Grant Thornton UK now uses Dayshape, AI-powered resource management software, across its audit & assurance, advisory, and tax service lines.
Adopting consistent resource management processes and software across service lines can be challenging. This case study highlights a successful approach to change management within a top ten professional services firm.
Laura Brierley, Project Implementation Director and Head of Agile Talent, led the centralization project. Laura understood that success depended on achieving service line buy-in for Dayshape and in doing so, being flexible in the firm's change management approach.
Grant Thornton UK recognized the need for one consistent resource management solution across audit, advisory, and tax service lines. However, given the firm's varied use of its legacy solution alongside spreadsheets, it was unclear how best to unify service lines under one solution.
Grant Thornton UK piloted its Dayshape implementation in audit. This gave the firm the opportunity to ease in other service lines by winning hearts and minds and providing adequate training in audit, before implementing Dayshape full firm.
Advisory and tax had only rudimental use of previous resourcing tools, so the firm gave them the option to adapt Dayshape when they were ready. This accomodating approach, plus the positive experience of the audit team, resulted in the remaining service lines requesting Dayshape.
"I think it's a combination of teams seeing the benefit of using Dayshape and then positive word of mouth spreading that led to our advisory and tax service lines experiencing more of a pull rather than a push change management approach."
Grant Thornton UK initially planned to use the Dayshape setup for audit across all lines of service, however quickly realized this wouldn't work.
Highlighting the differences in how various lines of service operate, Laura shared: "In audit, the team know every day what they are doing, and in all the other service lines the work is much more fluid and less predictable."
The firm therefore decided not to use a prescriptive approach in implementing Dayshape across service lines.
Dayshape's flexibility supports this tailored approach, despite significant differences in how service lines operate.
"It's important to challenge the perception that any resource management tool is always an audit resource management tool, Dayshape has proved that it can work for any service line in terms of setup."
Laura added: "Being flexible and not adopting a one-size-fits-all approach has made our full-firm Dayshape implementation a lot easier. It's allowed us to speak to service lines in their language, talk to them about the specific resourcing issues they have, and work to address them with Dayshape."
With more real-time work changes, the firm's advisory and tax service lines highlighted different resourcing issues to that of its audit service line which has more predictable work schedules.
Despite the firm's varied use of Dayshape across service lines, Dayshape has been able to support issues that Grant Thronton UK faces. This ongoing learning helps the firm continuously improve service line support.
Laura shares: "Our knowledge of Dayshape is so much better now in terms of all the different configurations that can be supported to meet the different ways of working across teams. This means we have quite a lot of different setups and we can better advise our service lines when issues arise."
In addition, unlike with the firm's previous legacy solution, they now have a full understanding of Dayshape's product roadmap as well as frequent communications to keep them supported. Laura expressed: "I think it's the partnership with clients that's really critical in terms of keeping that knowledge up to date."
"We wanted a partner; we didn't just want a supplier and with Dayshape we've had a constant drum beat of interaction to reassure us of our decision. It's great to be able to influence the product with every new release, communication, and suggestion–ultimately curating Dayshape to be the best resource management solution out there."
Laura admitted: "The thing we underestimated is that even within the firm there are different approaches to resourcing based on the nature of work and how that work meets clients' needs."
This was particularly noticeable when it came to resourcing permissions and controls in Dayshape.
Grant Thornton UK had varying resourcing approaches within different service lines. However, instead of forcing teams to adhere to one approach, the firm used what they coined, "Flexibility within a framework" to keep these differing approaches intact by easily configuring Dayshape's permissions and controls to suit.
"Dayshape's flexible configuration makes it so easy to adapt the software for different service line approaches and gives teams the reassurance that there will be a suitable configuration that works for them."
Further, not all teams opted for the traditional dedicated resource manager model. After trailing different setups, tax and advisory service lines stated a preference for (and showed they were capable of) continuing to manage resources within the team to remain agile and react to real-time changes in their work. Consequently, such teams have partially dedicated resource managers at a central level with varying levels of control to manage team schedules.
Grant Thornton UK combined its Dayshape implementation with a move to centralize the firm's processes. Due to this, Laura thinks: "The biggest challenge with centralization was aligning ways of working and sharing resources across operating units and locations."
"For managers it was a big adjustment to have to go into Dayshape and put in their requirements and have less say in who is assigned to them."
Given the adjustment for managers, the firm was quick to explain the reasoning behind the new changes.
Laura shares: "We had to spent quite a lot of time with the operations leads and engagement managers in audit to reassure them that the new process of requesting resource through Dayshape ensured that work was fairly allocated."
Other changes included holiday approvals, which were moved to the central resource team to ensure capacity levels could meet demand. Similarly, the firm agreed how much notice team members needed to provide to request holiday, so this was also easier to manage.
"Sometimes you must set the rules for teams to follow. For processes across a large professional services firm, you can't do it on a one-on-one basis because it's too large to do this effectively and efficiently. You strive to treat everybody the same way and having agreed resourcing principles and processes allows for that."
"I think it's twofold. Firstly, be clear about what the challenge is you're trying to solve. Initially we simply wanted all lines of service on one resource management solution but trying to do this with the same approach didn't work. We had to reevaluate and adapt our approach to change management because of this."
"Secondly, accept that not all teams are the same; they work differently, and the way they deliver work to meet client needs can differ too. Don't assume a one-size-fits-all approach; be willing to adapt your approach as you learn more about the system, differences in how teams operate, and consider resource management solutions with configurable setups and strong customer support."
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