Can you guess the mantra of successful businesses? They are always looking for ways to streamline costs, eliminating waste, and thus enhancing their profitability levels.

The biggest constraint that an agency faces is the limited resources that they operate with – be it time, resources, or cost. For most organizations, resources constitute the major cost to the business.

And that is why they resort to lay-offs when they need to cut costs. So, for an agency to do efficient resource management, they primarily need to do effective people management. Also Visit everpure h 104 Australia.

This means knowing who is available, which resource will be the best for a task, and how to allocate projects to meet your goals. One way to resolve this is to implement resource management software.

Such a tool helps you with efficient resource planning, eliminate under or overutilization of staff, and achieve resource optimization.

What is Resource Optimization?

A set of processes used to match the resources in hand (human, financial, machinery, facility) with the organizational requirements to achieve the desired goals is called resource optimization.

So, how can you ensure that you are doing this? Resource optimization means you need to achieve the established goal within a predetermined timeline and budget and with minimal resources. To efficiently use the available resources in executing a project, you need to:

• Have a clear and shared vision of the organizational goals. 
• Eradicate multitasking and enhance effectiveness in the tasks.
• Recognize all the limitations and keep some buffer time to take care of any deviations.
• Manage the operational milestones of the project efficiently. 
• Used statistical analysis or tools for effective project and resource management.

A Resource Management Tool Improves your Agency’s Resource Management

1. Efficient resource scheduling

The first step to start any project is planning for it in a detailed manner. So, what’s the next step after you have listed all the tasks and sub-tasks and the skills required to achieve those? Finding suitable or skilled resources to complete those tasks.

For that, you will have to find their availability and then assign the task. This process is known as resource scheduling. If you use a resource management tool, you can optimize the workload even before you allocate tasks to employees.

Thus, such a tool ensures that with resource optimization, none of your team members is overworked and has low productivity. This further ensures that there are no delays or budget overruns.

Thus, using the right resource management software makes resource scheduling a very easy process and optimizes the IT resources of the agency.

2. Categorize the resources that are in short supply and prioritize them

You would have heard of the 80/20 rule. According to this rule, 80% of your resource restraints or challenges happen because of 20% of your resources. Wondering how is that possible?

In other words, the top 20% of your resources are your best workers who are highly skilled and thus, are in high demand for multiple projects. Hence, you should first prioritize them.

Plan their projects, availability, and allocate them on tasks in such a way that all the constraints or delays are taken care of. However, you need to ensure that these 20% of people are not overburdened and enjoy the projects they do.

3. Reduce resource cost for your projects

You are doing seamless resource management if you are utilizing various resources effectively. Resources could be assets, human resources, facilities, or equipment.

If you want to reduce your overall operational costs and enhance productivity, then you must use the right resource management strategy. Here are a few tips to control your resource costs:

• Assign the right people to the suitable project at the right time with the help of enterprise scheduling.
• Create organization-wide visibility within the matrix organization to facilitate allocating cost-effective resources from any location globally.
• Reduce responsive planning and avoid last-minute hiring by using a resource management tool to do capacity planning.
• Ensure resource optimization by avoiding unnecessary hiring or firing costs by doing proper forecasting and utilizing the people on the bench.

4. Accurate resource utilization reports in real-time

As a project manager, if you track your team’s resource utilization, it will help you to avoid having any over-burdened or under-utilized resources. You will be able to distribute tasks or work equally within your team.

Which leads to employee satisfaction and better quality of deliverables. A resource management software measures your team’s utilization across various projects, and teams spread globally.

If you want to showcase your resource utilization numbers to the top management, you can simply pull out these reports in a few clicks. Also, as the data is updated in real-time, you will instantly know when any resource is free or is being allocated to a certain project, etc.

5. Safeguard your resources against any market volatility

The volatility has been impacting various businesses and organizations in the last few years. Now, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, organizations are unable to predict their growth or profitability in times to come.

In such a scenario, most businesses tend to end up taking reactive measures to save costs. For example, sudden layoffs, shutting some business units or stopping new initiatives. This strategy may seem beneficial in the short-term view but impacts your business sustainability negatively.

A resource management tool enables accurate capacity planning which helps to tackle any resource shortage problems proactively, it enables to plan for the future and utilize any resources that may be idle.

It also helps to create an on-demand workforce and reduce resourcing costs across the business.

6. Precise time tracking for smooth resource management

It’s not an easy task for project managers to track the time their resources are spending. Even the team members do not feel comfortable login their time or fill cumbersome spreadsheets.

However, reporting time in an accurate manner is very important for efficient resource management and resource optimization. By implementing the right resource management tool.

Project managers can make this process a lot simpler. It also helps to automate the time reporting process and you can easily pull out various helpful reports to know about the resource availability or utilization.

7. Resource Forecasting

If you want to optimize the resources at hand, the first step is to have a sound resource management plan. This includes planning for people, equipment, materials, and ensuring to stay cost-effective.

Resource forecasting enables you to forecast your future resourcing needs before any new project begins. In the planning phase of a project, you must consider implementing a resource management tool.

Such software can help in forecasting the project’s scope, challenges that come crop up, unforeseen costs, or any potential risks.

A project and resource management tool offer that visibility, and easy access to the complete list of resources and projects in one place, which helps in making the right resource forecasting decisions.

8. Correct any project deviations instantly

At times, even after detailed project planning, your projects can go off-track or there could be delays or cost overruns. To manage such unforeseen deviations effectively.

It’s important that you evaluate your risks properly. A good resource management tool helps in pulling out detailed reports and graphical dashboards that can help to recognize any deviations or risks.

The faster you spot these deviations; you can take corrections and actions to fix it. Quick action on correcting any deviations is also better for your project’s health and success.

9. Improves transparency and removes discrepancies

Resource optimization helps in formulating a definitive framework or structure that prioritizes all the critical tasks accurately. A resource management tool comes in handy to do resource planning, scheduling, allocation.

Resource optimization. Your team, stakeholders, and management can access all the utilization and productivity reports, dashboards, and project status using the resource management tool.

It also enables automated updates which happen in real-time, which fosters a transparent culture and ensures that everyone is on the same page. This eliminates any room for errors and discrepancies and enhances collaboration. 

10. Reduce administration costs

When businesses use spreadsheets for managing their resources, errors are bound to happen. Besides, it’s very cumbersome to use spreadsheets with a greater number of resources. This, in turn, adds up to the administration costs. In contrast, resource management software keeps all data in a centralized and up-to-date repository. You can track your entire resource pool in one view which cuts the administrative costs related to maintaining any out-of-date systems. That’s not all. A resource management tool helps to improve profitability by improving resource utilization, overall revenue and helps to cultivate better customer relationships. It’s better to choose an integrated resource management tool like eResource Scheduler that provides this type of visibility, control, and benefits.

Opt for the Best Resource Management Software

Enbraun’s flagship product named eResource Scheduler is a best-in-class resource management tool to achieve resource optimization. This tool comes in handy if you want to plan projects, schedule, or allocate resources.

Monitor their utilization or productivity, or track time. This Cloud-based software facilitates multiple users to share data and collaborate in real-time. Want to know the advantages this tool brings to the table for you? Book a free trial today.