Precursive Perspective | For Professional Services

Gerard Allen, VP Professional Services at Jamf, joins Jonathan Corrie to discuss what it takes to make the value of Professional Services visible across the business. Gerard has spent more than 30 years in the Apple ecosystem and leads Jamf's global Professional Services organization, spanning delivery, training, partner certification and managed services.
A central theme of the conversation is commercial fluency. Gerard explains why PS leaders need to understand the language of the CRO and CFO, from customer acquisition cost and lifetime value to NRR and gross margin. Without that understanding, it becomes much harder to demonstrate how services contributes to the wider business.
Highlights include:
Connecting time-to-value and customer outcomes to NRR
Balancing gross margin, CSAT and utilization
Simplifying services catalogues around clear outcomes
Moving from transactional services toward TAM and recurring revenue
Using segmentation to serve SMB, mid-market and enterprise customers differently
Scaling delivery through certified partners without compromising customer experience
Mapping services to the customer journey and future product adoption
Gerard also explains why Jamf's internal services organization should focus on the areas where it can add differentiated value, while enabling capable partners to take ownership elsewhere.

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Jacqui Wishart, Head of Advisory Services at Blackbaud, joins Jonathan Corrie to unpack how recurring services can become a measurable growth engine for SaaS businesses.

Blackbaud supports nonprofit and social impact organizations, many of which face high staff turnover, lean teams and varying levels of technical confidence. Jacqui explains how these customer dynamics shaped the development of Advisory Plus: a recurring advisory service designed to help customers adopt software more effectively, improve operational processes and realize more value over time.

The conversation explores how Blackbaud created a catalog of repeatable service options across seven product lines, while still tailoring delivery to each customer’s goals, data and maturity. Jacqui also discusses the importance of positioning recurring services with sales, aligning incentives through ARR contribution, and making the offering easy to sell without custom scoping every deal.

Highlights include:

Moving from one-time implementation to ongoing advisory services

Building a repeatable services catalog around customer outcomes

Using assessments, sessions and tracks to guide adoption

Measuring services ARR, utilization, margin, consumption and CSAT

Partnering with sales and renewals to prove long-term value

Scaling Advisory Plus from the first sale in 2022 to $12.5M ARR

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Ilene Landon, SVP of Customer Success at Vena, joins Jonathan Corrie to unpack one of the biggest challenges in SaaS: repositioning Professional Services from a cost centre to a growth engine.

Drawing on 20+ years leading global delivery organisations, Ilene explains why PS is often seen as slow, complex, and difficult to sell - and how that perception becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.

The conversation explores how to break that cycle by redefining the mission of services teams. Instead of focusing on utilisation or timelines, high-performing teams align around delivering measurable customer ROI - driving adoption, retention, and revenue growth.

Ilene also shares practical strategies for improving cross-functional alignment:

Structuring feedback loops between services and product to improve implementation and scalability

Enabling sales to confidently position services without slowing deals

Using productisation and fixed pricing to simplify selling and improve margins

Building trust internally through consistent delivery and clear communication

The episode also dives into services economics, highlighting why understanding margin, attach rates, and cost structure is critical - especially in today’s market.

For leaders scaling services organisations, this is a clear, practical playbook for driving impact across the business.

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AI is accelerating a structural shift in SaaS - from systems of record to systems of action. In this episode, Andy Cater - Director, AI Agents at Zendesk joins Jonathan Corrie to unpack what that means for Professional Services leaders.

As buyers demand measurable ROI within months, proof of concept is no longer enough. The new expectation? Proof of value in a live production environment. Andy explains how forward deployment helps de-risk enterprise decisions by delivering tangible outcomes early — not slideware, not promises.

Key themes include:

Why AI creates both optimism and skepticism in buying cycles

The rise of proof-of-value over proof-of-concept

Customer readiness: knowledge, process, and data as the three pillars of AI success

Why exec sponsorship and InfoSec alignment matter more than ever

Designing forward deployment to scale without creating long-term dependency

The conversation also challenges the romanticised view of forward deployed engineering. It’s not about throwing elite engineers into accounts. It’s about building trust, enabling adoption, and creating long-term partnerships.

For Professional Services leaders navigating AI, this episode provides a clear lens on where the market is heading — and how delivery models must evolve.

 

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Jeroen Bos, SVP Global Professional Services at Bizzdesign, brings deep experience leading transformation across complex, multi-product organizations. In this episode, host Jonathan Corrie explores how Jeroen and his team are evolving the role of services to be more strategic, commercial, and growth-focused.
Key discussion areas include:
The changing role of services in today’s market
How to shape service offerings and GTM around customer maturity
Practical steps to harmonise teams, methodologies, and culture across geographies
Lessons learned from multiple M&A integrations
Why progressive service orgs focus on packaging expertise, not hours
Jeroen shares how aligning PS with business strategy, and enabling sales to champion services, can unlock faster growth and deeper customer partnerships. Whether you’re scaling delivery, leading a transformation, or integrating teams, this episode is packed with practical insights from someone who’s done it at scale.
 
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