Data as a Growth Driver – What Does It Mean for Professional Services?

How data is a growth driver for scaling globally

November 18th at Staria's Slush Side Event, Oskari Gestrin, COO from Castrén & Snellman gave a keynote speech how data is a growth driver for scaling globally:

They say “data is the new oil”. I don’t really like that idiom as it’s an oversimplification. Oil has a clear market value, but data’s value depends on many things: The quality, the tools it is used with, how it is used and how it (and the insights extracted from it) is communicated.

Traditionally, data in professional services was used mainly for low-impact internal purposes, like finance advising partners on business improvements. Over the past decade, our usage has shifted to high-impact internal areas such as data-driven pricing and operational performance optimization.

But with AI and other advanced data tools, we are finally moving towards high impact external use – which is where customer value is created.

AI enters professional services

Before my current career, I worked as an accountant in the early 00’s. It was when finance management apps, electronic invoicing and all these other pieces of software were becoming available. At the time, some called it “the end of accounting”, but it was actually the beginning. All the boring stuL got carved out of the role, and we all became controllers and focused on delivering real value for the clients.

And if you now look at all the headlines regarding AI, it’s exactly the same.

But AI won't only transform businesses, it will also transform the business model. In the legal industry, billing by the hour has long been the dominant approach. However, as AI increasingly contributes to service delivery, pricing models will need to evolve to reflect this new reality – one where technology plays an ever-greater role in creating value.

The operative and finance leadership need to collaborate, examine the data comprehensively, and develop business models that acknowledge technology's contribution to service provision. This shift presents an opportunity to create models that deliver greater value to both the business and the client.

The good thing is that data enables creativity and there’s no need to lock yourself in a model that doesn’t suit you.

We professionals love to talk about how we do things with data, but for clients, what matters is, that they get the results they want.