3 Reasons Agencies Need Task And Project Management Software

In the middle of a busy week, the last thing you want to think about is updating the statuses of your projects, but you know it’s a crucial step to keeping your team on the same page. That’s why having an easy way to update all your Jobs at one time is a great advantage. Use the Editable List View at your next project update meeting to view your current Jobs, and then quickly change their status, delivery date, or add notes to them.  

I am currently in a part-time MBA program at Simon Fraser University and during my Information Systems Management class, I had an ‘a-ha’ moment about task and project management software. In his popular article, “IT Doesn’t Matter”, Nicholas G. Carr points out that as technology is widely adopted, it becomes more of a necessity than a strategic competitive advantage.

Why is this important for creative agencies in regards to managing projects and profitability? Well there are 3 reasons:

1.  Technology Is The Foundation Of Business

A business’ resources are critical to its success. When discussing business resources in creative agencies, people usually focus on the personnel. Due to this perspective, the importance of business technology (not creative technology) is often overlooked in the creative space. Particularly, around how technology like a task and project management software provides the structure to run an efficient and successful business.

As technology is adopted, it provides an advantage to the early adopters. However, the technology becomes ubiquitous over time and this is no longer a competitive advantage. It becomes a necessity to do business. The tide will turn and agencies that don’t have a system in place will be at a disadvantage. This is a very real issue in the creative industry as agencies are squeezed to provide more output for less money and thus agencies are seeking technologies that can help them be effective.

2.  Data Is King

We live in the world of ‘big data’. Agencies are starting to provide data to their clients on the impact of their work, but creative firms are falling behind by not having internal data on their own business. Technology systems, like task and project management software, can provide you the platform you need to collect critical data and gain insight into your business’ health. As a result, this allows you to make solid strategic business decisions.

For example, when an agency can see the profitability of a project by client, project type, and account manager, they can make informed resourcing decisions — from determining which clients to let go and what type of projects to pursue. The data that resource planning software brings to the forefront can provide an edge, but as this technology gets adopted, agencies will need this type of data just to keep up with the competition and stay competitive.

3.  Technology Can Keeps Costs Down

With the rapid growth in the technology sector, technology spending has been widely unmanaged. Creative businesses have found that they are using many products that take up too much time to manage and there are too many individual costs. In Carr’s article, he suggests that the smartest users do not go after the cutting edge solutions. They focus on the software solutions that have been proven successful over time and where early adopters have paid for the cost of experimentation.

The best solution and the most affordable solution is where the cost is shared and that is why SaaS (Software as a Service) has become so popular. SaasS allows all users to share the cost of the continual development of an in-house custom solution.

Function Point Productivity Software (fp.) has been in business for 18 years and is a great example of an all-in-one solution that can help creative agencies reduce the number of software services they use for a reasonable price. Function Point also shares the cost of the progression of the product over the vast number of users. Book a free personalized demo with one of our task and project management software experts, and we’ll show you exactly how we can help your creative agency thrive.