Workday Video Recap: The Future of Professional and Business Services

Professional business services are at a turning point—as technology evolves and client demands become more dynamic, companies must adapt to meet new expectations. Efficiency and speed remain top priorities while demand for hyper-personalised services and delivery models requires higher customisation at the same time.

Achieving both requires a rethink from leaders about how to operate efficiently, optimise resources, and engage customers at every stage. In this video, experts break down professional business services trends they’re seeing at their organisations and the industry at large.

1. Skills as the New Metric for Workforce Efficiency

Workforce management is traditionally focused on job roles and responsibilities—structured, rigid, but easy to monitor from a performance perspective. That paradigm is shifting, as organisations turn to skills as the new top metric for measuring workforce effectiveness.

More than half (55%) of companies have already adopted a more skills-based approach to workforce management, according to the Workday Global Skills Report, and another 23% plan to do so in the next year.

“It’s not just a one-dimensional trend,” noted James Cramer, GM of Professional Business Services at Workday. “It cuts across the entire business. It’s how you sell, it’s how you plan, it’s how you forecast, and it’s how you assign labor.”

Instead of simply matching job titles to tasks, PBS firms are increasingly looking at specific skills to meet client demands more accurately and efficiently. This shift requires a fundamental change in how talent is managed and deployed. It’s about understanding the capabilities within the workforce and dynamically aligning them with project needs.

2. Evolving Business Models Redefine Revenue

The PBS industry has historically been defined by classic time-and-expense models. While  these remain relevant in some cases, a new wave of business models—fixed-fee engagements and subscription-based services, for example—are emerging. Sometimes different models coexist within the same client deal.

It’s a trend that reflects a broader shift toward flexibility and customer-centric solutions. But managing a hybrid approach demands greater process sophistication and the right tech stack to support it.

“Extensibility is key,” said Kyle Wilkinson, Workday Professional Business Services Advisor. “Doing more with what you have, and being able to extend and customise applications to support unique use cases, reduce cost, retire applications, and save time.”

This requires a strong technology core—a singular platform where companies can standardise to create value while centrally tracking customised service delivery paths. Guido Hartmann, Principal of Project Management at Diconium, shared how centralising systems on Workday has enabled them to pursue this path.

“Technology needs to leverage your next growth paths,” said Hartmann. “For us, the next growth path is having a global delivery perspective. We want to source people from our entities all over the world and form the next work team for each client’s needs.”

3. Generative AI Transforms Workforce Management

Generative AI is the most frequently deployed AI solution in modern organisations, according to Gartner, and one that’s transforming how teams work and interact across professional business services industries.

“GenAI is a huge game changer for our clients,” said Mark Anderson, Global Professional Business Services Sector Leader at PwC. “We’re going to see it changing the way staff charge time, engage in delivering advice, and work across different parts of their team.”

GenAI drives huge productivity gains through automation, a facet of AI that’s more sophisticated than ever. AI agents now handle end-to-end processes—for example, generating and itemising expense reports—while requiring little to no human intervention. Employees are then freed up to focus on higher-order tasks and innovation that drives growth.

“Organisations are looking to use AI to give time back to employees to focus on more strategic work,” noted Kyle Wilkinson. “Things like anomaly detection, predictive analytics, automation—it all gives time back to employees who can then focus on client activities.”

4. Efficiency Opportunities in Core Operations

Innovation trends might be stealing the headlines when it comes to professional services—but there’s also untapped potential lying in plain sight. According to Workday’s James Cramer, there are opportunities to optimise core business operations in meaningful ways.

“There are still tremendous opportunities for efficiency in core business and services operations—time collection, billing, and basic project management. We’ll continue to make large, elevated investments in those areas.”

These investments are innovative in their own right—Workday recently introduced a new category of software called services Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) that fills the gap between an opportunity in CRM and the project ledger. It’s purpose-built for quoting services.

Workday is also building a resources scheduling tool to match which takes total resource demand and matches it to the availability of resources, helping organisations, as Cramer noted, “put the right people, on the right project, at the right margin.”

5. Keeping Your Business a Step Ahead

The professional business services industry landscape is still evolving. As these trends demonstrate, staying ahead means balancing demand for innovation with operational efficiency and smart, data-backed decision-making. 

From adopting a skills-based approach to workforce management to rethinking revenue models and leveraging generative AI, companies need to make strategic changes to keep up.

The real challenge isn’t just implementing new tools—it’s making them work together to support organisational goals and client needs. PBS firms that get this right will position themselves to meet client demands head-on while driving sustainable growth and efficiency in the future.

Find out how Workday is using AI to help professional and business services organisations build for the future and move forward efficiently, here.