Orbit PM for consulting firms: staff your consultants and manage your utilisation rate
Management, strategy and transformation consulting firms have a central challenge: maximising the utilisation (or billing) rate of their consultants while preserving deliverable quality. Engagement staffing, bench management and availability forecasting are critical operations. Orbit PM is built for this need.
View Orbit PM plansThe consulting firm challenge
Staffing and utilisation rate: the two permanent challenges of consulting firms
A consulting firm of 30 consultants manages 6 to 10 simultaneous engagements of varying durations and intensities. Some consultants are junior and can be staffed at 100%, others are managers who split their time across several engagements. Engagement endings, extensions and bench periods are managed in real time.
The utilisation rate (ratio of billable days to available days) is the key profitability indicator. Without a dedicated tool, it is impossible to calculate in real time and even harder to actively manage.
“What is our projected utilisation rate this quarter?”
→ Orbit PM: Consolidated KPI dashboard for occupancy rate
“Who can start this new engagement from Monday?”
→ Orbit PM: Real-time consultant availability view
“Is this manager overloaded across 3 parallel engagements?”
→ Orbit PM: Per-team-member overload detection
“How many consultants will be on bench next month?”
→ Orbit PM: Automatic under-allocation detection
Business challenges
The staffing challenges specific to consulting firms
The consulting firm operates in an environment of scarce, high-value resources. Every unbilled consultant day is a direct loss; every over-mobilised consultant is a quality risk and a turnover risk. Three challenges structure the daily complexity.
Commercial proposals and resource commitment
Responding to a bid without checking real consultant availability is the classic trap for a growing consulting firm. Commercial pressure pushes toward committing to a profile and start date without access to workload data. Result: the engagement is sold, then staffing proves impossible, straining teams already on engagement and degrading deliverable quality on two fronts simultaneously.
Orbit PM resolves this dilemma by enabling an instant availability check before any bid response. The partner or business developer consults the availability view filtered by skill, seniority level or target allocation rate for the engagement window. Pre-commercial staffing simulation becomes standard practice, not an exception.
Managing senior consultants across multiple engagements
A partner or experienced manager rarely works on a single engagement at 100%. They are more likely staffed at 40% on a transformation engagement, 30% on a strategic audit, 20% on a post-merger integration, and intermittently on commercial pitches. The sum easily exceeds 100% as soon as an unexpected request is added.
In Orbit PM, each allocation is entered with a variable allocation rate per engagement. The overload view automatically aggregates all assignments for the same consultant across all engagements, and flags any capacity breach before it impacts the client. The resource manager can thus arbitrate between engagements and adjust commitments proactively rather than reactively.
Profitability per engagement and per profile
The profitability of a consulting engagement depends on three variables: the day rate billed to the client, the internal consultant cost (loaded day rate), and the number of days actually consumed versus days billed. A 10% variance between consumed and billed days can halve the margin on an engagement with a thin rate differential.
Orbit PM integrates the day rate per consultant and continuously calculates the cost of each allocation. The profitability module compares initial budget, consumed days and remaining days to project the final margin at completion. Directors can compare real margin versus margin estimated at sale, and decide mid-engagement whether renegotiation or scope adjustment is necessary.
Real-world scenario
Orbit PM in practice at a consulting firm of 40 consultants
Context
A digital transformation consulting firm of 40 consultants manages 8 active engagements simultaneously. Profiles range from junior consultant to senior manager. Managers are often on 2 to 3 parallel engagements. The managing partner steers global staffing and responds to incoming bids.
Before Orbit PM
Staffing was managed via a shared Excel table updated in weekly meetings. The utilisation rate was calculated manually at month end, with no projection. Bench periods were only identified at the last moment, too late to prepare a new engagement. Over-staffed managers discovered they were overloaded from client feedback.
With Orbit PM
Every engagement is created in Orbit PM with its dates, day budget and team. Staffing is updated continuously by engagement managers. The managing partner checks the real-time dashboard to see the global utilisation rate, identify available consultants and prepare bid responses with real visibility into firm capacity.
Less unplanned bench time
Down from half a day before
Detected before client commitment
From staffing to billing
From staffing to billing: the full cycle with Orbit PM
Orbit PM supports the consulting engagement end-to-end, from the commercial response through to post-engagement profitability analysis. Here are the three stages of the cycle.
Respond to bids with a staffing simulation
Before drafting your proposal, create a simulation project in Orbit PM. Assign target profiles with planned allocation rates over the engagement duration. Orbit PM immediately flags conflicts with current engagements: you adjust staffing, propose alternatives or shift the start date. Your commercial offer is grounded in real capacity data, not estimates. See also our guide on capacity planning to structure this step.
Manage allocation during the engagement
Once the engagement starts, managers update allocations continuously: replacing a consultant, adding a profile, reducing load at phase end. The dashboard displays at any point the number of days consumed, the remaining days, and the projected completion date. Day budget overrun alerts are visible from the first significant deviation.
Analyse profitability at engagement close
At engagement close, Orbit PM compares budgeted days, consumed days and billed days. The actual margin is automatically calculated by crossing the client day rate against the daily cost of each assigned consultant. This data feeds management reporting and serves as a benchmark for negotiating comparable future engagements. For deeper analysis of workload by profile, see the resource allocation page.
Consulting firm features
The most useful Orbit PM features for a consulting firm
Real-time utilisation rate
Calculate and visualise the occupancy rate of each consultant and the firm's global utilisation rate over any period.
Bench period detection
Automatically identify consultants with upcoming under-allocation (bench) periods for reassignment or commercial action.
Staffing simulation
Test different staffing configurations for a new engagement before committing to a client.
Multi-level management
Manage junior consultants (100% on one engagement), managers (shared) and partners (occasional contributors) with variable allocation rates.
Microsoft Azure AD SSO
Your consultants log in with their enterprise Microsoft account. Ideal for firms using Microsoft 365.
Day budget tracking per engagement
Compare consultant-days consumed against each engagement's initial budget to manage profitability.
Comparison
Consulting firm: Excel vs Orbit PM
Consulting firms that move from Excel to Orbit PM gain reactivity, precision and the ability to manage their engagement portfolio at scale.
| Criterion | Excel / generic tools | Orbit PM |
|---|---|---|
| Fast bid response | Manual check across multiple files, error-prone | Staffing simulation in minutes, conflicts detected automatically |
| Engagement profitability tracking | Calculated at engagement end, often too late to correct | Real-time margin, alert on first day budget overrun |
| Multi-engagement per consultant | High risk of error on cumulative allocation rate totals | Automatic aggregation, overloads visible on timeline |
| Management reporting | Lengthy consolidation, often stale data | Real-time KPI dashboard, instant export for board |
| Overload detection | Invisible until field feedback or weekly meeting | Proactive alert as soon as capacity exceeds 100% on a slot |
Data-driven management
Key metrics for a consulting firm
A data-driven consulting firm relies on four fundamental indicators that Orbit PM calculates automatically from allocations and engagement tracking. See how to implement them on the dedicated team workload management page.
Consultant utilisation rate (billable days)
The ratio of days actually billed to clients against the consultant's available working days in the period. This is the firm's flagship indicator: a target of 75–85% for operational consultants is common. Below 70%, bench rate erodes overall profitability. Orbit PM calculates this indicator in real time for each consultant and for the entire firm, on rolling windows (week, 4 weeks, quarter).
Engagement overrun rate
The percentage of engagements that consumed more days than the initial budget. A high rate signals either a scoping problem at sale, or insufficient scope management during the engagement. Orbit PM projects consumption at completion as soon as the workload trend deviates from plan, enabling corrective action before the actual overrun.
Margin per engagement
The difference between revenue billed to the client and the internal cost of consultant-days consumed (internal day rate × days delivered). Margin per engagement varies significantly with profile mix: an engagement staffed with senior consultants costs more internally even if sold at the same client rate. Orbit PM compares actual margin against margin estimated at sale to identify structurally under-profitable engagements.
Bid win rate
The proportion of bids won against total bids submitted. A low win rate may indicate pricing, positioning or proposal quality issues. But it can also reveal that the firm responds to bids without real capacity, damaging its credibility. Consulting firms using Orbit PM for pre-commercial staffing simulation report improvement in this rate because they only respond to bids where they can honour their commitment.
By role
Orbit PM for each profile in a consulting firm
- Consolidated view of global utilisation rate
- Available capacity to respond to bids
- Staffing arbitration across competing engagements
- Anticipation of hiring needs
- Staffing their team for the engagement duration
- Day budget tracking: consumed vs planned
- Managing extensions and mid-engagement adjustments
- Transparent communication with the client
- Visibility into upcoming bench periods
- Objective data for career management
- Planning training between engagements
- Workload reporting for management
Frequently asked questions
Consulting firm questions about Orbit PM
Can Orbit PM help me prepare a commercial proposal?
Yes. Orbit PM lets you simulate staffing before responding to a bid: you visualise the real availability of each consultant for the target period, test different team configurations and assess the impact on the global utilisation rate. You respond to clients with reliable data, without over-committing resources already allocated to other engagements.
How does Orbit PM handle sub-contracted engagements?
External contractors can be created as users in Orbit PM with a dedicated day rate and a limited role. Their allocations appear in the global workload view alongside internal consultants, enabling you to manage the internal/external mix and measure the margin differential between the two profile types.
Can I measure profitability per consultant in Orbit PM?
Orbit PM calculates profitability per engagement by crossing each consultant's day rate with their allocated and consumed days. You get the real cost of the engagement, the net margin, and the budget-vs-actual variance. The portfolio view consolidates this data across all active and closed engagements.
Manage your firm's staffing and utilisation rate
Orbit PM helps consulting firms better manage staffing, bench time and utilisation rate across the full engagement portfolio.