T H E K A I N J O O S T O R Y

Crafting Brands Through Innovation

Kainjoo is a global consulting firm with extensive experience in

complex industries including pharmaceuticals and banking. Kainjoo

means ‘emotion through continuous progress’ in Japanese and the

firm describes itself as having a heart rooted in the Kaizen mindset

— a philosophy of continuous improvement of business practices

and efficiency — combined with a pragmatic Swiss brain and creative

French soul. Its clients are traditional, regulated entities that want to

disrupt themselves by shaking up old ways of thinking and refreshing

their brands with new life while remaining true to legacies of success.

Founded two years ago, Kainjoo set about to launch a new type of

consulting firm that is focused on instituting systems that will

scale up quickly and improve client profitability. Everything they do

melds the collective talents of the firm with a proven methodology

to produce a powerful engine for the “big think” of strategic brand

development. Kainjoo delivers on its consultative ideas and strategies

with a full-service creative team that provides outside-the-box digital

services, video production, advertising and web development, as well

as marketing campaigns.

S U C C E S S S T O R Y

Kainjoo Increases Billable Utilization by 85% with Mavenlink

I N D U S T R Y

Consulting

C O M P A N Y

Kainjoo Consulting Group

S I Z E

11-50 employees

W H A T M A V E N L I N K R E P L A C E D

Asana, Gmail, Dropbox, Harvest and Odoo

B E N E F I T S

• 85% increase in billable utilization

• 25% savings on business development costs

• 50% increase in profit margin

2

T H E C H A L L E N G E

It’s Easy to Make Mistakes When Data is Not Accessible

Service firms often have a reputation of flying by the seat of their

pants. While the ethos at Kainjoo couldn’t be more different, they were

constrained by the tools they were using. Prior to rolling out Mavenlink,

Kainjoo was tracking resource usage and customer projects with various

time-entry tools, task lists and even old fashioned email.

When the firm merged its consulting team with its delivery services team,

they needed a unified way to track and optimize time across the entire

lifecycle of each customer account from pre-sale activity to program

implementation. Merging data from multiple sources was a particular

challenge, as the firm found that its existing processes weren’t structured

enough to allow for the assimilation of reports and measurement necessary

to make smart business decisions. This was complicated by the fact that each

team was often using their own manual processes. When they hired a project

manager to keep track of things, they became acutely aware that there was a

problem and began looking for a common project framework.

Kainjoo recognized that what they really needed was a solution that

made it possible to zero-in on wasted time, including time spent on

new business pursuits. The time spent on bringing on new customers

represented 80 percent of lost hours across the firm, while the other 20

percent was due to productivity losses. Moreover, half of the company’s

margin was being eaten due to poor planning that resulted from deficient

time-management procedures.

F R O M T H E S O U R C E

“Mavenlink is the

uncomplicated way to drive

better results and achieve

a halo of trust with our

customers. It brings them

in as a part of the team and

creates momentum. In the

end, our customers feel we

are being more transparent.”

– Haider Alleg Managing Director, Kainjoo

DE

CF A V O R I T E M A V E N L I N K F E AT U R E

Dashboards, Reports & Metrics

Kainjoo finds immense value in the dashboards, reports and metrics

that provide heads of departments and executives with budget-focused

insights. Kainjoo uses Mavenlink to track three interrelated aspects of

productivity: billable hours, non-billable hours, and skillset match to existing

and potential work. This has revealed new avenues around cost of delivery,

aided in hiring decisions, and unmasked true profit.

A D P 2 3 4 1

R L M 2 3 6 6

T S C 2 3 5 3

8:35 AM

3

0

1322

800

14%

T H E S W I T C H T O M A V E N L I N K

Speaking a Common Language Yields Uncommon Results

True to the firm’s Kaizen mindset, Kainjoo understood that even while

the firm was doing little things well, its ad hoc approach was not

achieving a good alignment of work between different departments

from consultant to engineer to marketer. Mavenlink helps Kainjoo

speak a common, actionable language that allows both consultants and

customers to see the world through the same eyes and continuously

make better decisions.

Tracking the Costs of Business Development

Kainjoo discovered that a project’s success is measured not only when

the deal is closed, but also includes the effort of capturing and closing

the deal. For instance, before utilizing Mavenlink it was common to

invest significant hours on winning new business. Yet all too frequently,

the resources spent on deal flow outweighed the financial benefit of

winning the project itself. Utilizing Mavenlink to reveal overall time

spent even before a contract is signed means the firm is able to make

better decisions about how and when to reinvest resources elsewhere.

F R O M T H E S O U R C E

“Mavenlink has completely

transformed our business.

We're more nimble,

collaborative, and financially

sound than ever.”

– Haider Alleg Managing Director, Kainjoo

Now we can focus on things that are more important.

With Mavenlink, risk on projects is lower because people feel safer. Tracking time accurately allows us to not only streamline and allocate budgets better, but we also know when and where to hire to ensure our customers and our consultants get the best.

“

“

4

Radical Transparency Invites Customers Inside

Mavenlink opened up new ways to bring Kainjoo’s customers into the process

of resource planning, budgeting and staff allocation. Before, the firm often

found that its customers were inadvertently delaying project fulfillment and

diminishing returns due to a poor understanding of deadlines, expectations

and requirements. Mavenlink makes it possible for Kainjoo to produce Gantt

charts and task trackers that not only give greater insight into how each

customer’s budget is being utilized, but these tools foster radical transparency

and trust as both sides collaborate. According to Haider Alleg at Kainjoo,

Mavenlink has also helped the firm speed client decisions and yield more

powerful results: “Our clients move so fast, and with Mavenlink we’ve

become more agile and responsive.”

Resource Planning is Earning Power

Knowing when and how to appropriately apportion time to meet budget

parameters and maximize output has been made easier with Mavenlink.

While tracking time to improve the cost of delivery is the most obvious result,

Kainjoo also found that it is better able to know when to hire. For example, if a

consultant is working at more than 20 percent over their target capacity, it is

time to recruit someone. This makes for not only happier team members and

customers, but also extends the firm’s revenue with additional billable hours

that are directly tied to SOWs. “Using the right tools creates a great work

environment, and this in turn has allowed us to attract the kind of people who

deliver time and time again,” said Kainjoo’s Haider Alleg. He believes that

Mavenlink reveals trends and details that help the firm understand if they

have the right consultants assigned to the right customers.

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80 H

Role 1

80 H

Role 2

40 H

Before Mavenlink, we weren’t able to effectively

track KPIs around profit margins, billable hours and

team allocation. Now we’re a well-oiled machine.

“ “

www.mavenlink.com • @mavenlink 6501 Irvine Center Dr. Suite 250 • Irvine, CA 92618

©2016 Mavenlink • Rev. 9/16

The Results

Improved profit margin by 50% due to better resource planning

Previously, half of Kainjoo’s margin was eaten by not planning resources well.

Once the solution was implemented, a better balance was achieved between

staff time, matching consultants to projects, and working directly with

customers to determine the best way to deploy resources and achieve results.

Billable hours have increased by 30% in just one year

Mavenlink has revealed paths to increased billability across the board,

resulting in a dramatic rise in the number of hours billed to customers that

were previously lost due to hidden tasks which the firm was not aware of.

Kainjoo went from an average 35-40 percent utilization per consultant to 65

percent, an increase in billable utilization of 85 percent. And the sky’s the

limit—the firm aims to reach 80 percent billability using Mavenlink.

Achieved 25% savings on business development costs

Identification of lost time spent in the pre-sales cycle has allowed Kainjoo to

reinvest these dollars to better focus on the needs of clients. The result has

been a savings of 25 percent, and consequently the ability to make smarter

business-driven decisions about how and when to pursue new customers.