Benefits of getting all your IT solutions from one organization

You see the end product but we’re bringing you closer to the people behind it !  

As one of our most successful partners to date, we sat down with BluGrass’s co-founder Hasan Alameddine to gain firsthand insight on the things they do and the types of human capital profiles that drive their success.  

Hasan has been in the IT industry for nine years with an education in Computer Science from the Lebanese American University in Beirut. He started as a CRM developer and was specialized in Microsoft products after he got his certification as a Microsoft Developer.

Hasan’s first enterprise experience in the UAE was as a CRM consultant in EMITAC, where he met Tony Alam and decided to jointly establish BluGrass.   

Since its inception 4 years ago, BluGrass has grown to a team of 40 IT professionals with 32 customer success stories under their belt and 80M dirhams in revenue from managed services.  Their primary market is the government sector with some focus on semi-government and private entities. 

They first started providing hardware maintenance services but identified a gap in the market and quickly shifted their business model to that of a whole managed services provider where they do consultation, implementation, support, and resource allocation pertaining to specific projects.  

What sets them apart from other service 

providers in their field is their consultation phase. Rather than going straight into implementation based on a customer’s request, they allocation a major portion of the project to perform a full consultation that involves a gap analysis report.

This is to be able to identify all aspects in a customer’s current state, their desired state, and the required transition phase, and thus defining every parameter of the project to ensure complete visibility. After that phase has governed the customer’s approval, they will move into the implementation phase with full management and support from their side.  

Since joining the Exceeders platform 2 years ago, they have been able to close 2 major deals in managed services.

Success story 

Recently, BluGrass signed a 5-year contract for a managed services project with a government-based investment company in the UAE. This entity collectively encompasses 6 other government agencies and an employee count that rakes up to 2000+. 

The project entails managing the customer’s whole IT systems from bare infrastructure (servers, storage, networking) and security to infra applications (underlaying windows applications ) and high-level business applications (ERP, CRM). 

LEARN MORE ABOUT BLUGRASS HERE 

There are many choices available when it comes to planning a project. To-do style apps are fantastic for organizing private tasks. But a dedicated project management software is needed to organize the workload of an entire team.

That's why it's so essential to choose the right project management tool. The right tool affects the performance of the project and helps the project manager to deliver on the time. It can effectively accomplish or impair  a project.

Why do you need dedicated software for project management?

A project management software assists with each phase of running a project: from planning and scheduling to resource management and cost control to reporting. It also allows communicating and collaborating with teams. Moreover, it generates transparency for stakeholders and members of the group.

Project management software enables project managers to efficiently organize the project from beginning to finish. It equips them to gain a hold on what is supposed to occur during that moment, when it should occur, who and how.

Because project management software enables project managers to centralize all operations linked to job and project in one location, they become more structured and controlled. The correct tools make managing tasks much simpler.

How to choose the right software for project management

Since each project and each team is distinct, there are no one-size-fits-all when it comes to project management tools.

Here are the key things to consider before making a decision.

1) What Are The Needs Of Your Team?

Teams consist of distinct ability sets and job practices, resulting in the need for project management tools with diverse sets of characteristics.

Team size, company nature, and project complexity will influence the sort of project management software you need.

Some teams need only a basic device to assist maintain track of particular duties or lists of assignments. Others (e.g. small business, HR, administrative activities) could profit from extra characteristics such as assigning tasks, monitoring progress and reporting. Companies requiring competent and business-critical PM operations (e.g. system integration or consulting facilities) will need wider functionality including job assignment, resource allocation, budget scheduling and invoicing.

2) What Are Your Business Challenges

Sometimes it is difficult for team leaders to articulate precisely what they need from a project management tool. They won't inform you, "Hey, here in marketing, we need stronger task management and reporting system!" Maybe you need to sit down with your team to chart how the job is being accomplished to find out where the inefficiencies are.

There's a method there? Or are the difficulties resulting from the absence of a cohesive system that everyone knows and follows? Do members of the group understand where to search for data or who to go for issues and help? Is there adequate accountability included in the method?

You can describe the particular project management software characteristics after you know the present problems that can best assist you to streamline your method and boost productivity.

3) What Do You Need From A Project Management Tool?

Make a list of all your team's needed features. Consider what alternative you're going to use for. Need characteristics like customization options, levels of access? Will you use it for planning and scheduling purposes only? Do you need characteristics for reporting? Make a precise inventory in a project management software application that represents everything you need. Besides, verify whether there are any conditions for accordance.

4) Who Is Going To Use That Tool?

Who uses the tool is as important as what it should have features. Are your stakeholders in-house or external? Management of projects in-house could benefit from a less formal approach. If you work with different clients then it is necessary to look professional. It may also be a good idea to estimate the size of the team roughly. Smaller teams may need a simple solution. On the other hand, enterprise software could be a better solution for big teams.

5) What Methodology For Project Management Should Be Consistent With?

There are different approaches to manage a project. Without attempting to modify it, the fresh approach should sustain your present methodology.

Proactive Methodology

According to a proactive methodology, such as the waterfall method, proactive work teams emphasize record keeping and a well-defined workflow in a linear system. This methodology relies on setting dependencies and prioritizing them.

It might sound like design, initiation, evaluation, layout, construction, inspection, execution, and retention in the event of website development.

This methodology enables expectations to be managed easily and ensures that the job is accomplished. Each member of the group operates on a distinct aspect of the project and functions and duties are delineated.

Reactive Methodology

Reactive work teams using methodologies such as (Agile, Scrum or Lean) are more versatile to manage their workflow, but often have little understanding into what's next. Team members often don't understand how much to finish.

Projects are initiated, divided into sprints, and project priorities are evaluated and tasks reassigned at the end of each sprint.

With no strong due dates, as the project grows in reaction to customer feedback or fresh findings, team and breadth could develop over moment. Software development and technical teams most frequently follow this methodology.

6) Do You Need Integration With Third Party Apps And Software

Some project management applications give extensive features including invoicing, communicating, monitoring time and monitoring expenses.

You can take care of all these functions within one software if you choose one of these applications and no longer have to change from software to another for various functions.

Bigger is not necessarily better, though. You may not need such complicated technology at all.

Alternatively, a simpler project management instrument can be selected and applications like Slack for communication, Dropbox for file-sharing or ResourceGuru can be added to schedule particular requirements. You can then use applications such as IFTTT or Zapier to connect these tools and the project management software.

Conclusion

To help everyone function more effectively and become more efficient, a project management alternative chosen with the requirements and processes of your team in mind is crucial.

When selecting your fresh project management software, be careful to suit the different characteristics to the demands of your company and the method of your team so that you can discover a tool that best serves your goals.

During the assessment and test drive cycle, do not overlook to involve your team members so that you can integrate their feedback into your selection method. This will not only assist guarantee that the software meets the requirements of distinct agencies, but also get the buy-in from your team to create a much smoother method of transformation and execution.

Are you looking for an integrated project management tool to help you keep track of projects and stay organized? 

What is Business Process Automation? Business Process automation refers to the act of using technology to automate repeatable daily tasks. It helps in making work get done faster by routing information to the right individuals, teams and departments at the right times through pre-defined rules and actions. 

Benefits of Business Process Automation

• Workforce Optimization

Manual processes require a lot of time and usually includes a large number of employees doing many repetitive actions to make sure the process is moving properly. Business Process Automation helps you free up your workforce from these repeated actions enabling you to reorganize your organization structure and focus more on creative tasks and innovation.

• Reducing Costs

Business process automation ensures that you can maintain the same output with a reduction in number of employees, thus with BPA you can start focusing more on the quality of your employees instead of the quantity, eventually reducing the overall cost of business operations.

• Reducing Human Errors

No matter how efficient a person is, he/she are always prone to errors and it is impossible to avoid human errors. Automation can limit if not completely remove the possibility of errors in certain stages of  the business process.

• Increased Collaboration

Monitoring all employees in a company and ensuring a proper flow of information is a very difficult task. With BPA you can keep track of all the business processes from one place, make sure all teams are being updated properly, set the right goals and deadlines and ensure your company is running smoothly towards achieving its goals.

• More Insight into the Business

Automating business processes allows you to gain deeper insight into different aspects of your business and allows you to monitor and track the output and changes helping you make better business decisions for the future. 

Some Real Life Examples of Business Process Automation

HR Onboarding

HR onboarding is a tedious job that includes tens if not hundreds of small tasks including setting up contracts, collecting documents, preparing access, providing computers, stationary, access to facilities and more. Handling this in a manual manner is prone to result in a ton of errors every time it is done. Through Business Process Automation you can simply create the process once, assign it’s owners so that whenever there is a new employee joining the company this process will notify each task owner of what they should be doing and when streamlining the entire onboarding phase and improving your employee’s experience.

Accounts Payable

Accounts Payable teams usually rely heavily on manual paper based processes where invoices and copies of contracts are being manually routed between each other. This leads to paper copies being misplaced or delayed on someone’s desk leading to unpaid invoices and upset vendors. Following up on paperwork and answering phone calls from vendors takes up a lot of an employee’s time that can be better spent elsewhere. With Business Process Automation organizations can take their manual accounts payable processes and start tracking all invoices from the moment they are received through the different stages each invoice goes through until it gets to the final cycle helping them reduce errors and boost vendor satisfaction as a result of a faster and more efficient process.

You May Also Like: Best Invoicing Software for Small Businesses in 2019

Customer Support

Any organization that has customer support teams providing support to their customers via email, social or a website know that their support inboxes are always packed with hundreds or thousands of support tickets that they have no way of taking care of them all. With technology advancements the use of AI and Business Process automation allows them to identify specific keywords, find the right resolution for it, send it to a customer service rep for approval before it is communicated the customer who raised the issue accelerating resolution times and increasing your customer’s satisfaction.

Social Media Management 

Social media is one of the most important aspects of building and maintaining your brand’s reputation. That’s why you can’t let just anyone post on your social media channels with getting the green light from all concerned parties. Business Process Automation helps here by building a process that sends any created post in an approval process from the community manager, to the marketing manager to the GM as an example and once approved it will be automatically posted online. 

Final Thoughts

Organizations seeking to be competitive in the market nowadays can’t hide from business process automation. It needs to be a core component in its strategy and operations since it helps in organizational management, helps in making more informed business decisions and increases the output while reducing costs.

Learn how Exceeders can help you automate your business processes and encourage growth of your business.