Think beyond the physical investment of trucks, equipment, and buildings when it comes to investments for improving the bottom line for 2021. If a company wants to improve the net profits, improving the project communication process can add serious dollars to the bottom line.
Most companies have grown so accustomed to their current business practices that they feel the way they operate is expected and is the most efficient. Yet, the vast majority of companies suffer from poor project communication processes and practices that cost the company far more than they realize. If one measures these communication inefficiencies using Six Sigma, the cost of defects is at least 5% or greater of waste and inefficiencies of total gross sales. Perhaps you may think I am overdramatic for the estimation of communication costs? Let us look at just a few aspects to determine this for yourself.
Labor Costs – The number of countless person-hours being wasted finding information, correcting information in error, and using the information in error is quite shocking. The vast majority of companies have a terrible project communication process of printed paperwork located in different departments, undocumented phone calls, emails on different employee’s computers, and disjointed software apps that retain certain aspects of each project, such as scheduling of components production, delivery trucks, or other department resources. Think about your day-to-day actions. How many times each day is someone tracking you down for a face-to-face conversation, calling you on your cellphone, or sending you a text or email to find the how, what, or when about any project information that is needed within the company, but they don’t have immediate access to it? Why is it that 80% of the repeated questions being asked involve information that is available somewhere in the company but somehow segmented, so people do not have that needed information at their fingertips without asking someone else? Ask any salesperson within your company about how much time they spend every day searching for any project information by calling someone within the company, such as finding the status of any aspect of a project, and the vast majority of companies will find that the company indeed needs improvement in its project communication process.
Costly Errors – When was the last time an error was recorded that was not a communication problem in your company? Yes, of course, there are errors in the project process of defective material and quality of workmanship. Still, unquestionably time and time again, most often the costliest project errors originate from missing or incorrect project information. Furthermore, the often-missing information was known to someone or documented somewhere within the company but not relayed to everyone who needed the critical change or special request to avoid the error. If a company wants to reduce costly mistakes, improve your project communication process.
Segmented or Silo Project Information – Why is it so difficult to find the needed project information most of the time? The answer is simple. Because most of the information is scattered across many types of platforms or methods of communications being used in the company. Emails, text, specialized department apps such as component manufacturing, in-house developed database, accounting enterprise resource planning (ERP), and material requirement planning (MRP) systems all have bits and pieces of any particular projects. All promise to deliver a seamless means to give everyone the needed project information, yet this promise is always sometime in the future.
Of all the different communication platforms, the worst for segmentation seems to be made by the accounting software packages for ERP and MRP systems, even though the very intentions of these apps are to break down these silos. Many will invest 100’s of thousands in the accounting software add-ons that technically work in some specific departments but never really accomplish all the vendor’s promises. Time and time again, the executives are told the employees just need more training and need more investment to make the existing system work better. Yet sales team members and others complain about how cumbersome and incomplete the expensive ERP/MRP investment is for them to find timely project information. After all the investment, development time, and training spent so far in a company’s existing project communication system, at what point does an executive realize it is not working the way it was intended? If a company wants to eliminate the departmental segmenting of information, it needs to improve the project communication process by creating a very easy to use, highly adaptable, and customizable platform that becomes the hub used by all departments. No matter which department or specialized apps they use for the particular work they perform in each area of the company, the project communication system needs to plug into their existing systems.
Resolving the Project Communication Process – Why not have all of these disjointed bits of information, including emails, task status, and every department’s schedule, all merged into a single platform associated with each project to streamline the entire flow of information? Why not use a system that any department manager can view at a glance with live up to the minute status of every project within their area of responsibility while also having automated alerts for any project? Why not have all the project information, no matter which department or type of specialized work, such as components or field crews, be available on an easy to access cellphone while answering questions with the customer in the field? No matter where an employee is located, working from home or office location, as long as they have specific user rights, they can access the project information, including documents such as electronic prints. In other words, virtually any aspect of any given project can be accessed with live up to date information using any cellphone, tablet, or computer. Why try to reinvent the wheel and not use a completely customizable affordable platform that can be plugged into your existing accounting and specialized department software to act as a communication hub between all the different departments? Why not use a platform that thousands of users and hundreds of companies are using every day? If your company is ready to embrace the most complete, customizable, flexible, reliable, and proven project communication system, then your company is ready for AppWright.com.
AppWright.com has recently been updated with a fresh modern new look and enhancements for all users. AppWright is a browser application, so all of the continuous enhancements are available to all users without any time-consuming application updates on any system. With AppWright, the updates, enhancement, and special requests are seamless and are included as part of the services. All of this comes with full security measures to protect a company’s critical internal information. AppWright is used every day by some of the biggest companies in the LBM industry.
At the beginning of this article, it asked you to think beyond the physical investment of trucks, equipment, and buildings when it comes to investments for improving the bottom line for 2021. If your company is looking for a fantastic ROI, AppWright is extremely affordable and costs very little compared to the expensive ERP/MRP systems that some are trying to develop in-house or purchase from the accounting vendors. Call AppWright for a no-obligation live demo to see how much better your company’s project communication could be in a very short time.
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