project profitability Archives

How Can Project Management Software Help Your Business?

Posted on March 20, 2023July 10, 2023 by Lillian Watts

Project management software is an indispensable tool that every company needs to streamline its project management processes.

The right project management software can be a key success factor, particularly for small businesses where time is of the essence and resources are often limited. Project managers may take on less complex projects but face the additional challenges of fewer resources.

However, this software allows businesses to manage projects, collaborate with team members, and track progress in real-time.

In today’s digital age where remote work is also becoming the norm, the right project management software can be critical to a company’s success, regardless of size, niche, or industry.

But how can project management software add value to your small business?

Let’s dive into this post and answer your questions.

1. Improved Project Overview

Project management software gives companies a comprehensive overview of their projects, including progress, budget, and resource allocation. With this review, organizations can identify areas for improvement and make adjustments to ensure projects are completed on time, on budget, and to the highest quality standards. Businesses can quickly identify potential problems and take the necessary corrective action. In addition, this overview enables better resource planning and ensures that the right resources are allocated to the right projects at the right time.

2. Increased Customer Satisfaction

This allows team members to collaborate on projects in real time, no matter where they are. By using project management software, companies can ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal, which can ultimately lead to better results and greater customer satisfaction. However, a reliable Internet connection is essential to unlock the full potential of project management software. Since this information is updated in real-time, it is crucial for the firm to ensure good connectivity. Without it, your team may experience slow response times, connection drops, and other technical issues that can prevent them from working effectively. Cox, a popular Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the market right now, includes a fast, reliable internet service to keep your team running smoothly and without interruption.

3. Enhanced Level of Collaboration

One of the main benefits of project management software is improved communication between team members. With the ability to access project information in real-time, team members can easily communicate with each other, share files, and provide immediate feedback. This enhanced collaboration results in better decision-making, faster response times, and a more efficient workflow. Improved collaboration leads to better communication as well, which ultimately offers better results. Project management software facilitates group communication with features such as instant messaging, file sharing, and task assignment, creating an optimized communication channel that reduces misunderstandings and miscalculations.

4. Increased Efficiency

Project management software allows businesses to automate routine tasks such as planning, budgeting, and task management. This automation allows team members to focus on more important tasks, which ultimately improves efficiency. In addition, the project management software provides real-time updates and alerts so team members can keep track of deadlines and identify potential issues before they become more of a problem.

Moreover, project management software streamlines project processes and saves time and energy. This saved time can be used to focus on developing strategies for overall organizational improvement, which can lead to increased productivity and workflow efficiency. Automation can also help organizations reduce the risk of human error and speed up repetitive tasks.

5. Improved Budget Management

Project management software is especially useful for small businesses on a budget. This software provides real-time updates on project spending, making it easy to effectively manage and track budgets. Small businesses can use project management software to create and track project budgets, set spending limits, and control costs. The software can also create reports and alerts that help small business owners quickly identify budget overruns or potential problems.

6. Improved Communication Skills with Clients

Project management software also facilitates communication with clients by providing a centralized platform for sharing project information, updates, and feedback. This transparency builds trust and improves the overall customer experience, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and retention. This is because clients are more likely to be satisfied if they have a clear understanding of the progress of the project and how their feedback is taken into account in the project. This increased satisfaction can lead to repeat business and better customer recommendations.

7. Access to Valuable Analytics

Finally, project management software provides organizations with valuable analytics that can be used to spot trends, track progress, and make data-driven decisions. This analysis allows companies to continuously improve their project management processes and achieve better results. Data-driven analytics help organizations make better decisions, streamline processes, and improve project outcomes.

By analyzing design data, organizations can identify areas for improvement, implement best practices, and adjust their approach as needed. This type of analysis is necessary to identify patterns and areas of potential risk or opportunity.

Summing it up

As such, project management software enables companies to improve project transparency, improve customer satisfaction, foster greater collaboration, improve efficiency, manage budgets, improve customer engagement, and gain access to valuable analytics.

By using project management software, small businesses can save time, increase productivity, and achieve better results on projects. With the right project management software and a reliable internet connection, small businesses can overcome adversity and thrive in a competitive marketplace.

How Task Management Software Helps Businesses Achieve Productivity and Profitability

Posted on October 14, 2021May 9, 2023 by Lisa Brian

Business operations involve numerous task management activities, including task creation, planning, assigning/delegating tasks, tracking, reporting, and execution. These activities demand significant time and effort.

No matter what size of business you run, the benefits of efficient task management are beyond comparison: when customer and market demand increase beyond manual management capabilities, businesses should opt for automated, digital task management to instantly scale capacity up, to handle complex tasks efficiently, and to increase productivity. It also allows businesses to avoid the time and cost of mismanagement, miscommunications, and inefficiencies that can directly impact business profits.

Businesses that leverage task management software tools can witness immense benefits and stay ahead of the competition. These tools help optimize resources, control workflow, drive collaboration, meet deadlines, enhance communication, and improve efficiency. As per reports from Fortune Business Insights, the global task management
software market size will reach USD 4,535.5 million by 2026.

Let’s see what features reliable task management systems provide and how these tools help businesses revamp productivity and profitability.

Prominent Task Management Software Features To Help Achieve Effective Productivity

task and productivity management software

Task management solutions offer comprehensive tools and features to control various stages of the task management lifecycle. Here are the most trending task management software features that can help businesses achieve effective productivity.

1. Task Planning

Task management systems help managers plan tasks systematically from the start. The software provides a platform to break a complex task into stages or smaller tasks through a structured approach based on the budget, resources, scope, and timeline. These subtasks can be assigned to different people and managed effortlessly.

Besides, you can organize, prioritize your tasks, and modify these easily throughout the planning stage. The best part is that you can view the split tasks collectively on a unified task management software platform.

2. Task Delegation

Appropriate task delegation is a challenge for managers. It is crucial to match the right task to the right person and ensure that no team member is overburdened or underutilized. Reliable task management software enables seamless task assigning.

Elimination of manual assignment ensures better accuracy and quicker task delegation. The software also sends relevant alerts to the team members when a task is assigned to them. Additionally, team members can better view subtasks and understand which person is responsible for them. It improves accountability.

3. Prioritization

With too many tasks running in parallel, it is challenging for managers to prioritize the tasks. Some tasks are dependent on others, and some have shorter deadlines. Managers need to assign these based on the complexity, deadline, and available resources.

Task management tools help automate and control task prioritization, deciding what tasks need to be completed at the earliest. The tools enable classifying these tasks into subtasks, dependent tasks, and priority tasks. The software also automatically alerts relevant people about what tasks are on priority and need immediate attention. Moreover, all the stakeholders can view the task prioritization on the software platform anytime as required.

4. Status Tracking

Task status tracking is the most common and essential task management software feature. An abundance of tasks need to be efficiently controlled, optimized, and granularly monitored at all stages. Task management systems offer task-tracking tools that help managers and teams keep track of the status of each task and identify the bottlenecks. They can thus take appropriate measures to correct the issues and ensure task completion.

5. Security

Data security is essential for every business, be it for business data or client information.

Manual data management is prone to security breaches as data is stored on multiple platforms where various people have the authority to access it.

Moreover, it becomes challenging to grant selective, role-based access to people. When sensitive data is lost or altered, it can irreversibly damage the company’s growth and reputation.

manual data management by a man reviewing charts and graphs on paper

Task management systems allow the storage of all information on a unified platform, making it more accessible for administrators to monitor security effectively. Task management software provides robust, multi-layer data security features with data encryption and role-based access controls.

The system administrator can centrally control security permissions, provide data access to relevant/specific personnel, and restrict others from accessing or modifying it. Additionally, the software records and helps track which user has accessed or altered data, making it easier to detect unauthorized access and take appropriate action.

6. Communication and Collaboration Tools

Task management software provides comprehensive document management, communication, coordination, and collaboration tools like contact management, calendar management, synchronous editing, messaging, and more. These tools help enhance team collaboration and streamline task management processes. Everyone agrees: task management systems momentously improve project management (after all, projects are comprised of tasks), task efficiency, team productivity, and overall performance.

7. Notifications

As discussed above, task management systems automatically issue notifications and alerts as needed to all the task stakeholders when there is a need for action, for example, task assignment notification, deadline alert, etc. The software also allows customized email templates for personalized notifications.

8. Analytics and Reporting

Modern task management systems provide business intelligence (BI) tools, analytics, and reporting. These features help managers make informed decisions to save time, costs, and resources. Analytics offers valuable insights into possible outcomes based on past data, while the reporting feature helps generate customized reports on performance, issues, and shortcomings requiring immediate attention.

9. Integrations

The right task management system is the one that allows seamless integration with your existing systems as required, for example, CRM, HR, and accounting systems. Without these integrations, it’s difficult to share data across these platforms. Top task management solutions allow all the necessary integrations without hassle, out of the box.

Wrapping Up

Task management systems are tools that help organizations/businesses streamline and control the complete task management lifecycle. The software helps prevent delays, eliminate manual errors to improve accuracy, enhance communication, achieve better coordination, ensure data security, increase process efficiency, and achieve employee satisfaction. Task management software helps boost overall business productivity.

As Jim Rohn rightly stated, “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”

So, save time, resources, streamline workflow, witness perfect task management, and boost profits by choosing the right task management software for your business.

5 Smart Project Management Moves That Will Boost Your Cash In 2020

Posted on February 7, 2020June 15, 2023 by Gene Marks

There’s a great British show on Netflix called Grand Designs. The show follows individuals that create and then build their own sustainable, environmental-friendly, aesthetically pleasing homes from the ground up – many of which are incredibly innovative and beautiful. These people are just normal, everyday people who want to do something special. They have a vision and passion and want to build the perfect home.

But unfortunately, most of them are lousy project managers.

Why do I say that? Because many times (not every time), their projects almost always blow up. Things take longer and cost more. There are headaches, fraught nerves, increased stress and occasionally a profanity or two. Most of the projects work out in the end. But they’re almost always tumultuous and painful.

I wish I could give these good people some advice. Because, after running information technology projects for more than 20 years and making all the mistakes they’ve made, I’ve learned a few things. Things that if I knew earlier would’ve saved me a lot of cash. For example…

Know all your costs

And know them before you start a project. I mean, REALLY know them – and use a good project management software to track them. Too many people on Grand Designs went into their home building projects on a wing and a prayer. That’s very risky. Don’t make too many assumptions. Don’t “hope” that things will work out. Price out whatever time, materials, technologies, and other overheads will be required to do this project. Use software to crunch the numbers. Good project managers don’t walk into projects with many – if any – unknowns. Your most important project is planning the project. By the time the project gets underway, there should be very few – if any – surprises.

Be a manager, not a doer

Frequently when things got out of control, one of the Grand Designs people would inevitably say “I’ll just do this myself.” Some were even so bold as to figure in their own handiwork as part of the job. This is usually a mistake. No offense to these people, but few of them are carpenters or know a trade. They’re tinkerers and you don’t want a tinkerer doing work on your project. As a project manager, your job is to…well…manage. Let others more experienced and better than you do the work they’re trained to do. You just keep a close eye on them, OK?

Avoid scope creep

During every project I’ve worked on, people come up with new things they want. And that’s cool. But the scope is the scope. If you start adding things to your existing project you’re going to find yourself navigating off-course and running up unnecessary costs. Stick to the project plan and don’t divert from it, unless there’s a serious gap. Anything to be added should be listed separately and a “phase 2” can be done in the future.

Have clear and measurable objectives

My most successful projects have had an end. A clear and measurable finish. A deliverable that can be determined without any debate. For the people on Grand Designs it’s not just the completion of the house, but a house that can be comfortably inhabited and approved by local zoning authorities. When managing a team on a project each member must have the specific things they are responsible for achieving and payment or other incentives needs to be reliant on achieving those deliverables.

Use cushions

I don’t care how long you’ve been managing projects or how smart you are, you’re not going to know everything. There’s something someone’s not telling you. There’s rot under the boards or a bug in the software. That’s why you’ve got to be conservative. It never ceases to amaze me how the people building homes on Grand Designs cut things so close to the edge – and then are oftentimes forced to go over the edge because their costs and timelines were just too aggressive. Go ahead: pad your numbers and timeline a bit. Everyone does it, and they do it for a reason.

Will following this advice lead to a successful project? Frankly, yes. I’ve seen plenty of smart people do these things with great results. Unfortunately, not on Grand Designs. But then again, that’s what reality TV is all about, right?

How to Increase Your Project Profitability

Posted on June 11, 2019April 26, 2023 by Scott Hammer

The eternal struggle: finishing projects on time, within budget, and making sure they’re profitable. Even with project management software, a skilled manager, and a dynamite team all working within carefully structured tasks and deadlines, there are always obstacles.

Scopes change. Orders change. Members of your project team get sick and miss work. No matter what industry your organization works in, Murphy’s Law probably applies when it comes to projects.

The numbers speak for themselves. An article in Gallup notes, “A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which reviewed 10,640 projects from 200 companies in 30 countries and across various industries, found that only 2.5% of the companies successfully completed 100% of their projects.”

What about time and budget? Gallup notes that a study by Harvard Business Review found that “average [project cost] overrun was 27%, but one in six projects had a cost overrun of 200% on average and a schedule overrun of almost 70%.”

That’s because projects, though varying in size and complexity, have a lot of moving parts. Finishing projects on time and within budget requires not only successful management of what’s known, but also having the agility to adapt to unknowns.

As with most organizational success factors, access to information is key. And the best way to access all of your company’s information at a glance? The best business management ERP.

Information, with respect to projects, isn’t just about who is working on what. In fact, many different kinds of data, from multiple sources within a company, comprise a project’s life cycle.

In this article, I’ll discuss what’s really involved in successful project management, the roles multi-divisional data play throughout project timelines, and how integrated software solutions go beyond the limitations of traditional project management software.

Project Tools: The Roundup

You can tell a lot about what’s popular in project management from some of the popular software products on the market. Gantt charts, task management systems, and agile team communication are all central to keeping your workforce aligned and aware of project status.

Indeed, consistency and efficiency in the way work is assigned, assessed, and communicated are all essential to project vitality.

But you’re not interested in just managing, right? You want projects to be profitable.

For more profitable projects, you need complete transparency, data access, and streamlined workflows. That means having a system robust enough to handle the complexity of each project stage.

Beyond Basic: Essential Project Management Tools

Any project management software worth the price tag must be able to cover the basics. But nearly every application does that.

Here are some of the necessary tools you should expect from your project management software.

Skill Management

Most projects require employees with special skills. But some are more specialized than others. From CPA services to someone certified to use specific machinery (a jackhammer, for example). Making sure you have the right person assigned to the right task is integral to project management.

However, those tools aren’t always included in typical project management software. You should be able to pull data from your HR division to give you more insight on which team members are best suited to project tasks.

Scheduling

When planning a project, you need to know who is available— and when they’re available. You also need to quickly see your team’s workload so you can properly schedule assignments.

But if your calendar isn’t connected to your project management software, you’re going to spend far too much time tracking down schedules and trying to make them fit into your project timeline. Having a dynamic, fully transparent scheduling tool can help you make sure you’ve accounted for every detail.

Time Off

You can’t easily schedule a project without easy access to employee time off. What if members of your project team are scheduled for vacation during a major deadline? Knowing that, and being able to make adjustments within the same software system, will prevent your projects from being delayed.

Order Management

As you’re planning your project, you’ll naturally ask yourself a version of the following questions: How much of the budget can we use on design? How much was approved by the customer for this construction labor?

No matter what industry you’re in, you want to make sure you don’t go over your budget. Having the visibility to see exactly what your customer ordered and approved will provide the details you need to allocate hours and resources on tasks and spending.

Communication and Visibility

There are many ways to communicate with your customers throughout a project’s lifecycle. But few of them are quick, simple, and built into the software you’re using. What if messages get lost, and you’re late replying to a customer?

Keeping your customers informed of their project status is the best way to limit risk and confusion. It’s also how you develop a good, long-term working relationship. In fact, if you’ve waited for your customer to inquire about a project, you’re probably not being proactive enough.

Having a customer portal allows your customers to see their project status without ever having to ask. They can also view messages, respond to them, and pay their invoices directly through the system. Customer portals provide a much cleaner way to communicate— you eliminate confusing email chains and the potential for missed messages.

Contract Management

Having the ability to upload a PDF contract is nice, but that’s a far cry from instant approval. Imagine submitting an order, having your contact review and approve it, sign it electronically, and store that information with the order and project.

There could be a great deal of interaction involved in getting orders approved. But there doesn’t have to be. With proper contract management software built into your system, you’ll easily be able to see what was ordered. You’ll also see whether (and when) the customer approved the order. All without the annoying back-and-forth.

Budget Commitments

A lot of project management software applications allow you to track your overall budget. But shouldn’t you really know how much money your customer approved for specific items, milestones, or project stages?

When you have integrated accounting and project management software, you’ll get a drill-down level of insight that’s very difficult to collect from separate applications. Seeing committed budgets in the form of invoices and line items can help you understand what has been paid for and plan for working hours to accommodate that payment.

Expense Tracking

Similar to your budget commitments, you should have the ability to track expenses down to specific levels of detail. For example: do you need to record expenses for specific job tools? Do you need to know how much you’re paying subcontracted labor?

Being able to track and bill for these expenses is a huge advantage in managing your project profitability.

You should also know when a customer paid for your service without them having to tell you. Closing a milestone is one thing, but being able to receive a payment against an invoice is entirely another. When you’re trying to understand how much income you’ve received, an integrated accounting and project management solution is essential.

Profitability Tracking

Understanding profitability isn’t just the core question: how much money did we make from this project? It can also give you insight about how (and whether) you should approach projects like it in the future. A good report can help make sure that no expense, billable time, or payment falls through the cracks.

In short, your profitability helps you make decisions about what’s working best for your company, and it gives you the data to understand why. It can help you learn from your mistakes, go after winning projects, and adjust your processes for the future.

A detailed profitability report needs to pull in your financial data, which is why a solution that integrates your accounting and project management functionality is ideal.

In short, your profitability helps you make decisions about what’s working best for your company, and it gives you the data to understand why. It can help you learn from your mistakes, so that your total expenses couldn’t harm your net income much, go after winning projects, and adjust your processes for the future.

Document Collaboration

Throughout the course of managing a project, you’re going to need easy, centralized access to documents. Whether you’re requesting a blueprint, compliance doc, or financial record, you should be able to access it in seconds.

Traditional project management software is unlikely to store all of the documentation you need to access your project information. And it’s not just a question of access. You’ll need to share documents with your team throughout the project timeline. Centralized document storage helps you make sure your team can stay on the same page as your project progresses.

Conclusion: Project Management Centric ERP Software

Successful projects are both profitable and timely. To properly manage and account for every variable, you’ll need integrated resources that go beyond the limited scope of typical project management software.

Otherwise, you’re likely to spend half your time trying to track down information from accounting, human resources, sales, and whatever other sources of data comprise your projects. Being able to communicate within a single system that streamlines information is the best way to be completely in control of your projects.

When you’re evaluating management software, make sure you consider everything that affects the scope, profitability, and timeliness of your projects. When you find a solution that can account for all of them, you’ll know that you have chosen wisely.