Simple Resource Management Software You'll Actually Use

Having simple resource management software sounds too good to be true.

To be able to quickly add resources (contractors, equipment, etc.), and define the availability of each resource sounds like a complicated task. In the past, managers had their own pen and paper system for managing these resources. If you’ve ever worked in the restaurant or retail business and had a shift chart, it tends to look something like that -- a visual display of when people can work, and then filling them in when applicable.

But again, if you've ever worked in the restaurant business or retail, how many times were you scheduled on days that you listed as unavailable?

That's what we mean when we say resource management – the availability of your resources and assigning them to tasks only when they're able to complete them.

Thankfully, the days of pen and paper scheduling are almost gone, but larger businesses still struggle with managing resources in an organized way. That's where resource management software comes in. The real question is, what does having simple resource management software really provide for you? How can it affect your business and the decisions you make? All of these benefits can be distilled down to one word.

Power

It all comes down to power. Simple resource management software gives you the power to understand the resources you have access to. It should be able to tell you who's available, what they're working on, and when they're open for additional work.

This knowledge can help you make informed business decisions such as estimating a start date for a new project or knowing when you'll be able to take on new work.

If your staff is made up of contractors, each of them has their own set of schedules and skills. This can be very challenging to manage but if you had a resource management tool, you could quickly look to see who was available at any given time and determine if they possess the right skills for the task.

The equipment you use to get the job done is also subject to availability. Juggling the schedule of open equipment can be an art form of its own. Sometimes this equipment is mission-critical.

If you don't know when you can use it, then you're completing the project blindly. If someone is using it right at the moment you need it, you could be setting back the project by days or weeks. Being able to quickly see a high-level view of your equipments availability makes for better decisions.

The Foundation

Resource management creates a foundation that task management sits upon. The resources you have available will determine what you can do and when you can do it. Knowing this information is critical to any business.

Do you really want to be making guesses when it comes to setting milestones for projects? You can't provide your client with an accurate start and finish date without knowing who has time to work on their project.

Simple resource management software can save you time and money. It also helps you make money by keeping clients happy and by saving dough on unnecessary resources. It's the foundation that all other project tasks you perform sit upon.

One question still remains. Why haven't you tried a simple resource management platform like Allocate yet? Do you have any questions about the resource management process? We'd be happy to help so feel free to get in touch with us by email or by leaving a comment.

10 Ways Business Resource Management is Overlooked

The core problem in business resource management is not knowing who's doing what. No one's on the same page, time's being wasted and money is being spent to keep the whole charade going.

Wouldn't it be good to know where things may be overlooked so that you don't fall into the "time is money" cliche?

Below are 10 ways business resource management is overlooked.

1. Hiring

The entire hiring process can be filled with setbacks and useless meetings. Defining who's in charge of the hiring process puts the responsibility on a singular person.

2. Firing

The last thing you want is to have multiple people in charge of letting someone go. It's a topic that should be handled with care but as the saying goes, the only thing worse thing then firing someone is not firing.

3. Purchasing

Your company has multiple departments. Each may have its own purchasing power. Wouldn't it be great to know if another department has a piece of unused equipment that's needed by your department? It would! Simple resource management software can quickly gives you the entire scope of equipment you have at your disposal.

4. Project Management

It's always a best practice to assign different tasks to the team member with the right skillset. This introduces responsibility and accountability for the various tasks within a project. But how do you know who has the bandwidth for the new tasks? Do they have the right skill set required for the task? Resource management software give you this snapshot of team members at a moment's notice.

5. Equipment Management

If your company relies on equipment to get jobs done, it's easy to overlook which piece of equipment was checked out and when will it become available again. Do you have a system in place that can quickly see where everything is? Searching around for who has what is waste of time and money.

6. Sales Teams

Are your sales teams are constantly calling each other's leads? This a big problem that is aggravates potential clients and kills deals. Get everyone on the same page and to collaboratively make more money!

7. Client Management

What's going on with your current clients? At what stage are they into their project? This is information that is business critical and should be available to you at a moment's notice. Having this high level picture of how your clients are doing is a big deal.

8. Expenses

Keeping an eye on business expenses is one of the keys to success. Try reviewing your expenses during a weekly or monthly routine.

9. Workplace Efficiency

Are things getting done in the time you thought they would? Should you be billing for more hours? Keeping an eye on efficiency across the board (that includes you!) can make big a difference.

10. Business Intelligence

You've collected all of this data, but who's in charge of it? What methodologies, processes, and technologies are you using to process it? Are you spending money to collect this data? The data isn't good to anyone unless someone is responsible for to measure, organize and re-plan it.

These are just ten common areas that are often overlooked. What other places do you see resource management slipping? Let us know in the comments.

7 Business Resource Management Tips To Save You Money

Business resource management is part of the day-to-day management of running a business. And everything you do in your business, from the way you manage your time to the contractors you keep on payroll, have an effect on your monetary resources.
  • The way you pay your bills (payroll software, staff, etc.)
  • Receiving money from clients (invoicing, payment processing, etc.)
  • What you spend money on (contractors, supplies, etc.)
Understanding how to manage these assets can make or break you business. Below are seven business resource management tips to save you money. The order of importance may depend on your priorities:

1. Watch Out for Bank Fees

These days it seems like there's a bank fee for just about everything. Whether it's a fee for maintaining a monthly minimum or over-drafting your account, it's important to know what fees you may incur. Have your bank give you a list of fees. You may even want to switch banks if you feel like these are too high or unreasonable. If you have several business accounts with monthly fees and are only using a couple of them, close the extras.

2. Make It Easy for Clients to Pay You

Technically this is a money-making tip and not a money-saving tip. But, if you're making money aren't you also saving money?

Many businesses still don't take advantage of the number of payment services out there. These services (Paypal, Invoiceable, Harvest, etc.) make it easy for your clients to pay with debit and credit cards, and even automatically send invoices when they're late. These services often cost money and/or take a percentage of the amount charged, so be sure to read the fine print and use them wisely. The real benefit of these types of services is the increase in cash flow. The faster and more consistent, the better.

3. Stop Spending Money on Dining Out

It's fun to be the boss and take the team out for a meal. Businesses can get caught up spending needless amounts of money on food. Take a step back and think, do you really need to have Friday's lunch catered? Food is one of the worst, least deductible tax write-offs, so maybe instead of every week, you have Friday's lunch catered once a month. You could save $200-$500 a month! It's important to reward your team when they have worked really hard, but make sure it's a prize, not just an expected perk.

4. Go Easy on the Supplies

Purchasing pens, paper, copy machines and other miscellaneous supplies can get out of hand very quickly. Be strict about the budget you set for supplies. Think about what supplies you really need to do business. You may not need that $2000 copy machine after all.

5. Skip the Booth & Just Attend

Ok, it's cool to have a booth at your industry's biggest conference but they are a an infamously huge waste of money when done half-hearted and without a full-on lead-generating strategy. You essentially pay an exorbitant amount of money to have your team confined to one place during the show. At least part of your team always needs to be at the booth.

It's true that some networking may occur within the confines of your booth, but if you and your team were in five different places at once, you'd have better business development opportunities by not having to babysit the booth. Just going to a conference is expensive. Save thousands by skipping the booth and just attending. Be a bag sponsor if you want.

6. Set an Example

As the saying goes, "Be the change in the world". Culture within a company is set by executives but it's also set within individual departments and teams. Set the example for your team. Demonstrate how you use company resources and your team will follow.

7. Be a Better Scientist

"We've always done it this way because that's how we've always done it". That statement gets repeated at hundreds of businesses on weekly basis. Most businesses have forgotten how to experiment.

Every company is guilty. You have a repeatable process that works, you already have a relationship with one vendor. Why should you change any of it?

You should always be striving for the best, but the unknown may be better and cheaper. To start experimenting you only need to ask yourself this one question, "Is there a better way of doing this?". It could a faster way or a cheaper way. It could be as simple as using a new software tool to help give you better perspective of what your team is up to.

Be curious, try new things and you'll make discoveries that benefit your business by saving them time and money.

These seven business resource management tips are just the beginning. Every company is unique so we hope we've sparked your imagination. Business resource management is about getting creative with the way your company uses its time, money and effort.

What is Resource Planning?

What is resource planning? Good question. Depending on whom you're talking to, resource planning can mean something different to just about everyone. So for this article we'll just discuss resource planning in general terms.

A great way to think of resource planning is the organization of people, equipment and other critical assets to complete a task. This could be a task for school, organization or in the workplace. It's used for managing many simple tasks and also complex projects, like building a spaceship. Most of the time you won't need to plan out simple tasks and projects, but when things start to get complicated you'll be glad you had a simple to use resource planning tool like allocatehq.com.

Resource planning is most essential for when you're in charge of a time-sensitive project that requires a team of people, lots of equipment and has multiple phases before the project is complete. Below are few key areas resource planning can come into play. We'll be using a couple different real world scenarios to illustrate these points.

Gauging Bandwidth

Imagine you're the production director of a video production studio. You have been asked to submit a proposal for seven 30-second commercials in four weeks. This could mean a great deal of money to your firm, but does your company have the bandwidth to take on such a large short-term project?

Before submitting a proposal, you should probably find out what the availability of your production crew is, what production facilities are open and what equipment is unavailable. You need to have all of this information at your fingertips in a simple organized system.

Using a tool to manage all of these resources can help you determine which projects you have the bandwidth for. Because there's nothing worse than taking the time and resources to bid for project you can't complete because you overlooked what resources are available. This will save you time and money.

Avoid Losing Money & Making Clients Mad

A video production company is just one example of how a company can use resource planning in the discovery phase of a project.

Let's now pretend you're already knee deep into a project and you have a situation pop up where you need to act fast to keep everything running smoothly while keeping the client or customer off your back.

Pretend for a minute that you're now the construction site manager for the newest Dunkin' Donuts to be built in the great city of Providence.

You're three days away from the building being complete when one of your flat bed trucks breaks down.

This is a big problem. You have to deliver the Dunkin' Donuts sign for the outside of the building. This could keep the entire job from being complete for an extra couple of days if you have one single resource to transport that sign.

By more effectively planning your resources, you can reroute a secondary flat bed truck that was on its way back from another job site, preventing a needless delay and keeping your client pleased! And we all need another Dunkin' Donuts, right?

Keeping Contractors Happy

So you've saved the day in both your video production and construction companies but there is another area that resource planning can have a huge impact on. Keeping your contractors happy.

Much like a maitre d' in a restaurant, you need to spread the work around to keep your waiters (in your case, contractors) happy. Resource planning lets you know who's doing what and who's available to handle something new.

Steady work keeps contractors happy and more reliable and makes your organization run like a well-oiled machine. It makes business sense to use resource planning.

So we hope we answered your question. It's a topic that's near and dear to our hearts. How does resource planning fit into your workflow? How does it save you money? Lets us know in the comments!