Project Management

In a cutthroat market, where the competition is constantly on the attack to break into your market share, implementing a project-based system can give your organisation the necessary tools to be more efficient and agile.

However, rapidly changing consumer demands, technologies and other factors make it ever more difficult to generate a strategic advantage from projects, let alone develop one. Also since a large organisation can easily end up having to manage multiple projects at the same time, the new management paradigm can appear too complex.

What your company really needs is the expertise that can guide you starting from conception and planning, down through procurement and execution in order to maximise whatever resources you have. Each move must be well thought out so that there are clear goals and objectives as well as methods to achieve them.

Programme Management

Are you running multiple projects pointing to an overall strategic direction? Then you’ll need more than just a “scaled-up” version of project management to make sure every component’s work effort is well coordinated to achieve your enterprise’s desired outcomes.

Through our expertise in programme management, we’ll work with your stakeholders, executives and clients to achieve the following:

Design a well-articulated management structure and clearly define decision-making roles & responsibilities – This will ensure decisions are made rapidly with zero to minimal overlapping issues and to promote a unified, well-synchronised advance towards the common objective.
Set objectives then make sure they are met by guiding your key personnel in coordinating activities across projects.
Design or utilise existing financial models such that they adhere to your enterprise’s financial policies.
Develop procedures for reporting expenditures specific to the programme.
Establish the programme infrastructure, including
- The appropriate technical environment and tools (e.g. hardware, software, communication, and other IT-related items)
- IT staff and administrators
Evaluate your enterprise’s current IT architecture to determine whether it will suffice to achieve your objectives. If it doesn’t, propose options you can take to meet what is required.
Plan out activities that should take place in different levels in the organisation.
Implement a periodic review of the programme progress as well as of interim results to ensure everything is aligned with the strategic outcome.

Programme and Project Reviews

Whether we’ve helped you set up your programme or you did it on your own, time will come when you’ll need to know whether everything is going as planned. If it appears like the entire programme is going smoothly, chances are, something’s going awfully wrong somewhere. Remember, even the most well-planned projects and programmes are still under the mercy of unforeseen variables.

We’ve got highly specialised reviews for either projects or an entire programme. We’ll be able to provide you answers to questions like:

Are all projects aligned with the programme’s intended direction?
Are the people working on your projects as focused with the business rationale as they have been with meeting deadlines and utilising resources?
Where are your risks and exposures? How can they be remedied?
Is the project viable at all?

We understand how your staff would want to function normally as quickly as possible. Rest assured, our programme and project reviews are conducted swiftly and efficiently so that both interruptions and oversights are brought to a minimum.

After we’re done, you can expect a detailed quantitative assessment of your programme and/or projects’ status.

Basically, we’re not here to find mistakes; we’re here to help you find ways to correct them. If a project rescue is required, we’ll be the first to lend a hand.

Project Rescue

Believe it or not, many of our clients approached us not before or during their project’s planning stages. But rather, after having gone through sloppy execution, when they end up losing control. In other words, we’re usually at the receiving end of the distress signal, after they’ve punched the panic button.

While obviously this isn’t the ideal time to seek the aid of any expert because it means you’ve incurred unnecessary losses already, all is not yet lost. If the appropriate remedial actions are taken in a timely manner, you can still achieve highly acceptable end results.

In fact, in most of our experiences with project rescue operations, we’ve been able to put projects back on track – just the way the planners wanted them to be. We’ll also help you devise airtight strategies to prevent your project from going astray again.

At the end of our project rescue,

You’ll regain complete control
Milestones will be reached as planned
Requirements will be accomplished, and
The project will be realigned with ideal business directions

Project Governance Processes

Constructing a firm underlying structure is essential in any organisation. So before we’ll institute project management, we’ll do the following first.

Set up a PMO or Project Management Office to ensure, among others, that
- Utilisation of facilities, budgets, technical support and other resources will be well coordinated
- Work products can be tracked and reviewed
- Issues regarding methodology and processes will be given appropriate attention
- Training can be organised
- Project management discipline be instilled in the IT department
Establish a steering committee to oversee the implementation of IT and business strategies
Fill up slots for a project manager, IT executive and a business sponsor and define the roles of each
Infuse project management practices to all affected units of the enterprise

Establishing PMOs, steering committees and other management structures is the easy part. Many organisations spend so much in order to create the structures related to project management, only to find out later that the effort has been all for naught. That’s why we won’t end there. Our objectives will therefore include the following:

To plant and cultivate an environment appreciative of project governance i.e. one that does not project it as just a bunch of bureaucratic processes and protocols.
To establish an organisational culture that starts at the top.
To make everyone involved understand that the power of project governance still lies in the hands of those who will ultimately implement it.

A project-driven enterprise is never propelled by a single project. Since multiple projects require a more complex governing structure, you’ll need to understand the intricacies of programme management.

Check our similar posts

Recognizing Your Carbon Footprint

Countless times we have heard of the term ?carbon footprint?. Perhaps we have seen and heard it on TV or read it in newspapers, magazines and published articles. Indeed, it has been an expression familiar to everyone as it is always associated with climate change, carbon emissions, global warming, pollution and other environmental issues. Carbon footprint is real. It exists and, in fact, continues to affect the world we live in.

Defining Carbon Footprint

Two essential words comprise the term carbon footprint. Fundamentally, ?carbon? means the carbon dioxide circulating in the atmosphere. It is also the general word used for other greenhouse gasses emitted into the air. On the other note, ?footprint? refers to impact or effect.

Think about the footprints people leave on the beach sand upon walking on the shore. That is exactly what carbon footprint is like. It’s about the impact humans leave on the earth in the form of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Calculating Your Personal Carbon Footprint

The food we eat, products we use, vehicles we ride on and electricity we consume emit carbon dioxide. In fact, our activities, lifestyle, homes, and countries contribute to climate change. And carbon footprint is the best estimate we can get of the full impact our doings affect the earth. It quantifies the amount of our carbon emission. With this, knowing how to calculate your personal carbon footprint is important.

There are various standards in calculating one?s carbon footprint. There is the so-called ?lifestyle assessment? and the input-output analysis. Lifestyle assessment works by adding up all the feasible emission pathways while the input-output analysis involves determining the total emissions of a particular country, dividing it by the carbon-emitting sectors and estimating the overall emissions of each sector. The input-output analysis makes sure that no emission pathway is missed out.

Calculating your carbon footprint manually is an effective way for you to understand your emissions better. You just need a lot of patience to learn how each footprint is generated. Moreover, there are also several resources online that can help you calculate your carbon footprint. Online carbon calculators are abundant across the web. To make your life simpler, you can opt to try those online calculators and easily determine your carbon emissions. However, such calculators vary in scope. So make sure that the online carbon calculator, you choose, is one that?includes emissions both direct and indirect.

Avoiding Toe Prints

A toe print is a portion of a footprint. Sometimes, people are misled in their calculations because they only get a carbon toe print instead of a footprint. The idea is that, you should cover a smart scope of your carbon emissions. Not only measuring a portion, but the whole.

Say for example, running a conventional car. The carbon emitted from the car is not only the fuel combustion from the diesel or petrol.? Likewise, the carbon released as the gas was processed and transported to your nearby gasoline station is also an addition to your carbon footprint. If you do not understand this, you will end up calculating your direct emissions while neglecting the indirect ones.

Be wise in calculating your carbon footprint. And when in doubt, whether you are an individual or a business entity, you should seek help from experts who can do it right.

Contact Us

(+353)(0)1-443-3807 – IRL
(+44)(0)20-7193-9751 – UK

Field service and improved visibility

A manager is someone who has control over a company. They are given the responsibility of overseeing what the company does and making important decisions. The manager is the most important person in the empire and needs to be in the know at all times. Not what happened a day ago but in real-time and from any place.

Information is necessary for this to happen. It needs to be concise, brief and straightforward. Ideally, access to job status, location information, customer information, notifications and location information should be on the palms of their hands.

To sum it all up, there should be fluid communication among personnel in the field. Information should be accessed easily from one place as it flows to another to maintain steady two-way communication. This is possible with automation meaning that no amount of data will be left unseen or unused because of paperwork that was never handed over or looked into, reducing the chance of misinformation or missing information to a minimum.

Ways improved visibility will help your business through Field Service

Organisations using field services will agree that improved visibility has more business benefits and the real question is what aspect needs improving rather than discussing the benefits.

Real-time visibility

Managers need to be in the know from anywhere at any time. The manager needs information about the company. The need not to be physically present to have an idea of what’s going on. They should know everything at all times, from what was planned for the day to real-time events.

All this information should be easily accessed from one central point and should contain everything about the company and other relevant information.

Extending the back office into the field

This two-way communication is virtually irreplaceable. At any time, the information should flow among technicians in the field and those in the back office. This will help to have a better idea of how to manage the workload and come up with solutions to some work-related issues.

Everyone in the team should be informed and be up to speed about real-time events. Keeping everyone updated improves visibility because they can make updates and decisions based on the kind of information they get.

No more lost paperwork

Managing paper trail can be quite a hassle for organisations. With tons of workload, there can be many delays meaning that some information might be missed or forgotten. People might also choose not to turn up for work for days on end and can affect how much info is processed. Some work can be left undone, and work not invoiced.

When organisations use field service management services, information is fed only once and everything else is done automatically. Say goodbye to lags or relying on last month?s data. Work will move faster because people will have more time to focus on important things rather than chasing an endless paper trail.

Business intelligence

Field service management technology will let you know what is being done in the field and with such an abundance of data, will make sound decisions for the business.

Every decision is hinged on cold facts. Information needs to be easily accessed and filtered into the right categories so that sound business decisions are made from the collected data.

Growing revenue

The abundance of real-time information and improved visibility can determine whether a business will grow or not. Each piece of information can show trends that are critical for any business to improve. Trends show how each sector is doing and sheds more light into specific areas that need a total overhaul. This may include improving customer service, products on retail or hiring more technicians.

Without information, a company is one step closer to going out of business. Every action should be geared to increase the revenue and this starts by making the right choices.

Visibility when working offline

Working offline is an issue that can affect visibility. Sometimes agents will need to work in areas that have little network coverage or are deep down working in tunnels or are around heavy machines and turbines. Field service solutions are built for the mobile environment and for workers who may find themselves in non-connected areas so that they can still use their device while offline. This makes sure that there is no loss of information while working in-field

Time-saving

Certainly, business is constrained to its environments and if the demand changes it should prove to be flexible enough to adjust to changes as they happen. Field service solutions operations like schedule need to update instantly. Once activities start rolling, nothing should create lags in the schedule so that operations flow seamlessly at all time.

Field workers can then make updates and document changes easily on the job site directly on their device by using responsive site menus, drastically saving time while feeding data and complete orders.

Improved customer service

It is not a clich? to say that the customer is always right. With real-time information, both field service and back-office technicians can improve customer relations and satisfaction. With a unified system of sharing information like the ERPs and CRMs, the field officer can know more about specific clients, their history and other data to know more about what should be done in current and future orders. This means that better decisions will be made for each customer.

How improved visibility benefits different parts of the organisation

Improved visibility in all areas of the business makes information more accessible. Here are some of the benefits that various sects of a business can get from improved visibility.

? The business owner
The manager owns the company and can access all information with just a single tap. A lot of data can be used to analyse the health of the venture. This includes revenue, inventory, customer surveys, employee hours, invoices and customer data.
Profitability is increased by putting more emphasis on customer satisfaction and improving the quality of end products and services.

? The service manager
The service manager can see what is going on in the field in real-time, and look into measures that can improve the productivity of staff members in various departments.
And with workflow automation, time-saving is at the maximum because there is less paperwork consequently improving scheduling and job completion rates.

? Service administrator/ dispatcher
For the team in the office, they can assign tasks faster. Scheduling is automatically done and updated in real-time. It eliminates the need for paperwork and leaves more time to be productive on other errands.

? The field technician
Improved visibility for a field worker means that they can do their best in any task. They can share or get critical information about orders and customers. This drastically improves job completion rates and customer satisfaction.

? HR
Live information can be used to track certain orders, the time it takes to complete orders, and the number of staff required in the organisation. Such data can be used in HR to reduce payroll errors and erroneous overtime costs.

? Finance
Field service management software can also benefit the finance team by automation of invoices. A work order can be tracked from start to the end and invoiced immediately to retain faster payments. Relevant data can be used to track revenue and expenditures, and costs.

Real-time visibility gives a company many solutions to manage the workload. In the end, visibility is also useful in increasing revenue and a smooth transition of information for the company.

What is Servitisation?

In the current generation, innovation has transformed industries, businesses, economies, and livelihoods. Those who’ve accepted to embrace the changes have prospered and remained afloat and relevant in their respective industries.?

However, failure to embrace change has seen companies like Blockbuster pushed out of business by more innovative and technology-oriented companies like Netflix.?

What does this tell you?

That the only way to stay in business, despite the many challenges your business could be facing, is to remain alert to the dynamic demands of customers, many of which are dictated by technological advancements.?

So, if you’re a manufacturer and you’re keen on diving deeper into technology to stay on top of the game and beat your competition, you must also be expectant of the fast-approaching servitisation-centred economy. Companies like Rolls Royce that have already embraced servitisation are making great gains in their areas of expertise.?

What is Servitisation?

Servitisation can be defined as the transformation of a manufacturing firm from the mere offering of products to the market to providing innovative and invaluable services alongside their products. By so doing, the sale becomes an ongoing engagement and not a one-off event. Cranfield University professors call it “the innovation of an organisation’s capabilities and processes to better create mutual value through a shift from selling a product to selling product-service systems.”?

As foreign as it may seem for some professionals, servitisation has been a need that, though not embraced, its demand remains evident. Nonetheless, firms have hesitated to implement it. Shifting from manufacturing products only to incorporating product-centric services alongside the products is not a walk in the park. It boils down to completely changing the company’s entire structure and processes.

All the same, change is never comfortable, and that’s why it’s always best to focus on the positive for motivation.

Servitisation Case Study

Some manufacturing firms have already embraced servitisation, and they’re reaping big from it. They’ve understood the benefits of offering more value to customers at less cost. What Rolls Royce is doing currently with its “power-by-the-hour” program is a good example of servitisation.

Instead of selling Aero Engines and letting customers take charge of maintenance and uptime, Rolls-Royce now offers a full package that includes a product and relevant services.?

Essentially, what the company is creating is an intimate and long-term relationship with its customers.

The total care package by Rolls Royce means it’s essentially renting out its engines to customers and monitoring data for potential maintenance needs. The plan guarantees that maintenance is only done when necessary and avoidable damage detected in good time. As a result, there is a clear reduction in the overall cost.

Initially, Rolls Royce would make money by basically selling and repairing engines. That meant that the worse the engines, the more repairs required and the more the money the company would make.?

However, things changed when the company realised there is no demand for a product that’s constantly in the repair shop. That prompted Rolls Royce to embrace servitisation.

Servitisation aligns the interests of the customer and those of the manufacturer to ensure everyone benefits. Rolls Royce has been offering this package to airlines since 2010, and the company has seen significant returns as a result.

Benefits

There are several benefits of incorporating servitisation into your manufacturing firm. Below are three of the strongest benefits

Financial Stability– Servitisation establishes a more secure revenue stream because of the long term connection between manufacturer and customer. This also translates to loyal customers, meaning more profit.
Strong Customer Retention Rate– Being more experienced about the equipment and the constant tracking and monitoring that comes with servitisation; manufacturers are realising that they can keep more customers.
Selling a Solution And a Product– Today customers are not just looking to buy a product, instead, they want both the product and the solution to their problem. Meaning you make more money for the product you manufacture and the service you offer to your customers.

Implementation of Servitisation in the Industry

To effectively implement servitisation, there must be an effective two-way flow of information and data in the supply chain. Meaning you may require software like FieldElite for scalable condition monitoring of performance. With FieldElite, for example, servitisation is made easier for you because it enables you to monitor the performance of your assets remotely.

Maintenance and monitoring of assets were traditionally very expensive and time-consuming until the arrival of intelligent software that makes work easier and cost-effective for manufacturers. FieldElite uses advanced learning algorithms to remotely automate the entire process, allowing you to detect, in real-time, the performance and need for maintenance on your asset.

Required Organisational Changes

A few important steps include;

Companies that invest in continuous training and development always have a more competitive edge than their counterparts. Meaning an important step towards servitisation is training the workforce. This is important, considering that the company structure, focus, and process will have to change.

Set up a team that is focused on the challenge, change, and creation. With this, you can easily adjust to industry changes. The team should always work on knowing what should be adjusted and when it should be.?

In the shift to servitisation, adopting a comprehensive service technology is an important step. Such service technology software includes FieldElite. This technology will ensure that you’re able to monitor your product in real-time, meaning you can maintain good performance for as long as possible.

Because servitisation essentially focuses on the customer, take time to study customer behaviour. Knowing what your customers need and want will help you remain relevant in the industry.

Conclusion

As the demand for more benefits and long-lasting relationships with dealers grow, so is the need for manufacturers to adjust. Hence more and more manufacturing companies are leaning towards embracing servitisation as a solution to the growing demand.?

In turn, manufacturers who’re attaching service contracts to their product sales are making more than those who remain stuck in the traditional approach to sales.?

Essentially, servitisation will ensure that, as a manufacturer, you remain relevant to your customers now and in years to come. This is a much better arrangement in terms of saving costs and making more returns. Remember to be successful, you have to be flexible enough to change with demand.