In the first part of this two part series, we looked at various practices in project planning and resource planning and their impact on profits. We saw the ways in which profits can leak and how to prevent them using PSA the software.
In this part two of the series, let us look into various challenges that emerge while tracking and reallocating resources during execution of projects. Let us see how the Kytes PSA software for IT companies helps to protect your organisation’s revenues and profits.
Take any IT services project. During its execution, things don’t always go as planned. Many changes can happen during the execution of the project. For example, some activities may need more resource-hours or may need a different mix of resources as compared to what was planned. Also, some resources may not be available.
Difficulties due to standalone applications in various departments
If your organisation is using standalone applications for project estimation, resource management, revenue recognition and billing, and financials, it Is difficult to track availability and demands for resources for all the live projects. It is difficult to track actual costs vs. estimated costs. Both these reasons make it hard to take good quality resource allocation decisions. Such situations increase the risks of incurring higher costs and reduced profits.
Kytes IT PSA helps to make high quality resource allocation decisions
The Kytes IT PSA is integrated with various enterprise applications like opportunity management, estimations, proposal making, project management, resource management, project financials, revenue recognition and billing etc. The resource management group and project managers can access actual information on availability and demand forecasts of resources.
The IT PSA also provides actual project costs against originally estimated costs.
Using the above, the resource management group and project managers can make informed decisions taking into account the availability of resources and likely impact on project profits. The Kytes thus helps in preventing potential profit leakages.
Availability of planned resources is critical -how the IT PSA can help
The availability of planned resources is critical to satisfy the client needs and to stay within project budgets and profits. If certain resources are not available, you may have to use costlier resources to meet project timelines and billing requirements. This can lead to a lot of profit leakages.
The Kytes IT PSA has a facility of soft and hard resource booking. You can use it to take proactive steps based on the PSA’s built-in resource competency analysis and demand forecast tools. Your talent acquisition group gets early warnings of emerging shortages of resources.
Revenue leaks and revenue losses -the IT PSA comes to your help
Employees leaving your organisation can cause revenue to be lost when standalone spreadsheet based resource information and time sheets are used, and if replacements are not allocated in time. The missed revenues can remain hidden for sometime. Missed revenues means loss of profits. The Kytes PSA flags this in time and enables replacement actions.
Furthermore, spreadsheet based timesheet data may not be captured while billing. Such revenue leakage gets avoided when you use Kytes IT PSA software. The software uses data from integrated timesheet to flag resources used but not billed.
How the Kytes IT PSA reduces conflicts in resource allocation and prevents misallocations
The IT PSA presents a single version truth for the entire organisation taking into account all running projects, billed resources, allocated but non-billed resources , and benched resources. This facilitates fact-based decision making about resources. It also provides guidance to the talent acquisition team. Thus, rational resource allocation prevents wastages and leaking of profits.
Summary
Allocation of resources based on multiple versions of truth residing in various project teams and with the head of deliveries and in departments like HR and Finance is often faulty. Misallocation of resources leads to wastage or misuse of critical resources, missed billing opportunities, and profit leakages. The Kytes IT PSA prevents such faulty allocation and helps avoid leakage of the organisation’s profits.
To know more or witness a demo of Kytes IT PSA software, please write to us at [email protected]
