FinancialForce, a PSA provider that works closely with Salesforce.com, has launched a new application that links business intelligence (BI) to the business management system. It's the latest example of blurred lines between PSA (professional services automation) and BI software.
The new offering, called FinancialForce Wave for Professional Services Automation (PSA), "allows PSA users to gain business intelligence across the entire organization from any device,"
FinancialForce claims to be the fastest-growing provider of cloud-based PSA. While companies like Autotask and ConnectWise grew up serving MSPs and IT services providers, FinancialForce has had a broader focus -- serving a range of partners and customers from multiple verticals.
But poke around, and you'll find plenty of IT consulting firms -- including many mid-market specialists -- running their businesses on Salesforce.com and FinancialForce.
No doubt, the lines between PSA and BI have been blurring. Atera, for instance, offers an integrated PSA-RMM-BI platform. And companies like BrightGauge and MSPCFO offers BI tools that integrate with PSA offerings.
For their part, Autotask and ConnectWise have been building more and more BI-oriented capabilities into their platforms, particularly to help IT service providers with reporting.
