“It’s very well suited to how consulting companies work”

B3IT Management is a typical consulting company with approximately 500 employees and six offices in Sweden. The business is divided into more than 20 different companies, but consultants and assignments move across several of those companies. That means that there is a tremendous need for a flexible system for time reporting and resource allocation. Håkan Lindberg, Head of Business Development, was asked how well he thinks Retendo works for B3IT.

How do you use Retendo?

“We’ve had Retendo since 2012 and we use it for time reporting and planning and also monitoring and history. Since we have over 20 different companies, we’ve chosen to treat them as different departments in Retendo in order to make it easy to move information and consultants between the companies. Retendo provides us with exactly the flexibility we need in that respect.”

Why did you choose Retendo?

“We evaluated various systems on the market and Retendo was the one that best met the needs of a consulting company. There were quite a few systems that were better suited to assignment agencies, but that’s not really how we work. Retendo really understands the business process in consulting and has come up with a very well thought-out model that suits how we report, set up and plan assignments.

How does Retendo help you become more efficient?

“Mainly because we have the whole history. We spent a couple of months inputting historical data. That way we can see what we’ve done in the past and thus produce key figures for how long various things have taken and how we’ve worked at different customers’ premises. Retendo provides us with the background information we need and the flexibility to enable us to plan at an overall level.”

What are the main benefits?

“It’s quick and easy to use. Also, it’s a complex system, in a positive sense. It’s easy for users “on the outside” and, at the same time, the system has depth: there’s a lot of information to download for those of us who want to produce reports and analyse and discuss things. That allows our finance administrators to quickly go in and obtain an overview of time spent, make forecasts, see how invoicing will take place and so on.”

What about support and speed?

“It works very well. There is a support feature, but we get personal help if needed. They’ve also helped us with some customised adaptations and reports that allow us to pick out the key figures that we require, for example for monitoring a specific framework agreement.