How AlibeeZ raises consultant employability and cuts bench time
In the IT services sector, the dominant model is having your ressources on clients missions. To stay competitive, firms must solve two problems above all: keeping teams employable, and managing bench periods well. A purpose-built ERP is the strategic lever that makes that performance possible.
Two consultants free within three weeks — start repositioning
Crossed with the pipeline3 openings match their skills
The challenges
The challenges of running a time-and-materials business
Optimise resource allocation
Having good people is no longer enough: you have to mobilise the right person, at the right moment, on the right engagement. Poor positioning with long bench periods means costly idle time, falling profitability and demotivated teams.
Anticipate availability
A real-time and medium-term view of availability is essential: anticipating project endings, preparing new engagements and organising smooth handovers between people.
Smooth out invoicing
Time-and-materials, capped time-and-materials and fixed-price billing all demand absolute rigour. Slow or manual processes lock up cash, weaken your treasury position and make financial steering heavier. Automation reduces working-capital needs.
Reduce team turnover
In a placement model, consultant engagement differentiates you. Offering clear career paths, skill-development opportunities and recognition for individual work is a genuine advantage.
The answer
What makes an ERP genuinely fit for IT services firms
IT services firms have specific needs that a generic ERP does not meet. A specialised ERP ships the modules that a placement model actually requires.
Centralised engagement management
Build dynamic capacity plans that account for engagements ending, upcoming availability and live commercial opportunities. That drives proactive allocation, limits lost productivity and smooths transitions between projects.
Skills-based positioning
Skills analysis, automatic matching and staffing suggestions driven by business criteria, engagement history and strategic priorities. You gain responsiveness while keeping bench time under control.
A unified information system
No more data scattered across tools: HR, project management, finance and CRM on one platform. Centralisation guarantees consistency, limits entry errors and improves handoffs between departments.
Real-time steering
Utilisation rate, profitability per client, margin per project, forecast versus actual: configurable dashboards that support fast decisions on current data.
Automated invoicing
The ERP generates invoices automatically from approved timesheets, in line with contract terms — whether time-and-materials, capped or fixed price. Cash flow accelerates and accounting becomes reliable.
Integrated recruiting
Application scoring, interview tracking, profile qualification and onboarding: the whole cycle is handled, so the transition from HR onboarding to operational staffing loses nothing.
A few partners working with AlibeeZ
Benefits
The advantages of an ERP fit for IT services
Centralised engagement management
A single unified view of every project, with precise tracking of availability, current activity and upcoming engagements, driven by custom alerts and dynamic planning.
Employability optimisation
Anticipate bench periods, requalify consultant skills quickly, place them on new engagements and keep effective utilisation high.
Simplified invoicing
Use timesheet data directly to automate invoice generation, cut errors and speed up cash collection.
Optimised task management
Efficient task distribution, centralised responses and fast access to the data that matters, to simplify daily operations.
Full mobile access
Smooth access from anywhere — travelling, working remotely or on client site — across desktop, tablet and mobile.
Stronger team engagement, thanks to tools that fit.
Case study
A concrete example: how Zenika transformed its management
Growing fast, this technology, management and organisational innovation consultancy was drowning in tool sprawl (Kelio, Excel, Quadra). After an unsuccessful first attempt with Everwin, Zenika found a modular, configurable answer in AlibeeZ, deployed in under a month. The outcome: data centralised in one information system, HR, finance and operational processes automated, +40% productivity on sales administration, a 0.5% invoicing error rate, 0.2% on payroll and €2M of cash released.
An ERP is the system that consolidates management data — HR, time, projects, purchases, invoicing, CRM — into one repository. For an IT services firm it matters because profitability depends on three flows staying consistent: the capacity plan, declared time and invoicing. Those usually live in separate tools.
By making engagement end dates visible weeks in advance, cross-referencing availability with skills and the sales pipeline, and alerting on people about to come free. Bench time gets handled upstream instead of when it is already happening.
Nothing to install or maintain, deployment in weeks rather than months, automatic updates that include regulatory changes such as e-invoicing, and access from anywhere — which matters when most consultants are on client site.
AlibeeZ ships a CRM and an HR module natively, which removes part of the integration work outright. For the tools you want to keep, connectors and a documented REST API handle two-way synchronisation.
Generic ERPs model placement work poorly: timesheet approval, capped time-and-materials, utilisation metrics, bench tracking, invoicing tied to approved time, gross margin per engagement. Those objects need to exist natively, otherwise they end up back in spreadsheets.
One base holds contracts, skills, certifications, leave, appraisals and engagement history. Permissions protect sensitive data, and low-value administrative work — onboarding, certificates, leave — is automated.
On three measurable axes: utilisation (less bench time), DSO (invoicing triggered as soon as timesheets are approved, with tracked dunning) and administrative cost per invoice. Our clients report gains on all three.
It depends on scope and on the quality of the data being migrated. For reference, Zenika deployed AlibeeZ in under a month. A phased rollout — time and leave first, then invoicing, then HR and CRM — is usually the safest route.
Yes. AlibeeZ supports organisations from 10 to 5,000 people. Modules activate progressively, so you can start narrow and widen as you grow.
Forward capacity planning, timesheets with approval workflow, multi-model invoicing (time-and-materials, capped, fixed price), margin tracking per engagement, skills mapping, expenses and purchasing, and configurable reporting with forecast versus actual.
Messaging is built into the modules, tasks are assigned with follow-up, and workflows raise targeted alerts. Conversations stay attached to the object they concern — an engagement, an invoice, a leave request — instead of scattering into email.
By treating fixed-price work as seriously as placement work, by being genuinely configurable rather than requiring custom development, by a team that knows each client personally, and by hosting in France.
The solution
The building blocks of your ERP
Every module runs on the same repository: approved time feeds invoicing, which feeds margin. Open whichever one answers your most pressing need.
Because every sector has its own rules, we support IT services, consulting and engineering firms, communication agencies, audit and actuarial practices with a tailored approach built on real field experience.