The Power of Data in Growing a Small Technology Business

How Professional Services Can Scale Smarter

I’ve always loved data. I am proud of being a data geek, and I’ve enjoyed analysing and interpreting numbers for all of my career, with the exception of my cricket batting average, which isn’t much fun (subscription required).

In professional services, success often hinges on three critical numbers:

✅Utilisation Rate – How efficiently is your team working on billable tasks? Maximising this ensures profitability without overloading resources.

✅ Average Day Rate – How much revenue is generated per billable consultant per day? A healthy rate reflects strong market positioning and financial sustainability.

✅ Billable Work Capacity – How many people are working on revenue-generating projects, or how many days of work are being delivered? This defines growth potential and hiring strategies.

But I would always advocate other data sources that provide a rich source of information. This would include looking at employee happiness, vital in a professional services context, sales pipeline value – without sales coming in, things will look pretty bleak – and customer satisfaction, whether that be net promoter score or other measures.

Turning Data into Decisions

In my role at a growing Dynamics partner I lived by these metrics daily - tracking them wasn’t just about numbers; it shaped strategic hiring, pricing models, and operational scalability. Here's how small tech businesses can leverage data effectively:

📊 Monitor Trends – Utilisation should be high but sustainable. If it's consistently above 80%, it’s probably time to hire.

📈 Refine Pricing – If your average day rate isn’t keeping pace with costs, review your value proposition. Market alignment is key.

🛠 Optimise Resourcing – Track billable work across projects—are you balancing revenue generation with future growth initiatives?

Scaling with Smarter Insights

When data drives decisions, growth becomes (more) predictable, sustainable, and strategic. For founders scaling in professional services, these metrics are more than just KPIs – they are the foundation of profitability and expansion.

Final Thoughts 

Gut instinct is great, and entrepreneurs prove time and time again that you need that to be successful. But, as you grow and collate data about the industry you operate in, your customer base, and the people you work with, ask yourself: Are you leveraging your data effectively? If not, now’s the time to make it a habit. My final words on this matter are there are two types of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data. ;-)