Improve Project Success and Profitability by Automating Your Business Processes (Part 2 of 3)

Improve Project Success and Profitability by Automating Your Business Processes (Part 2 of 3)

“Within Professional Service Organisations up to 14% of employee time is spent looking for information”

Welcome back to part 2 (of 3) “Improve Project Success and Profitability by Automating Your Business Processes” where we will be looking at how by automating business processes can improve project profitability in professional service organisations. In part one we covered the areas of timeframe of project, client information updates, highlight pitfalls and invoicing and billing, to read part 1 (of3) click here. Part 2 will concentrate on eliminating manual processes, information flow, time management and invoicing. Remember in today’s challenging business environment it’s highlighted that there is an absolute necessity for accurate and up to date critical project and business data. Firms that automate and streamline their organisations business process are the ones with a significant competitive advantage.

Eliminating Manual Processes –

By eliminating manual and redundant process you are effectively improving employee response time, increasing efficiency, improving internal controls, reducing costs and creating more man hours.  To understand how eliminating manual processes can have a massive impact on your organisations bottom line please see the example below:

Reducing Administrative Overheads –

By reducing the amount of time non-billable staff spend on manual data entry and processing of time cards, invoices and reports this firm could save approximately £155,000 per year or £12,900 per month. Employees’ hours can now shift focus to actual billable work or other strategic initiatives.

Information Flow –

In this dark economic climate we are made to work harder and smarter to win and retain business. In order to do this we must treat information as the Holy Grail. Organisations need to look at the obstacles that stand in the way of information flowing throughout their firm and the accuracy of that information. By automating business processes you are effectively improving the flow of information throughout the organisation. This critical flow of information begins with the first contact with a prospective customer and continues through to delivery of the finished solution. When automating business processes organisations are improving the accuracy of their client data because it has come from one central source of collaborative knowledge, and not a manual driven process that may occur human error when manually imputing data into non automated and integrated systems.

Time Management –

In essence Time management is quite self-explanatory, it is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, when striving to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals complying with deadlines. By automating business processes management teams are empowered with a central pool of employee information and a real time overview of staff activities and utilisation levels. With an automated and integrated system that shows clear visibility of multi-disciplined organisation working on a variety of projects, you are effectively reducing the risk of over and underutilisation of staff.

Invoicing –

 It is imperative in today’s economy that organisations show value to clients with accurate billing and invoicing. Why? Because clients today expect to pay less money for the same services and solutions, but also scrutinise every penny that is charged for those services and solutions. The automation of business processes will automatically track all billable hours and expense transactions. This process then allows full transparity throughout the audit trail of billable hours and charges that comply with contractual agreements.

Today’s challenging business environment highlights the absolute necessity of accurate and up to date critical project and business data. Firms that automate and streamline their organisation’s business process are the ones with a significant competitive advantage. Stay tuned for the next installment of “Improve project Success and Profitability by Automating your Business Processes” or if you can’t wait click here to see the full article!