From manual to modern: AlayaCare's journey to intelligent professional services delivery

Chase Potter, Vice President of Professional Services at AlayaCare, brought humor and insight to his Propel25 session. In nine years, he has seen the company grow from a 30-employee startup to a global home and community care platform serving 750+ clients and delivering over 17 million hours of care each month.

But growth came with challenges. How do you scale a professional services (PS) function in a space with varying implementation complexity, and customers expect fast, low-cost delivery while demanding strategic value?

The push and pull of PS: Activation vs. Value delivery

AlayaCare straddles two demanding expectations:

• On one side, Subscription activation at all costs, where speed and ease of use rule.
• On the other hand, the board’s directive is to deliver measurable value and improve PS margins.

Competitors often win deals by cutting PS costs or treating implementation as a cost center. But AlayaCare’s model aims to blend delivery intelligence and strategic value.

“We’re pursuing a third path... One that’s intelligent, intentional, and focused on value-based delivery.” - Chase Potter

While many organizations silo their services into cost centers or premium strategic arms, AlayaCare is carving out a hybrid lane, proving that high-efficiency activation and value-rich services can coexist.

Potter outlined three key focus areas:

1. Reimagining discovery
2. Modernizing scoping
3. Leaning into strengths

1. Reimagining discovery: From checklist to guide

In earlier years, AlayaCare’s discovery was minimal, often a quick call or a light questionnaire. Projects jumped directly into configuration, resulting in surprises, missed expectations, and spiraling scope.

Potter likens it to sailing a beautiful ship without a map or weather forecast.

"We were launching projects like setting off on a beautiful vessel with no map, no weather forecast, and relying on chance."

Now, discovery is reimagined as a strategic foundation:

• Deep dives into customer priorities to understand their goals.
• Identification of improvement opportunities beyond feature requirements.
• Baseline measurement to demonstrate value post-go-live and frame success metrics.

This approach allows AlayaCare to reframe the conversation from feature comparison to outcome-based success. Instead of customers saying, "We need feature X like our old tool," they now ask, "Can this new setup help us reduce missed appointments or improve scheduling accuracy?"

A real example

Potter shared the KPI outcomes from AlayaCare’s largest enterprise go-lives. The customer averaged 44 missed visits/day pre-launch. Post-launch? Just 15.

These weren't abstract improvements; they directly impacted patient care. The team created alignment throughout the implementation by aligning discovery around impact metrics, and the customer is now accelerating additional rollouts.

Understanding their customers' priorities lets them avoid distractions and deliver impactful outcomes.

2. Modernizing scoping: Out with excel, in with intelligence

Historically, the project scoping process at AlayaCare was outdated:

• Built on Excel templates with no shared intelligence
• Dependent on the tribal knowledge of a few senior team members.
• Resulted in deeply discounted SOWs that didn’t reflect actual effort.

Sales and services were misaligned, and the PS team faced the consequences of poor estimations.

"We sometimes moved quickly, but at a very high risk."

Partnering with Zoma

To modernize this process, AlayaCare turned to Zoma, an AI-powered scoping platform. Zoma, built by PS professionals, addressed the core issues:

• Historical data reuse: Pull in estimates and scope from previous, similar projects.
• AI-guided scope generation: Based on discovery responses
• Standardized templates: Enhancing consistency and reducing error

"Now we reference past projects when scoping new ones. Innovative, right?"

More importantly, this system removed bottlenecks. Team members no longer needed to guess or dig through legacy folders. Sales could engage with more assurance, knowing delivery expectations were better calibrated.

In six months:

• Zero-dollar change requests dropped 50%.
• Scoping time was reduced, enabling quicker sales cycles.

"It pushed us to change tooling and reconsider our scoping approach."

3. Embracing strengths: Time to shine where it matters

Potter emphasized that when resources are tight, every minute must be spent wisely. Too often, high-skilled PS consultants get trapped in low-value, administrative tasks.

To fix this, AlayaCare asked: Where do we shine?

• Industry knowledge
• Solution architecture for home/community care.
• Insights on process improvement and business optimization

Instead of showcasing these strengths, setup, data entry, and configuration consumed PS bandwidth.

Reclaiming the Spotlight

Potter used a compelling metaphor to describe the issue:

Imagine your value-adding activities as a stage. You’ve got a high-powered spotlight meant to illuminate the brilliance that happens there, strategic work, expert insights, and real business transformation. But instead, that spotlight is pointed at the parking lot: tenant setups, configurations, and checklists your customers don’t care about.

It needed to shine on the stage, where high-impact, strategic services could drive transformational outcomes.

Lean waste analysis

AlayaCare conducted a full lean waste analysis of their implementation workflow. Every process step was scrutinized:

• Is this task adding real value?
• Does a human need to perform it?

The result was a detailed flowchart lit up with red boxes marking tasks to eliminate, automate, or reassign.

This exercise enabled the PS team to:

• Shift time toward business transformation services.
• Launch new offerings like low-code customizations.
• Double down on areas where AlayaCare has true differentiating power.

Lessons in progress

Potter wrapped with a candid admission: transformation is complicated, and we’re still in it.

1. Balancing time to value with profitability

How do you compete on speed without becoming a commodity? Potter’s team continues to test this balance. They want to get customers live quickly, but not at the expense of margin or long-term value.

2. Doing more with less

Under pressure to show PS profitability, AlayaCare is doubling down on AI-first tooling and vendor partnerships. Every new tool must help them deliver intelligently.

He referenced Shopify’s CEO, who recently challenged employees to justify new hires by proving AI couldn’t perform the job.

"The vendors we choose now need to help us implement more effectively."

Key takeaways for PS leaders

1. Discovery isn’t optional: Even lightweight discovery pays off. It aligns your map to customer outcomes and helps you avoid costly detours.
2. Standardize and automate scoping: Don’t let project knowledge live in one head. Use tools like Zoma to scale institutional knowledge and speed up cycles.
3. Focus the spotlight: Free your experts from low-value tasks. Prioritize work that customers value.
4. Learn fast, scale smart: Your delivery model should improve with every project. Build systems to measure, learn, and evolve.
5. Stay on the journey: Transformation isn’t one and done. It’s iterative, uncomfortable, and necessary.

Potter's message was clear: being stuck between speed and strategy is not a dead end. With the right mindset, tools, and purpose, PS leaders can chart a new path that drives both activation and value.

Transformation takes intention, iteration, and resilience. We're still learning every day.

Enjoyed Chase's insights? Explore more Propel25 recaps and see how industry leaders are reimagining PS for the future.

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