How Deltek's Dela is helping project businesses unlock AI value
Earlier in 2024, Deltek brought its AI offering Dela to market – helping project-based businesses leverage their rich data at the press of an intelligent button. We sat down with Bret Tushaus from Deltek to explore how consultancies have been using the technology to unlock value across their teams.
“AI is everything these days,” says Bret Tushaus, the US-based vice president of product management at Deltek. “But even before the AI train started moving a couple of years ago with the release of generative AI, we’ve been focused on finding the ways we can embed artificial intelligence in our products.”
Deltek is a top-tier provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and solutions to players in the professional services industries, including Consulting, Architecture, and Engineering. Its client base spans over 30,000 project-based businesses in 80+ countries.
Initially a trained architect, having spent 15 years in the sector, Tushaus has an expansive first-hand understanding of the issues Deltek’s clients in professional services are facing. And having now been with Deltek for 14 years, leading the product management team, he also has built up an unmatched knowledge of where AI can fit into the firm’s software portfolio, to meet those needs.
“I’ve been exploring and researching AI since the early days. We know the technology can bring a lot of value to clients, and Deltek operates at the forefront of the developments.”
The sector itself has been keen to embrace AI. According to Deltek’s latest Clarity report, investing in and implementing AI (and other emerging technologies) is a top priority for professional services firms in 2024. Respondents told the researchers that investing in AI in particular could yield priceless gains in delivery time, operational efficiency, competitive advantage and increased profitability – at a time when many firms are enduring a squeeze in revenue growth and margins.
But knowing where to begin can be “a little overwhelming to figure out”, Tushaus admits. Like any other form of digital transformation in the last decade, many firms are afraid of missing out on early advantages but cannot determine where AI can make the most impact in their work. And that, he says, is where Dela comes in.
Deltek’s Dela
“It’s always energising when I get in front of customers just to see how thirsty they are in terms of finding out how they can use AI in their businesses. Amid all this exciting talk about technology, they might not be sure where to start. Our Dela solution provides a very packaged, accessible way for customers to leverage the technology in their day-to-day activities.”
Dela is Deltek’s AI offering – with tools including ‘Ask Dela’, an AI-powered assistant, that can provide guidance and operational support to users.
The offering is available in most solutions across the Deltek product suite – including Deltek’s ERP platform tailored for management and digital consulting firms, Vantagepoint. “Dela offers support across the entire project lifecycle, beyond running information searches, through to developing reports, gaining insight into risks and mitigations, and empowering project members to work more efficiently.”
“Dela is a very packaged, accessible way for project-based businesses to leverage AI technology in their day-to-day activities.”
In the grand scheme of things, it is still in the early stages of the AI revolution. As such, it can be difficult to pin down the quantifiable gains it enables. But Tushaus already knows of numerous use cases where Dela is helping clients to add value to their firms.
Resource optimisation
Some of these relate to “obvious, industry agnostic areas” commonly referred to in relation to predictive analytics and automation – allowing for technology to do something a human might otherwise do, saving time and money in the process. But there are also some “unique opportunities” Dela caters to, in relation to project-focused businesses and consultancies in particular.
“Obviously when it comes to consulting, ‘people’ are the primary asset which consulting firms bring to the table. Dela helps optimise resource optimisation, enabling better prediction of the project pipeline and capacity needed to meet that demand.”
“We’re using the term ‘smart labour forecasting’ to describe this; having AI look at project schedules as well as historical data to help not only make sure the right people are on the right projects, but also to anticipate when a firm may need more or less access to labour. At a time when a lot of companies are struggling to maintain the right level of staffing, having a clear line of site through resource optimisation is really valuable.”
Information management
Another promising use case for consulting firms is information management – being able to quickly glean insights from reams of client data, to provide insight into how current projects are going, client sentiment and empower real-time decision-making in response to that.
“We’ve been supplying an ERP with huge amounts of potential for many years, but Dela can really help to make its benefits accessible across a business,” Tushaus says. “One of the things our users often struggle with is getting data out of our system. If they’re not a regular user of the system, they might not know what buttons to press to get the information they need.”
“Part of our Dela offering is a feature called ‘Ask Dela’ – and through that tool, users can ask a question about the data within their ERP solution. For example: ‘What is the receivable amount for project X?’; ‘Are there any concerns with this project from a financial perspective?’; ‘How is this client’s sentiment currently?’ and so on.”
“They then get instantaneous answers in a natural language way, without having to hunt through data, know what reports to check, or have to ask someone else in the company, that’s huge.”
Using generative AI functionality, users can leverage such information to efficiently enrich all kinds of deliverables, such as reporting, project tracking, or proposals. “Combining the huge amounts of rich information stored in systems with Gen AI can lift ‘content generation’ to the next level.”
According to Tushaus, when Deltek explains this kind of functionality to its clients, that’s when AI’s benefits suddenly become tangible, “the lights go on, and the oohs and the ahhs come out” – because it represents a significant value adder and time-saver for stakeholders across the business.
It remains to be seen exactly how huge that could be in terms of efficiency savings or productivity boosts at this early stage, but Tushaus explains that early returns are positive and as usage matures we will see a lot more specifics around the benefits.
Knowledge management
Knowledge management is highlighted as a third major use case. Giving one example, Tushaus suggests if users had “a higher-level meeting with a client”, they could deploy something called ‘Smart Summary’.
With this feature, users can simply click the Smart Summary button in relation to the client, and immediately receive a one-page briefing, giving them general information on the business: any projects the consultancy is pursuing with them; projects that are active or completed; and a number of other vital statistics about the historical relationship of the firm and its client. An “executive level summary... at the single push of a button.”
He goes on, “Another example of how generative AI can help to give an overview of business details quickly and speed up processes is around contract management. As you might expect, when a consulting firm engages with a company, they have a lot of documents to outline their responsibilities and expectations. As well as a contract, they might have additional services letters, letters of agreement.”
“Dela is able to rapidly sift through these documents and pull-out information in the terms and conditions, without having to search and extract that manually.”
Beyond ‘Oohs and Ahhs’
Tushaus emphasizes that the arrival of any new technology, especially AI, generates significant excitement. As Dela's offering launches, there is substantial interest in its capabilities, with businesses eagerly anticipating its potential benefits.
However, any experienced developer has certain concerns when introducing a new product to the market. Tushaus shares this sentiment: “When you release a feature like this, you question, ‘Does it merely present well, or will it truly deliver value?’”
This apprehension is a natural response, rooted in Deltek’s broader culture of innovation. The company does not pursue technology for its own sake but aims to innovate with purpose. Deltek has long championed the concept of “Purposeful Innovation,” believing that innovation should provide genuine value to customers rather than simply achieving superficial appeal.
“At Deltek, we believe that innovation should provide genuine value to customers.”
Fortunately, Tushaus believes that Deltek's commitment to delivering tangible value has ensured that Dela offers more than just superficial appeal.
“As we engage with customers and observe their usage, the value of Dela becomes clear. Organisations are recognising how it enhances their employees’ effectiveness. Even in these early stages, Dela is proving its worth, with the Ask Dela component particularly leading the way.”
At the same time, Tushaus is confident that Deltek can help encourage the broader uptake of AI tools across businesses. Not only by helping showcase its practical business uses, or the material benefits of its deployment, but also assuaging the concerns that many people still have around the technology.
Extensive regulatory changes are already on the horizon for Europe’s AI sector – and many companies are holding off from investing more openly in the technology, for fear of what limitations they may be exposed to soon. This includes the EU’s AI Act, which may mean that in the implementation of AI, firms must consider how they collect, analyse and distribute data. But having a partner like Deltek to deploy the technology can make all the difference on that front.
Tushaus concludes, “Trust in vendors is more important than ever. One of the great things about the way Deltek brings AI products to market, is that we consider data privacy and data security when designing solutions, features and functionality, ensuring customer data doesn’t get used to train models, or released where they don’t want it. That focus, when we bring solutions to market, takes a little bit of the burden from customers having to worry about how their data is being used. And that’s a big value-add too, I would say.”
