How Winged IT improved consultant engagement profitability and strengthened renewal decisions

In staff augmentation, profitability is created at the level of the individual consultant engagement. Every contract combines a client billing rate, consultant cost, expected billable hours, currency, start and end dates, and the commercial terms that will apply if the cooperation continues.

At Winged IT, the consultant relationship is typically aligned with the period for which the specialist is engaged by the client. That structure is commercially disciplined and limits classic bench risk, but it also means that the end of a client engagement is an important decision point. Before any extension, the business needs to understand whether the client wants to continue, whether the consultant’s cost is changing, and whether the current client rate still supports the expected margin.

An engagement that was attractive when signed does not necessarily remain equally profitable throughout its life. Consultant costs can change, billable utilisation can differ from plan, exchange rates can move, and a client rate may remain unchanged even when the cost base has increased.

The information needed to evaluate those decisions existed across operations, commercial and finance. Operations knew the consultant and engagement context, commercial owned the client relationship, and finance held the cost and revenue data. Bringing those inputs together before a renewal required manual effort and made it harder to apply the same financial discipline consistently across every engagement.

Winged IT needed a reliable way to connect contract dates with current engagement economics, so renewal conversations could start early enough and each extension could be evaluated on its actual profitability rather than simply repeating the previous commercial terms.

Winged IT used Synthelio to consolidate the operational and financial data required to understand each consultant engagement. For every active engagement, the platform brought together the client, consultant, contract dates, client billing rate, consultant cost, currency, planned allocation and actual billable activity.

Synthelio calculated the revenue, direct consultant cost, absolute margin and percentage margin for each engagement. Operations and commercial teams could therefore review current economics using the same underlying data instead of rebuilding the calculation before an important client conversation.

This made it easier to identify engagements where the economics had changed — for example, where consultant cost had increased while the client rate remained unchanged, where billable utilisation was lower than expected, or where an extension on the existing terms would push margin below the desired level.

The key process change was to make profitability review a standard input to renewal decisions. Before agreeing a new period with the client, the team reviewed the consultant’s current and expected cost, the client rate and the resulting margin. Where necessary, commercial could enter the discussion with a clearer view of the rate required to maintain the target economics.

Synthelio did not replace Winged IT’s commercial renewal process. Instead, it provided a consistent financial foundation for that process: contract dates and engagement economics were easier to access and evaluate, while the client conversation and renewal decision remained with the commercial team.

Average margin increased by 3.1 percentage points

With engagement economics visible before extension discussions, Winged IT could identify contracts whose profitability had gradually declined because of higher consultant costs, unchanged client rates or lower-than-planned utilisation.

For selected renewals, commercial terms were reviewed before the next period was agreed. This helped the team protect the economics of continuing engagements and contributed to a 3.1 percentage-point increase in average margin across the active staff-augmentation portfolio.

92% of renewal conversations started at least 45 days before contract end

Contract end dates were used as an input to Winged IT’s existing commercial process. With the relevant engagement information easier to access, the team could prepare for upcoming client conversations earlier and with a clearer financial picture.

During the first measured quarter, 92% of renewals requiring a client decision were discussed at least 45 days before the current contract ended. The additional time allowed commercial teams to confirm continuation, discuss the length of the next period, revisit pricing where necessary and make the decision without last-minute pressure.

100% of renewals were preceded by a profitability review

Winged IT also standardised a simple commercial discipline: every renewal was preceded by a review of consultant cost and engagement profitability.

Before agreeing the next period, the team checked the current cost base, client rate, current margin and the expected economics after extension. The objective was not to turn renewal into an automated workflow, but to ensure that every continuation decision was made with the relevant financial context available.

This reduced the risk of extending an engagement on unchanged terms even though the underlying economics had shifted. In practical terms, Synthelio helped the team answer a more useful question than simply “Will this contract continue?” — “Does this contract still make sense on these terms?”

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Results summary

• Average margin across active consultant engagements increased by 3.1 percentage points

• 92% of renewal conversations started at least 45 days before contract end

• 100% of renewals preceded by consultant-cost and engagement-profitability review

• Revenue, consultant cost and margin available at engagement level

• Contract dates and engagement economics available from one operational data set

• Commercial teams entered renewal discussions with a clearer view of required pricing

• Operations, commercial and finance worked from a more consistent picture of engagement economics