# Scope Creep Detection for Consultancies

*/Opportunities/Scope_Creep_Detection_for_Consultancies*

## Opportunity Market Sizing

_Illustrative — target and order-of-magnitude estimate figures, not an achieved track record (this Thing is concept-stage)._

**S A M**: ~$300-500M US and UK mid-market IT and management consultancies
**S O M**: ~$5-15M
**T A M**: ~200k global professional services firms × ~$10k/yr ≈ $2B
**Growth Rate**: ~12-18%/yr, driven by shrinking billable utilization buffers and the industry shift toward fixed-fee engagements
**Paid Comparable Spend**: ~$40k-80k/yr per firm in manual project management labor reconciling deliverables against SOWs and generic professional services automation software

## Opportunity Incumbents

- [Kantata PSA](/Products/Kantata_PSA) — Tool
- [Microsoft Excel](/Products/Microsoft_Excel) — Spreadsheet
- [Harvest Time Tracking](/Products/Harvest_Time_Tracking) — Tool
- [Account Management Team](/Products/Account_Management_Team) — Service
- [Google Sheets](/Products/Google_Sheets) — Spreadsheet
- [Certinia PSA](/Products/Certinia_PSA) — Tool

## Opportunity Win Conditions

**Kill Thresholds**:
- Integration authentication failure rate > 20% in first 30 days
- False-positive scope alert rate > 30% after 45 days
- Zero paid change orders generated per active firm by day 60
- D30 retention for project managers < 40%
- Willingness to pay < $500 per month post-trial
**Leading Metrics**:
- Time-to-first-ingested SOW
- False-positive scope alert rate
- Change order generation rate from alerts
- Weekly active usage by account managers
- SOW-to-deliverable match accuracy
**What Proves Right**: Account managers connect their project management tools and client correspondence to the system, which flags out-of-scope requests within one hour. Mid-market consultancies convert to $1,000 monthly subscriptions after the system catches at least one unbilled change order during a 14-day trial. Day-30 retention exceeds 60 percent as project leads actively use the weekly scope variance reports to negotiate project extensions.
**What Proves Wrong**: Managing partners refuse to authenticate email and project management integrations due to strict client confidentiality policies. Account managers ignore or dismiss out-of-scope alerts because they prefer to over-deliver to preserve the client relationship rather than enforce the contract. The system misinterprets standard feedback cycles as scope changes, driving false-positive alerts above 40 percent and causing users to abandon the tool.

## Neighborhood

### Incumbent in

- [Account Management Team](/Products/Account_Management_Team) — incumbent in · Products
- [Certinia PSA](/Products/Certinia_PSA) — incumbent in · Products
- [Harvest Time Tracking](/Products/Harvest_Time_Tracking) — incumbent in · Products
- [Kantata PSA](/Products/Kantata_PSA) — incumbent in · Products
- [Google Sheets](/Software/Google_Sheets) — incumbent in · Software
- [Microsoft Excel](/Software/Microsoft_Excel) — incumbent in · Software