How Project Management Saves You Time & Money
Investing in new project management software is a huge commitment and it can sometimes be hard to see what you’ll make a return on. To help you, we’ve outlined 5 Ways Project Management Software Saves You Time & Money.
Forecasting
The right project management software will help you enforce efficiencies across your whole business and allow you to track good trends and bad. Being able to see the ‘big picture’ will help you make better, more educated decisions, particularly during challenging periods. No software will help you overcome poor staff performance. However, it can enable you to enforce processes and accountability across your business that reduce risk, increase productivity and, yes – save you time and money.
Site Management
Cloud-based project management software plays two important roles in site management: making job sites safer, and making your projects more profitable. As part of a mobile app solution, it provides tools for staff, site managers and contractors to use everyday to support their job sites. For greater efficiency, these tools feed straight back into a centralised portal giving you access to up-to-the-minute data. This means you can easily manage multiple job sites, check project reports in real-time and spot potential issues before costly or hazardous issues arise. Due to the high visibility a mobile application provides, it is a critical tool during what is often a challenging and time-sensitive phase of the construction cycle.
Efficiency & Transparency
The right project management software will give you increased visibility and control of your entire project. With all of your company’s core procedures built around one centralised platform you can streamline your processes, eliminate risk, save time and improve your project profitability. Common issues such as individual Project Managers following their own unfixed methods or critical files being lost whenever there are staff changes, become a thing of the past. By speeding up many basic procedures – such as electronic signing for all variation or defect requests/approvals – projects are completed faster and with fewer delays.
Cloud-based project management software can create efficiencies and deliver greater productivity with time-saving tools such as:
- Document registers
- Variation management
- Purchase order approvals
- Invoice controls
- Tender approvals
- Baseline meeting checks
- Trade ratings
- Bill approvals
- Workflow checklists
- Pipeline reporting
- Cost reporting
- Defect management.
Risk Management
While the cost of risk can be hard to measure, if something goes wrong, the damage to your business and bottom-line can be huge. Site auditing and OHS mobile application tools will make your factory and site workers more safety conscious and enforce extra accountability. With proper processes and procedures in place you can ensure projects are done right the first time, avoiding costly site defects and variation costs. Project management software also replaces manual, paper-based systems, that are difficult to monitor and can inadvertently expose your company to greater risk.
To help reduce risk, systemised checks can also be enforced across the life cycle of all your jobs, including:
- Site checklists
- OH&S checklists
- Defect management
- Variation requests
- Drawing register
Revenue Leakage
For many construction companies, poor defect management is a main contributor to lost revenue. That’s because all too often it is still conducted manually. Site photos are taken by a project team member, who then returns to the office to write a report and finally send an email to the client. Sometimes these photos are misplaced, the report is never sent or the photos attached to the report don’t match-up with the actual defect. Other times, defects are not addressed within the defect period making it problematic when trying to close-off the final invoices. Project management software addresses these problems by creating a point of accountability and enforcing strict checklists and procedures.
Benefits to your business
The ways in which project management software can save you time and money will differ from company to company. While the issues we’ve outlined above are common for many construction businesses, there are lots of other areas where project management software can drive efficiencies and deliver huge benefits. It’s worth taking the time to assess which areas of your business need the most improvement. Understand your organisation’s needs and research what software system will deliver the best ROI for your company. Need help choosing the right software? We’ve written a handy guide to help you decide.
If you’re thinking about investing in construction software, get in touch with our team today on 1300 942 399 or Request a Demo to find out how Nexvia’s project management tools can help deliver your ROI.
