its independence and operate more strategically and profitably.

The challenge

Conscious Minds is decidedly independent. The content studio believes scoping deals on a project basis versus retainers helps it maintain its independence and disrupt the inefficient ways of the creative industry. However, this project-based approach made it difficult for Conscious Minds to plan projects effectively and forecast critical business metrics, like utilization, revenue, and margins.

“It’s challenging to plan when running a time-based services business. Forecasting utilization and margin is also hard. We’ve always wanted to stay independent and away from retainer-based work. But in doing so, we found ourselves losing our freedom, handcuffed by a lack of planning tools,” said Cam DeArmond, CEO and managing partner of Conscious Minds.

Conscious Minds needed a strategic planning platform that integrated with its sales pipeline to operate smarter and track and meet business targets.

The solution

When Conscious Minds learned about Parallax, it was a welcome relief. Not only could Parallax offer a solution for the content studio’s project planning and resource management, but it was an intuitive product. The other professional services automation (PSA) tools Conscious Minds had evaluated were too clunky and complex for a creative studio that valued ease of use and simplicity.

Conscious Minds now uses Parallax as a critical component of its operations to:

• Determine which resources it needs to hire based on the capacity of its current resources and the resource needs of the deals predicted to close in the sales pipeline
• Allocate resources effectively and proactively across projects, accounting for target metrics like utilization
• Forecast, track, and measure key business metrics, including utilization, margin, and revenue
• Inform growth planning and forecast how the studio is performing against growth targets

What’s next for Conscious Minds?

Conscious Minds has big growth plans on the horizon. The creative content studio will use Parallax to plan for and support this growth, using it as the fulcrum to all of the company’s tools and systems.