Time Management Consulting 101
By Gregg Hall
You made the Choice
Increasing your company's profitability revolves around the focal point of numbers and the ability to access those numbers quickly to implement a plan to reduce internal costs while increasing project profitability. Understanding where an employee's time is spent and realigning that time as necessary to match the project at hand is a major step toward greater profitability.
Employee timesheets only go so far in providing the information you will need. Having an easy to access time management history allows your company to estimate with accuracy the man hours of a particular project, what that project will cost in labor and resources, the cost effectiveness of pricing as well as effectively quoting based on previous, similar projects. Viewing any one or all aspects of such time management numbers and how they correlate to one another gives a clear view to areas of time management improvement needs, which leads to greater profitability.
Problems?
You're up and running and the transition between your old programs and your new software was a relatively simple importation of your existing data. The software incorporated single server installation that allowed you to simply provide a URL to all your staff members and did not require a start from scratch because your company was already tracking manually.
It's all there right in front you. You have been time tracking but you're not able to access a report that shows you exactly what you want to see and how you want to see it. You need a company performance analysis and project analysis and you're not getting what you want in the way of workflow improvement. Now what?
Consulting 101
Of course you bought the very best software out there, right? Your software provider should be your time management software resource for time tracking and time management metrics. They should also provide expert consultants on an as needed basis for companies looking for time analysis studies or work flow improvement. These process improvement services use your time management software and should be discussed with your software consultant on an individual basis.
If you have truly purchased the very best in cutting edge software, then the very best training and consulting should be part of that purchase. When you and your employees have executed the implementation of the new software, done the web-based teaching materials and are still not getting the results you want in a particular area, it is time to call your consultant. Time Management Consulting 101 should be part of your software purchase. Your software company wants you to be successful in time management control, cost tracking data and time managing metrics, since your success is in direct correlation to their success. You should pick a software company based on the success their software has brought to others. This way when you use their software you can expect to be on their list of company success stories. Be sure to demand the best in software and a company with the highest standard of customer service.
Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as time managment software at http://www.dovico.com