News

December 16, 2011 — When they crossed the sixtieth client mark at the beginning of 2011, they were named one of the “Top Twelve” service organizations that distinguished themselves as the “Best of the Best” by SPI Research. It was the second straight year they had been included in this elite group. But now, only ten months later, they are serving more than one hundred clients, and bringing onboard two new Senior Business Consultants, Robin Garrison and Stephanie Picardi. Not bad for a company that has only been in operation for four years. Read the full press release.

July 18, 2011 – Progress Software Corporation is a global enterprise software company that enables organizations to achieve higher levels of business performance by improving operational responsiveness. Operational responsiveness is the ability of business processes and systems to respond to changing business conditions and customer interactions as they occur. TOP Step Consulting partnered with Progress to implement the baseline NetSuite OpenAir system, then continued on to 3 additional projects to align standards and processes globally, including:

• Expansion of the initial Professional Services Automation project to align global processes and reflect these in the OpenAir system. The development of a consistent standard would enable the visibility needed to manage the growing operations. Challenging issues included resource management, revenue recognition, organizational responsibilities, and increasing system adoption.
• Implementation of a global Project Management Office (PMO) methodology. This focused not only on consistent usage of PM methods, tools and templates, and knowledge management, but also on the processes for setting up, tracking and monitoring projects within the new PSA system.
• Implementation of a Service Definition Framework (SDF) to define service offerings enabling consistency, repeatability, and high-quality delivery. A framework was needed for defining and developing a service offering. The core offering that was developed would later be a part of the Progress RPM™ solution.

Read the full Case Study

TOP Step Consulting adds new employee in response to demand for business operations and automation services

June 20, 2011 – For a fourth consecutive year, TOP Step Consulting has seen an increase in demand for its services by assisting these companies with Professional Services Automation services and expertise in improving business operations. TOP Step helps other project based service providers streamline their business operations, better manage their projects, resources, and financial health of their organization. With the addition of Glenn Gargan, the TOP Step Consulting practice will improve their capacity to meet this demand. Read more…

TOP Step Consulting was named one of the “Top Twelve” service organizations that distinguished themselves as the “Best of the Best”. This is the second consecutive year that TOP Step Consulting has been recognized in this elite group by SPI Research. Read the full press release.

TOP Step Consulting Announces A New Service To Gain Insight Into Business Operations Quickly And More Efficiently

11.02.2010– TOP Step Consulting LLC announced the release of the Reporting Foundation Package for OpenAir that will provide a quicker more effective approach to creating critical and commonly used OpenAir reports for Professional Services business operations.

TOP Step Consulting provides services to global and industry leading businesses who run their project based business using OpenAir. Their extensive experience has led to the accumulation of a knowledge library for critical and commonly used OpenAir reports which provide information to manage and improve business operations.

The Reporting Foundation Package for OpenAir provides the accumulated knowledge and experience to customers by providing customized setup and user guides for each report within the report library. TOP Step Consulting delivers the report library together with a day of consulting to review the reports, answer questions, and customize the guidebooks to align with the unique operational needs of the business. The library of reports includes Financial Reports, Project Delivery Reports and Resource Management Reports.

By implementing the Report Foundation Package for OpenAir clients can more quickly create and begin using reports and dashboards to get insight into their critical business operations to better manage their businesses. “We are very excited to be providing this new service to our customers. With our new service offering we are now able to offer clients the benefit of our accumulated knowledge to more quickly gain the return on investment of automating their business operations with tools like OpenAir.” says Jodi Cicci, President and CEO of TOP Step. “It’s all about providing greater value to our customers. We are continually reviewing the services we provide to our customers and ways we can pass our experience onto our clients to help them be more successful.”

See online news release here

June 11, 2010 marks the 3 year anniversary for TOP Step Consulting.   “It has been a very exciting 3 years for us.  We have met our targets for growth each year, and have grown our customer base significantly” said Jodi Cicci, CEO and Founder of TOP Step.  “With this new growth we have also expanded our team by bringing in 2 very talented consultants as well as Marketing and Administrative assistance.   This has allowed us to expand our services to be more comprehensive including services for implementing project management offices and now beginning to look at how we are packaging and marketing our services to be of greatest value to our customers”.

South Riding, Virginia, May 26, 2010 (PitchEngine) – From the viewpoint of TOP Step Consulting, the services industry is continuing to show signs of economic improvement.  With the addition of Paul Rees to the TOP Step Consulting team, they have doubled their staff over the last year.   TOP Step Consulting continues to see more and more services based businesses investing in improvements to manage profitability.   TOP Step Consulting is a leading expert in professional services automation with extensive experience in PS business operations specializing in complex national and global operations. They provide advisory, implementation and outsourced administration services to world class professional services organizations of all sizes.  Their goal is to streamline operations, helping clients achieve their profitability goals so they can focus on growing their business.

“We are very excited to have Paul Rees as a part of our team” says Jodi Cicci, CEO of TOP Step Consulting.   “Paul brings with him practical professional services operations experience critical to assessing how PSA tools can be used to meet the specific needs of professional services organizations.  This is critical to the value and level of service we bring to our customers”.

Paul Rees has over nine years of experience in professional services. His experience spans several areas including operations management, financial forecasting, resource management, recruitment and retention, and account management.
Prior to joining TOP Step Consulting, Paul was the Director of Operations at SmartDog Services, an Oracle software services firm based in Austin Texas. While there, he was responsible for all G&A activities and system administration for OpenAir and Salesforce.com.

“I am excited about the opportunity with TOP Step Consulting” says Paul Rees.  “I’ve been in the trenches, and I understand the challenges faced in professional services. I’m looking forward taking what I’ve learned to help others.”

South Riding, VA (PRWEB) March 1, 2010  According to SPI Research’s “The 2010 Professional Services Maturity Model Benchmark” report out of 225 participating organizations, eleven firms significantly outperformed the benchmark average by excelling in all five service performance dimensions – Vision, Finance and Operations, Human Capital Alignment and Client Relationships. The benchmark covers six professional service segments: hardware and networking, software and software as a service, systems integration, managed services, and management consulting.

Jodi Cicci, President and CEO of TOP Step Consulting LLC is thrilled to be listed in the top 11 performers.  Read the full story…

From the viewpoint of TOP Step Consulting, the services industry is showing signs of economic improvement. The expansion of TOP Step Consulting team, with the addition of Casey Conner, is a positive indicator of this growth.  More and more services based businesses are investing in improvements to manage growth and profitability.  TOP Step Consulting is a leading expert in professional services automation with extensive experience in PS business operations specializing in complex global operations.  They provide advisory, implementation and outsourced administration services to world class professional services organizations of all sizes. Their goal is to streamline operations, helping clients achieve their profitability goals so they can focus on growing their business.

“We are very excited to have Casey Conner as a part of our team” says Jodi Cicci, CEO of TOP Step Consulting. “Casey brings with him business consulting skills and background that are important to the quality brand of TOP Step Consulting”.

Casey Conner has nearly 15 years of professional services experience. He holds a Masters in Finance and has developed an expertise in technology strategy development and deployment. Casey has a proven track record of successful IT, project, change, and consulting practice management experience with businesses ranging from Big 4 firms to boutique operations.

“I am excited about the opportunity with TOP Step Consulting” says Casey Conner. “This is both an exciting time and a challenging time for the services industry. The current challenges in both achieving growth and maintaining profit margins are creating an even greater demand for professional services organizations to be efficient and productive. TOP Step Consulting has proven their value in providing sound advice and guidance to services organizations, and I am thrilled about being a part of the team.”