The Value of Project Business Automation for Project-Based Companies

While we have established that Project Businesses (e.g. construction, engineering, ETO manufacturing and professional services) have non-standard business practices, that is not to say there isn’t a solution to standardize processes and data to automate and accelerate production.  

Project Business Automation provides an all-in-one business management solution for project-based companies. More specifically, PBA integrates all the project functionality normally managed in multiple disparate applications and tools inside one, end-to-end business system. This allows Project Businesses to gain unprecedented automation and real-time insight into the status of their projects that used to take weeks or longer to generate. PBA’s core elements include: Project Financials, Project Operations and Project Insight. 

Download the Project Business Automation Blueprint to learn more about PBA and how it works.

Project Financials is Much More Than Project Accounting 

Traditional accounting tools works fine for industries such as retail and manufacturing; however, effective financial management of project-based companies requires much more than what most project accounting systems offer. PBA closes the gap between what project industries need and what mainstream ERP solutions offer. 

It should go without saying, in order to track actual costs and invoices, revenue recognition, accruals and budgets, a solid accounting framework is necessary. However, when it comes to securing project profitability and supporting effective decision making, it’s much more important to be able to project and track EAC, variances, profitability, contingencies and productivity while simultaneously identifying trends and maintaining a full audit trail. Several key components of PBA Project Financials include: 

• Cost breakdown structure
• Project costing
• Budget management

Project Operations Goes Beyond Project Management 

When your primary business depends on the successful delivery of projects to your customers, it’s critical to be on point. The lack of real-time insight into your operations will result in increased risk and decreased profitability. Ultimately, this can negatively impact your reputation and relationships with customers.  

Historically, project management applications were built to manage standalone projects. They are not meant to run an entire Project Business.  

PBA offers a unique approach to managing project operations by providing complete and real-time integration between back-end ERP functions and your operational project management activities. The project plan is the central entity against which a host of other operational activities are planned and managed, including: issue and deadline tracking, risks evaluation, staffing, capacity leveling and procurement/production schedules. 

Bottom line, the key to operational excellence is scalable and predictable business processes. PBA enables companies to control process flows throughout the enterprise by establishing an enforceable and repeatable business model. Several key components of PBA Project Operations include: 

• Real-time project planning
• Risk, issue and milestone management
• Resource management

PBA Project Insight Provides Unprecedented Real-Time Intelligence 

Keep in mind, managing project financials and operations is one thing; however, when it comes to projects, it’s not just what you know, but when you know it that really matters. PBA brings leaders of Project Businesses the real-time insight they need to not only make important business decisions, but also transform their companies into high-performing enterprises. From front-line managers to executives, PBA gets the right information to the right people instantly. 

When all essential project functionality is in one system, managers and executives have access to the most accurate and updated information available. For example, the ability to see cash flow, margins, EAC and earned value on a daily basis becomes the norm, rather than during monthly status updates, which by then are likely inaccurate and outdated. 

PBA provides the tools required to identify trends and benchmark your performance against company goals and industry standards. Instead of operating in disparate applications and tools, an all-in-one solution means there’s no data translation or time-lapse between source transactions and visualization. Several key components of PBA Project Insight include: 

• Early detection
• Hierarchical structure
• Financial and operational breakdown

Transform Your Company With PBA 

With PBA, you can eliminate point solutions and the resources required to maintain them. By automating data workflows and creating one source of truth for the entire company, business processes can be automated, and reports generated in real time. This could save hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars per year. In addition, PBA allows you to reduce risk with early detection.  

If you don’t know if your project is truly successful and profitable until 30 to 90 days after it’s complete, that’s not an effective way of running your business. PBA provides an in-depth view of potential problem areas before they become major risks to the project, increasing the likelihood of success. 

For Project Businesses, the only way to deliver more projects on time and within budget is to adopt a holistic, all-in-one project-based solution that gives you total control over your business and allows you to manage your projects proactively.