Reduce Enterprise Costs

Reduce enterprise costs using TrackerSuite.Net for project portfolio management, earned value measurement and process automation.

A recent study by Gartner, the 2009 CIO Agenda, revealed that reducing enterprise costs was more important than ever to CIOs. In a survey of the top ten business priorities for CIOs, reducing enterprise costs came in second, following business process improvement.

However, these two priorities are linked. By improving business processes and reducing the time taken to complete work, costs are potentially reduced. To realize these savings, the enterprise in question has to capitalize on the new efficiencies, either by reducing the headcount or re-allocating the resource for increased productivity.

Utilizing TrackerSuite.Net, the organization can improve its business processes, identify the optimal allocation of its resources and projects, and make strategic decisions towards reducing costs.

Evaluating Project Portfolio Costs Versus Value

Using TrackerSuite.Net, executives and project managers can easily review the progress of a project, its status and costs, using project portfolio dashboards. However, an even more useful feature of TrackerSuite.Net is its ability to track the Earned Value of projects, to identify variances in schedule and expenditures, and estimate cost to completion.

The Earned Value Management process recognizes that a project's value isn't just a question of its budget versus its cost, but of schedule as well. For example, in the race to market of a new product, the development project's adherence to an expected timeline is crucial.

TrackerSuite.Net utilizes the Earned Value Management framework and its concepts of Planned Value, Earned Value and Actual Cost to provide an array of metrics that analyze and forecast project performance, in both schedule and expenditures, as well as generate projections on the costs required to complete projects and tasks.

Effective project portfolio management can sharply reduce enterprise costs. For example, the Department of Veteran Affairs saved over $54 million dollars in its 2010 fiscal year¹ by reviewing the value and costs of computer projects in its portfolio, and stopping those projects deemed too far over budget or behind schedule.

More Effective Resource Allocation

TrackerSuite.Net simplifies resource availability analysis, with views of weekly or monthly workloads across the organization, that can be filtered by business unit, manager, and position. Managers can drill down on a specific resource to see the projects and tasks the resource’s time is allocated to.

Utilizing these views, executives and project managers can more easily identify underutilized resources and take steps towards reducing their enterprise costs, either by headcount reduction or re-allocating the resources for increased productivity.

Automating Processes

TrackerSuite.Net automates the approval processes of timesheets, expense reports, purchase orders and payment requests. In addition to reducing the work necessary to complete an approval cycle, this process also reduces enterprise costs through a direct cost savings by transitioning to a paperless system, eliminating the need for materials, as well as their management, storage and archiving.

Summary

TrackerSuite.Net provides an array of tools for organizations seeking to reduce enterprise costs, by automating routines and eliminating overhead, through effective resource allocation and through project portfolio management and identification of earned value in projects.

• ¹ Molly Merrill. "VA saves $54M by boosting management, accountability of IT projects". Healthcare IT News (Febuary 24, 2010). http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/va-saves-54m-boosting-management-accountability-it-projects