For many businesses, projects are the lifeblood of their financial success. Reducing waste, improving turn around times and forecasting accurate timelines all translate into more money for the company. Here are some practical ways that Microsoft Project software can increase your profit margins.
Time Saver
Microsoft Project is great at keeping you on track, keeping all members of the team update and on schedule with daily tasks and goals. These automated notifications reduce time spent in logistical meetings filled with tasking and reporting. Even if it only saves a 20 min meeting (which we all know can actually take an hour) that would equate to 20 x (number of employees) x frequency of meetings x employee annual salary)
See how much you could save by eliminating a few minutes.
Stay on Track
One of the greatest challenges groups face is knowing the hierarchy of tasks given to them. Microsoft Project helps by always retaining deadlines and tasks. Creating schedules in Project allows you to create dependencies that relate to your deadlines and other goals. Once they have been established dependency tasks automatically adjust and update as progress deadlines ate met or missed. This helps team members know exactly what needs to be completed when and when work is stacking up.
Knowing how tasks relate to each other as well as to the end goals
of the project ensures that resources are optimized for success.
Auditing
Speaking of work stacking up, Project also lets you see when your projects are understaffed, underfunded or poorly timed. By monitoring resources and tasks of the team you can audit your abilities and get a more realistic understanding of what your business is capable of in a given time. You can know when you need to bring in more team members and what their cost and contribution should be.
A Teaching Tool
Correctly utilized Project is a self-contained snapshot of your business process, workflow, culture, and accountability. Project will help in training new employees to understand these elements of your business as well as create a standard of expectations. Even former employees leave behind their progress, ideas and workflows to be stored, shared and emulated through Project. Identifying what traits and benchmarks worked in the past and what didn't will keep your team increasing in efficiency and profits.
Conclusion
Ultimately, making or keeping more money stems from your team's ability to execute assigned tasks. Utilizing Microsoft Project lets managers focus on the end goals while software handles the details and long-term memory. Click here to see which version of Project makes the most sense for your team, and watch your profit margins increase as computer learning and teamwork synergize.
