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Workflow Management Platform Saves Wipfli Millions Per Year
Product Development
Key Takeaways
- Wipfli struggled with a lack of scalability in their commercial project management tool.
- They partnered with Taazaa to build a custom workflow management platform.
- Taazaa built the solution with .Net 8, React, and a suite of Microsoft Azure technologies.
- Wipfli is positioned to reduce costs by up to $2 million per year in hard and soft gains.
The Challenge
Wipfli is one of the top 20 accounting and consulting firms in the US. Their more than 3,200 associates worldwide provide a wide range of consulting and professional services, ranging from tax, audit, and accounting to cybersecurity, digital strategy, AI services, and more.
The firm’s rapid growth exceeded the capabilities of the industry-specific project management tool they had been using. They faced challenges in scalability, modernization, and configurability, as well as optimizing talent usage.
They looked at the general work management platforms, such as Asana, Monday, and Wrike, as well as products specifically for accounting and consultant firms. However, none of these tools meshed with Wipfli’s needs and their vision for the future.
The firm’s stakeholders wanted something like a gig platform to make it easy to match new work with people in the talent pool with the right background, experience, and proficiencies.
“The concept isn’t novel, but nothing off the shelf really nailed it,” said Zac Charnecki, Innovation Partner at Wipfli. Buying something close and building on top of it was risky because Wipfli would be stuck if the base product changed.
Instead, Wipfli decided to build a custom job management solution as a foundation for a marketplace they would build on top of it. With an idea of what the solution would look like, Charnecki started looking for a software development partner.
“I probably spent months casting nets,” he said. Finally, his search led him to Taazaa. Reading about Taazaa’s culture and values, Charnecki was struck by how similar they were to Wipfli’s. “It almost looked like they were written by the same team.”
Meeting with the Taazaa team added to the feeling that the two companies were a good match. Charnecki described what Wipfli was looking for, and Taazaa created rough product sketches and wireframes.
“You could tell everybody was excited about the idea,” he said. “You could see how it might come together.”
Although many custom and off the shelf options were available, Charnecki ultimately decided to go with Taazaa to build a custom solution—and he has no regrets.
“I think this was the best partnership decision that Wipfli could have made.”
The Solution
Working closely with the Wipfli team, Taazaa built Wipflo, a work management application to help manage the bandwidth of resources.
Wipflo automates the complete process of planning, creating, assigning, and performing complex projects for their clients. The system consists of three modules: Focus, Marketplace, and Overpass.
The Focus module is like a consultant’s personal inbox, where users can see and manage their work queues.
The Marketplace is like a job board, where users can review and claim open work opportunities. Unassigned work appears by default in the Marketplace and users can filter to things that they can do as well as work that they want to get experience in doing.
The Overpass module contains a complete listing of all workstreams. It allows managers and others to view assigned, unassigned, and completed work that matters to them
These three applications work together to manage projects and their associated tasks with a breakdown structure that enables work fractionalization, and emphasizes matching the right work with the right worker.
Wipflo was built with a microservices architecture utilizing .Net 8 Core and a suite of Azure technologies for the back-end and React for the front-end. Azure SQL was deployed as the database layer.
The Results
Charnecki said that from the beginning, working with Taazaa felt more like a relationship and less like a transaction. “I don’t think anyone is worried much about, ‘Hey, is this in scope?’ or ‘Is this on the clock?’ It’s just, what’s the right answer? If we’ve got some thoughts or a way to help each other, let’s throw it out there.”
Charnecki said the Wipflo development cycle was planned as a five-year project. The base application is being used by users but new features are still on the roadmap. “We just rounded out Year Two, so we’re almost halfway through, and I think we’re seeing a commensurate output.”
“Our board of directors was impressed with the depth of capabilities, the vision, and how much we’ve got roadmapped and planned out so far,” Charnecki said. After they saw Wipflo’s capabilities and the plans for the full rollout, they shared Charnecki’s excitement. “It’s a good board meeting when they say things like, ‘This is awesome. What do you need? Could we sell this? Could it do this? Could it do that?’ And every answer was a yes. They were really excited about it.”
Once Wipflo is fully implemented, Charnecki estimates it will save the firm up to $2 million annually.
“Two things will generate money for us on this,” he said. “First, we can consolidate licensing costs for other antiquated systems which total over a million annually.” Since Wipfli will own Wipflo, there will be no more license fees.
Secondly, Charnecki estimates that efficiency gains will save Wipfli another $250,000 to $1 million annually. Extracting information to answer inquiries was time-consuming in the old system.
“If we can save five minutes on those [status] calls, that adds up,” he said. “Multiply that by a thousand people. If you play that out over 20 working days, 12 months a year, it’s a million bucks on the button.”
On top of that, there’s hidden value. People can use the time they save to send prospecting emails, convert new clients, and do other worthwhile activities. “Or they get 30 more minutes to put their feet up, and we’ve prevented an attrition leave. That’s value, too.”
Charnecki said he sees a long-term partnership with Taazaa, even beyond the implementation of Wipflo. “It’s crazy how much Taazaa has become enmeshed in the work I do, the conversations I have—they’re plugged into almost everything. It’s sort of become a joke. ‘Well, if Zac’s getting involved in this, he’s gonna bring Taazaa in.’”
