Resource management is a strategic approach that one utilizes to efficiently, effectively, and economically plan the management of resources when needed. It controls an organization's resources to ensure improved profitability levels, streamline costs, and also eliminate waste of time. The resources may include financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, information resources, and natural resources. When it comes to a comprehensive project management plan, resource management is an essential element for executing and monitoring a project to success as it estimates the resources and also manages human resources.
Resource management software is a tool that makes it easy to plan, schedule, and reschedule projects. The software enables one to plan, allocate, track the people working on a particular task, and also estimates how long the project will take to complete. Resource management software also speeds up the whole process of resource management, minimizes the risk of mistakes occurring, and frees up any manpower that can then be relocated to other projects. Since every sector in business is reliant on other departments, it is important to efficiently utilize all the available resources at hand to ensure success.
Key Points to Consider When Buying a Resource Management Software:
Below are the tips to consider when choosing the best resource management software for business:
1. Automated Planning
The software should ensure an automatic updating of the workload regularly and accurately as per the capacity of resources. This ensures that there is operational efficiency of the highest order and no waste of time.
2. Allocate Tasks
One should go for software that smartly allocates tasks by determining the availability and efforts required by resources. With this tool, managers will be able to find employees with certain skills and then assign work to them. Thus, software should be able to track the human supply and demand chain and provide the correct insights needed.
3. Increases Accountability
Since resource management software is used to allocate available tasks, this will give a clear blueprint of who's responsible for which job. Thus, the best software is one that records the time information along with efforts to evaluate the performance better and improves accountability procedures. This makes it easy for managers to access, assess, and analyze the recorded data.
4. Gives Real-time Data Analytics
The best software should produce real-time data analytics, which provides valuable insights for monitoring the progress of the project over time and the necessary changes to be implemented.
5. Enhances Employee Relationship
The best software should also be one that doesn't make the employees feel overburdened or over-utilized. This, in turn, results in a better employee relationship and increases productivity as the workers will generally perform their very best when passionate about their work.
6. Staffing Forecasting
The tool should be able to forecast future staffing when needed. It does this by collecting internal data for a while regarding sales, product development, product launches, etc., and then makes staffing recommendations based on the collected data.
7. Request Automation
The best software should be one that allows managers to automatically search and identify suitable employees based on their skills and availability for a particular assignment.
8. Reduce Administration Cost
The best resource management tool should aim at reducing the organization's administration cost by efficiently reducing errors and the tedious nature of upkeep associated with the outdated traditional system of resource management.
9. Conflict Resolution
The tool should be able to identify any arising conflicts in an ongoing project and assist in alleviating any future resource conflicts.
10. Affordable
One should select software that is affordable and provides effective control at the same time.
Other tips for the best resource management software:
• The software should have a dashboard that allows the users to get a bird's eye view of teams at work.
• It should have pre-built project templates for multiple scenarios to facilitate quick and easy resource estimates.
• It should not be complex to use.
• It should allow monitoring of the live activity of the various projects through real-time tracking.
• It should allow configurable email notifications and flexible user access rights to maintain confidentiality at all levels.
Some of the Best Resource Management Software:
Some of the top resource management software available in the market are as follows:
1. Hub Planner
2. Float
3. eResource Scheduler
4. Resource Guru
5. Zoho Projects
6. LiquidPlanner
7. Wrike
8. Mavenlink
9. Teamdeck
10. Saviom
11. Workfront
12. ClarizenTeamweek
1. Hub Planner
2. Float
3. eResource Scheduler
4. Resource Guru
5. Zoho Projects
6. LiquidPlanner
7. Wrike
8. Mavenlink
9. Teamdeck
10. Saviom
11. Workfront
12. ClarizenTeamweek
Benefits of Resource Management Software:
The benefits of choosing the best resource management software include:
• Saves time and allows one to see the current and future resource gaps.
• It increases the collaboration of the team members. This is vital for any successful project completion.
• Helps to keep track of milestones in a given project.
• It saves money as the manager can balance the resources correctly and ensure that all the employees are busy, and no one is overburdened.
There is various resource management software available in the market. So before choosing one, check all the functionalities and then select as per your requirement.
