TECHtonic: Trends in Technology and Services
Jul 10, 2026 · 34 min · 10 segments
In this episode of TECHtonic, Thomas Lah welcomes Deb Ashton, Founder of Certinia, for a conversation about the transformation of professional services in the age of AI. They explore why traditional…
Deb AshtonGuest
Thomas LahHost
But from where you sit now, because you have this really unique view of seeing all these service organizations running on your platform, what is really breaking down that old model? What are the big catalysts that you see that are forcing transformation?
But I think, especially from the conversations that I've been having with our customers and what they're seeing with their customers, customer expectations are moving towards more outcome and value.
And the organizations that we're talking to, they are actively looking at how to move from this model of time and materials or fixed price work to more managed services or outcome-based pricing models models that better reflect the value that was delivered ultimately.
When the agents within projects can handle data processing they can create documents it kind of shifts the work that the humans are doing more towards maybe strategic oversight or governance creating the guardrails things like that so this is creating just a real pressure on the way the traditional billable model works so if technology delivers more of the work then you can't rely on hours on a time card like we used to when the humans were doing the work as a basis for pricing and billing anymore and also revenue recognition.
And it's creating complexities around how organizations think about how they will price in this new world, how they will do invoicing, how they will do revenue recognition.
And I think the other thing that's breaking here is this disconnected operating model.
So if sales, delivery, finance, customer success, if they don't share a consistent view of the customer and the work, it's much harder to manage the recurring value, margin, resource capacity, customer outcomes and things like that.
And I want to play some of that back in, you talked about underlying the time and materials and maybe fixed pricing.
I don't know if you and I ever had this conversation, but the first book I ever wrote was called Billing Professional Services.
And back then, sort of the big move on the chessboard was if you could go from time and materials billing to your customer, which they don't like because like, how much is it going to cost me? And there's overruns.
But from where you sit now, because you have this really unique view of seeing all these service organizations running on your platform, what is really breaking down that old model? What are the big catalysts that you see that are forcing transformation?
But I think, especially from the conversations that I've been having with our customers and what they're seeing with their customers, customer expectations are moving towards more outcome and value.
And the organizations that we're talking to, they are actively looking at how to move from this model of time and materials or fixed price work to more managed services or outcome-based pricing models models that better reflect the value that was delivered ultimately.
When the agents within projects can handle data processing they can create documents it kind of shifts the work that the humans are doing more towards maybe strategic oversight or governance creating the guardrails things like that so this is creating just a real pressure on the way the traditional billable model works so if technology delivers more of the work then you can't rely on hours on a time card like we used to when the humans were doing the work as a basis for pricing and billing anymore and also revenue recognition.
And it's creating complexities around how organizations think about how they will price in this new world, how they will do invoicing, how they will do revenue recognition.
And I think the other thing that's breaking here is this disconnected operating model.
So if sales, delivery, finance, customer success, if they don't share a consistent view of the customer and the work, it's much harder to manage the recurring value, margin, resource capacity, customer outcomes and things like that.
And I want to play some of that back in, you talked about underlying the time and materials and maybe fixed pricing.
I don't know if you and I ever had this conversation, but the first book I ever wrote was called Billing Professional Services.
And back then, sort of the big move on the chessboard was if you could go from time and materials billing to your customer, which they don't like because like, how much is it going to cost me? And there's overruns.
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3 of 5
AI Shatters Billable Hours
She explains why hours no longer matter
Customers Demand AI Savings
He relays blunt feedback from paying customers
Services Becomes Margin Engine
She reframes services in executive board meetings
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