Improve profit and avoid bottlenecks with these three resource management tips

Inefficiencies can be a business owner’s worst nightmare, especially if these inefficiencies blow out the budget and decrease profit. For agencies, this can be especially troublesome as they manage many different ongoing projects. Furthermore, the time it takes to keep track of all the loose ends can end up costing the agency just from a resource management perspective, let alone the wasted time from inefficiencies that can creep into these projects.

With the right resource management and planning tool, this problem can be easily minimized. Agencies can reach their full potential through effectively allocating human capital and material resources to get the best work done in the shortest amount of time

Function Point has identified three ways to avoid bottlenecks and improve profits:

1. Real-time tracking and time resource management

Any project manager can tell you that they need real-time insights into their team members’ schedules and pipelines. It’s too late to make changes to project loads by the time timesheets come in at the end of the project. By having a deep understanding of resource management and visibility into how time is spent, you can easily identify whether a project is set to be profitable or not.

Function Point’s agency management software can track the time staff members spend on projects and day-to-day tasks in real time, to give project managers an instant overview. This bird’s eye view can let managers see if something needs to change before it’s too late. They can then make the necessary changes while the project is still underway, potentially saving profits and increasing efficiency.

2. Efficiently allocate and use resources

Managing an agency profitably requires efficient resource management, including people and materials. Without an overarching view of resource allocation, it can be tough to tell whether your employees are at capacity or not. This means you may have to gamble when you allocate projects, which can cause employees to deliver substandard work or burn out due to having too much work. Likewise, it can also mean that some employees are not at capacity, leading to boredom and stagnation for those workers, as well as inefficiency and higher costs for the business.

Furthermore, if you get to a point where you need to throw more resources at a project to get it done, this can easily skew budgets and timelines, leading to overworked employees, unhappy clients, and unprofitable jobs.
Function Point can help you overcome this problem with agency management software that provides insights into staff utilization numbers such what they are billing in real time, giving you instant information on whether you are allocating resources effectively.

3. Correctly forecast team resources

Transparency is key when you are looking to forecast for upcoming projects. Without it, it’s impossible to accurately determine whether your agency has enough staff for high quality work to continue, or if additional hires are needed, whether that is in-house or outsourced. Transparency can also minimize miscommunication between project managers and team members, since it gets everyone on the same page. And, if there’s a disconnect between the time it should take to complete a task and the time it’s actually taking, a transparent system can help you identify why that disconnect exists and how to address it.

Failing to forecast correctly can be costly, eating into profits, and it can damage your agency’s reputation if it leads to poor quality work, errors, or missed deadlines.

Function Point’s software shows employees’ overall workload, letting project managers understand where and when additional resources may be required.

Contact Function Point today to book a free demo and see how easily you can overcome resource planning bottlenecks in your agency and operate at maximum efficacy.