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Mobile Communications
In the drive to improve service delivery throughout the organisation, a leading Mobile Communications company looked to their internal project and resource management as the best means of providing visibility over their organisational activities.
Business Challenge
The challenge was to build an infrastructure that moved the departmental based resource and project management process into one single integrated web based system, to be directed by the programme office. In addition, this system would need to bring project accountability by developing a real-time strategic alignment between the performance of key projects and their impact on corporate goals.
The Mobile Communications company had multiple time recording systems across a number of sites and different planning and resourcing infrastructures. These processes were linked via a series of fragmented spreadsheets and in-house legacy applications all covering core aspects of the business. These included business plans, operational deployment, forecasting, project re-charging and resource utilisation. This patchwork of systems prevented the executive decision making team from rolling up project information into one single view, thus providing top down visibility of the overall status of their project portfolio.
The result was an inability for the organisation to improve service delivery and maximise its capacity to process new business opportunities. The consequence was a misalignment between the project and resource management processes. This had an impact on the company´s operational capability for supporting real-time forecasting so that they could accurately match key resource requirements with businesses strategic demands.
The wider impact of this infrastructure had resulted in the following problems:
- Diffused Strategic Alignment:
The company was faced with project overspend and missed deadlines because they lacked visibility into their strategy, plans, performance, and cost of key projects. Project accountability and visibility were seen as the main deliverables in order to accelerate decision-making and drive business growth forward. This challenge would be achieved by implementing a business software solution that would enable them not only manage the day-to-day operations of their projects and resources but also develop a holistic view of progress and performance. The goal was to develop a real-time link between strategic goals and operations. - Semi-Autonomous Business Processes:
A major roadblock to improving overall business performance was stemming from the fact that many of the organisations departments and teams were acting independently of each other. For example, each department had differing resource allocation systems that performed manually via excel spreadsheets,and this system was not integrated into the project plans or time recording capabilities. These disparate data points and their inaccuracy resulted in a lack of ability to predict, manage and report on resource availability, project costs and staff effort. The results cascaded up the business as projects slipped and budgets not being met. In addition each department was collecting, defining and displaying information based on different interpretations of the strategy. Because this information was incomplete or linked to particular functions, there was no means of centralising a coherent and meaningful system that management could trust. - Fragmented Technical Infrastructure:
Multiple systems had created a technical jungle. A single standard did not exist and this lack of technical synergy prevented the organisation from working in a consistent environment. This impacted on management´s ability to source real-time information, forcing decisions to be based on estimations or at best, guess work. This prohibited executives and managers from spotting key operational redundancies, prevented them from reducing risk exposure and making faster "information rich" judgments on how to change and realise strategic outcomes. - Poor Resourcing Capability:
Because of multiple internal systems and processes, resource managers depended on weekly staffing plans to understand the types of resources required to meet future needs. This was compounded further by an unreliable and inefficient method of securing people via verbal networking,and bartering. These informal processes limited the ability to optimise staffing levels, which inevitability led to lower utilization rates, skill shortages and lower profitability. - Inaccurate and Fragmented Reporting:
Another problem was communicating project performance goals downstream through layers of management. While top management were fully aware of strategic goals, most staff down the hierarchy did not fully understand their obligation to support these goals. In effect the organisation was collecting, defining and displaying information based on different interpretations of the strategy. For example, according to the Director of Technical Services "Reporting on 40+ reports took management 3 days to process and even then, this still did not paint an accurate picture of resource allocation and project performance."
Business Solutions
Success for the Mobile Communications company hinged on Atlantic Global´s ability to provide visibility into the strategic alignment of projects and resources, which would enable executives to ensure that key projects were focusing on what mattered to the overall business. They achieved this by rolling out Atlantic Global´s Business Solutions Timesheet and Expense Tracking, Project Planning and Resourcing capability together with Business Information Tracking and Risk Management, ensuring maximum benefit from a centralised integrated web base.
The implementation gave executives and management a real-time view of which projects, regardless of priority, were being implemented and an accurate reflection of the status in terms of staff utilisation and cost. This allowed decision-makers to understand project spend, how to eliminate duplicate efforts and how to identify which projects could be removed and which projects need to be recharged back to internal clients. In essence, Atlantic Global´s Business Solutions would give managers the ability to make better business decisions based upon relevant "real-time" data.
Business Benefits
Atlantic Global Business Solutions has helped to achieve visibility by providing a means to ensure:
- Integrated Resource Utilisation:
The implementation has allowed the company to integrate all aspects of the resource and project management processes into one standard web based solution. For example, staff are now able to log time expended against project plans and Atlantic Global´s Resource Tracking capability has provided accurate and detailed resource information to Project Managers in order to improve utilisation. Executives and Managers are now able to ensure that their most valuable resources are working on the most strategic projects. - Consistent Planning and Improved Recharging:
Atlantic Global Business Solutions has ensured that the company is now able to plan and manage projects more efficiently. The standardisation of the companies planning and resourcing processes into one integrated business solution has radically improved project cost accuracy enabling the timely recharging and billing to internal customers. - Centralised Risk Management:
The Implementation of Atlantic Global´s Risk Management has provided a consistent approach to risk management. The company has gained the benefits of an easily controlled and web publishable risk register that helps to focus their business on active risk management, delivering control over key project initiatives. - Project Accountability:
With the Atlantic Global´s Business Solutions executives now know exactly how their project portfolio is progressing and by adopting a practice of immediate and constant review, team members are now able to understand how the efforts of the team will be used to make critical decisions. Improved accuracy, visibility and transparency within the infrastructure across the company has enabled them to align their work with corporate goals. By using Atlantic Global both Technical services and Business Operations have increased collaboration and ensured that controls over project performance are being executed against the company strategy. - Rapid Deployment:
Atlantic Global´s Business Solutions online accessibility was an important aspect of the Mobile Communications company´s choice "All of our legacy programs were moving to the Web, and Atlantic Global´s Business Solutions was part of the process of making our application set accessible online". Implementation of the product was completed within deadline, and it was quickly rolled out through the 550 users, including finance project team, technical services, business operations, business analysts and project managers. - Real-Time Reporting:
Atlantic Global´s Business Solutions real-time web based reporting technology has helped reduce administrative time spent on management reporting. Analysis of project performance has been simplified and accuracy has been dramatically improved with the implementation of easy, customisable reporting options, reducing complications and eliminating guesswork. Critically, Atlantic Global´s role based reporting has given executives personalised, one click access to every report relevant to them.