Which resource management tool should you use depending on the size of your company?
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Estelle
Content manager
July 27, 2023
5 min
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If you manage or work for a consultancy firm Or a ESN (Digital Services Company), you are probably already convinced of the crucial nature of your resource management (Ressource Management). And that's probably why you're reading this article as well.
The volume and diversity of resources (consultants, equipment, time, etc.) make it a subject that is both complex and time-consuming. This does not in any way detract from the need for you to master your Ressource Management because it means greater productivity and therefore efficiency of your teams and therefore, better operational (happy customers) and financial performances (satisfied shareholders).
Faced with the complexity of the mission of manage your resources effectively, there are tools for Ressource Management, sometimes ready to use and therefore requiring more advanced settings.
Obviously, the price factor is going to play a role in your arbitration. But beyond the financial criterion, what will and should mainly matter is your need for resource management. And who says need Ressource Management says size of your business.
Does your consulting firm or ESN consist of less than 10 consultants? Or on the contrary, do you lead a team of several tens, hundreds or even thousands of consultants?
Learn what options are available to you for successful resource management.
But before we talk about how to choose your resource management solution, let's delineate our scope and start by agreeing on what we mean by a tool for resource management.
A tool for Ressource Management Is a platform used to optimize the management and use of resources. You'll notice that we're talking about a “platform used for” and not necessarily a “platform designed for.” This nuance is important as we will see later.
By “resources”, we often mean employees. And while human resources are certainly a crucial factor, they are not the only ones. Tangible elements (material, equipment, installations, etc.) or intangible elements (time, skills, etc.), the resources you have to manage are actually much more numerous than they seem.
Using a tool then makes it possible to obtain a better understanding of the company's situation and how it can optimize the resources at its disposal. This is all the more true in service companies because the core of the activity is driven by the most difficult resource to control: employees.
That's why you'll ask what tool you're using for your Ressource Management to allow you to:
For small businesses, the Ressource Management does not require the deployment of expensive and complex systems.
Unlike big businesses, small structures (less than 10 employees) have a narrower scope of action. Projects, consultants, and resources are not as numerous. It also means that there are fewer variables and data to process.
This is where tools like Excel or Google Sheets shine through their simplicity and accessibility.
These spreadsheets are easy to customize. Users can download Templates (spreadsheet templates) with pre-formatting. For example, a small business might use a Template Monitoring of work schedules. All she has to do is fill in the boxes in order to calculate the totals.
Cost is another important argument.. These tools of Ressource Management are easily accessible. Google Sheets is available for free for anyone with a Gmail account. 15GB of cloud storage is provided, which is sufficient for managing resources for a small business.
Excel is certainly not free, but it is pre-installed on many computers with the Microsoft Office suite.
As effective as these tools are for small businesses, they remain unsuitable for medium and large firms, which manage much more numerous, varied and complex resources.
The functionalities of Excel and Google Sheets remain basic and the data is spread over different files, getting the big picture is complex.
Therefore, it is recommended to NSEs and firms with more than 10 employees to equip yourself with a solution of Ressource Management Dedicated.
The functionalities of a software of Ressource Management are numerous and make it possible to manage, from a single platform, all resources, in all their diversity and complexity.
Here are 5 good reasons to adopt a resource management software.
In a large consulting firm or an IT services company, there are many consultants, as are their subjects. of expertise and the customers with whom they work. So it is necessary toallocate projects to the various collaborators as best as possible based on their skills, experiences, fields of expertise, etc.
This is what resource management SaaS allows.
The tool integrates the complete data of the profiles of your collaborators, internal and external. With this solution, you Optimize staffing and assign missions to consultants appropriately.
The multiplicity of consultants and missions makes the collection and analysis of data complex in large consulting firms and ESNs.
Thanks to a tool from Ressource Management, you can visualize all the data relating to projects and consultants at a glance.
This solution can integrate the Data other software used by the company, such as CRM. Information is not scattered across multiple tools. So it is saving time and efficiency.
A consultant can be busy between two missions or, conversely, find himself straddling several projects due to a lack of planning. The risks for firms and ESNs are then numerous: drop in profitability, difficulty meeting deadlines, etc.
This is where a smart calendar comes in handy. It makes it possible to effectively plan the assignment of missions to consultants, to avoid overburdens and to reduce inter-contract periods.
Consultants have professional ambitions and consider a variety of career opportunities. It is essential for a firm to take these wishes into account in order to maintain their motivation and avoid Turn-over.
With a staffing software, employees indicate their expertise and their preferences for missions, the acquisition of new skills, etc.
The company can thus support its employees in the development of their careers, by offering appropriate training, for example.
With a large number of collaborators and simultaneous projects, analyzing performance, monitoring budgets, monitoring global and individual workload, etc. become complex tasks.
The volume of information to be processed is such that some data, although essential, can escape large structures, which has a negative impact on their performance.
Thanks to a resource management tool, the company obtains Reportings regulars on the use of resources, KPIs, skills, etc.
The ESN manages its activity at 360° and benefits from a clear and precise vision of the performance of each project. She can assess the profitability of each mission, identify areas for improvement and anticipate future needs in terms of skills and resources with much better efficiency.
For small structures such as NSEs and large consulting firms, resource management is both critical and complex.
Budgets, time, skills, and much more: all variables that the company must consider as part of the Ressource Management.
Equipping yourself with a dedicated tool therefore seems essential. While Excel and Google Sheets may be suitable for small structures (less than 10 employees), these solutions quickly become unsuitable when consultants, missions and resources increase.
In this case, it is recommended to invest in a platform dedicated to Ressource Management. These tools have advanced functionalities and rely on the power of algorithms and artificial intelligence. They thus allow firms and NSEs to optimize the use of their resources.
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