Sep 13, 2022 | Business, Counterpart Insight, Events, Tips & Tricks
We are so excited to be exhibiting at two trade shows in the next few months.
So, don’t delay, diarise and book these upcoming events.
We will be showcasing our amazing Work Management Platform. Take advantage of our unique promotion, exclusively available to delegates of the shows. We will also have daily fabulous prize draws.
Project Challenge
27th September
QE11 Centre, London – Visit us at stand #72
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The UK’s leading independent show for projects, programmes, process and resource. Visitors to this exceptional event will gain real practical value and a very worthwhile learning experience. With leading exhibiting organisations, and 24 inspiring FREE high-quality presentations to choose from this unmissable event provides an unparalleled opportunity to learn from leading industry experts.
Register here
IOT Tech Expo Global
1st – 2nd December.
Olympia London – Visit us at stand #146
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This show brings together key industries from across the globe for two days of top-level content and thought leadership discussions across 6 co-located events covering IoT, 5G, Cyber Security & Cloud, Blockchain, AI & Big Data, Edge Computing and the newly added Digital Transformation track. In addition to cutting-edge content, the IoT Tech Expo enables key networking opportunities from virtual meetings to on-site lounges and the official networking party.
Register here
Aug 24, 2022 | Business, Tips & Tricks
Finance can be one of your company’s biggest pain points. Many companies hire consultants to address financial management, but that can add up. What if you had the power to resolve and manage your own finance needs? This article will take you through common financial management problems, and how to solve them efficiently and cost-effectively.
So, what is Financial Management/Planning?
Simply, financial management is an effort to plan, manage, store and control company assets or funds. Implementation must also be carefully done so as not to cause problems in the future. It means applying general management principles to financial resources of the organisation
Common Problems:
1. Recording Transactions Accurately
Managing corporate finances requires accurate record-keeping, which many companies find extremely challenging. Without correct financial data, management may be unable to lay the groundwork for long-term profit monitoring. Having a cloud-based portfolio Budget Management tool can help you track monthly actuals against budget and enable you to manage your financial performance ensuring your business stays on track. With a tool like this, you will also be able to see the real-time overview of your financial health in the business ensuring you don’t miss a thing.
2. Publish Accurate Financial Statements
Accurate journal entries translate into financial statements which enable companies to publish accurate financial statements in line with accounting standards. Although this sounds simple, it can be extremely difficult for some organisations. CFOs often act as stewards of an organisation’s financial portfolio and assets. They are also strategic advisors who play a key role in setting actionable goals. Hence an efficient Work Management Solution can help with this structure and drive business strategy to focus on the most important initiatives.
3. Raising Cash
Perhaps one of the most pressing issues for corporate leadership is the firm’s ability to raise cash. A few ideas would be:
- Give traditional financing a shot, banks and financial institutions are age-old resources for raising capital and should be considered. So long as you and your business are solvent, they can usually provide debt options with tremendous flexibility, such as credit cards, personal loans, and lines of credit.
- Focus on the long term. At every stage of growth, a business is grappling with some form of limitation preventing it from levelling up.
- Leverage and Grow Your Network. To pitch your investment, first, you need to get in front of somebody. It can be hard to make inroads with strangers, so business owners sometimes begin their fundraising efforts within their circle of friends and relatives.
4. Repaying Debt
After borrowing money, a company must get a clear picture of what they owe. It is important to formulate a budget, decrease unnecessary spending and find ways to increase business revenue. All in all, business debt can help you fund your business, buy more items, and expand your product and service offerings. However, there’s a downside to having business debt. If your business debt gets out of control, it may destroy your business. Hence, you must pay off your debt as soon as possible to achieve your objectives and keep your business running.
Overall, business finance management should be an integral part of a company’s vision and plan for future expansion. Proper budgeting is vital for growth, though not in the way that most entrepreneurs think: instead of just bean counting, it should be used to develop new business strategies and initiatives. Managing finance may not be fun, but it’s an important task nonetheless. It can even help determine how well a business will do in the long run.
May 26, 2022 | Business, Counterpart Insight, Project Management, Tips & Tricks
Why is Project Governance so important to a business?
What is Project Governance?
The term governance was derived from the Latin word “gubernare” which means to steer highlighting the dynamic mechanism in front of an everchanging environment.
However, Project Governance is defined differently across industries and enterprises. The Association of Project Management (APM) states that “Governance refers to the set of policies, regulations, functions, processes, procedures and responsibilities that define the establishment, management and control of projects, programmes and portfolios”.
What should your governance system include?
• Balance – providing the right equilibrium between control and coordinating in order to allow for growth.
• Actions – appropriate insight of all the responsibilities of the business so that they can be properly carried out.
• Flexibility – organise the enterprise to suit the current needs and then adapt and evaluate over time.
• Rewards – create the right incentives so that employees properly motivated
What should you look for when searching for an effective cloud-based Governance solution?
1. It should set out an internal and external governance framework. There should be a portfolio and program management approach to projects overseeing the initiatives of the organisation or project management stage-gate processes tackling the project itself.
2. The project manager should be able to assign and allocate resources respectively to their roles and structure.
3. The ability to engage with the stakeholders with an all-encompassing system that ease communication.
4. The facility to add and manage risks dynamically across the project lifecycle.
5. A reporting system that has the ability to extrapolate different reports at different times in the project lifecycle including budget, risks, issues, project status and timesheets.
May 12, 2022 | Business, Counterpart Insight, Project Management, Tips & Tricks
How important is it to create a strategic plan for your business?
Strategic management is the process of managing a business to achieve a defined set of goals.
In contrast to operational management, which focuses on the day-to-day operations of a business, strategic management focuses on long-term goals and planning for the future success of a business.
One of the most common methods used in strategic management is the SWOT analysis. This method is used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing a business. It is a way of identifying the opportunities for growth and improvement and the areas where a business might need to change its strategy to meet future challenges. Another simple method used in strategic management is the PESTEL analysis, (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal). This analysis is used to assess these six external factors concerning your business situation.
How do you create a strategic plan?
The first step in strategic management is to clearly identify and state your business goals. This is the starting point for any strategic plan. You need to be clear about what you want to achieve over the long term to define and plan the short-term goals that will help you get to the strategic point.
Your short-term or interim goals should be challenging but reachable, and they should be specific enough that you can measure their progress.
A company can achieve its goals in different ways, depending on the situation. It is therefore important to ensure your strategic goals are being reflected within the deliverables of your Business Initiatives and Projects.
The use of clever reporting tools will provide valuable insight into the many variables that contribute to the successful delivery of the projects.
Benefits of creating a strategic plan
- Allows organisations to be proactive rather than reactive
- Provides a sense of direction
- Increases operational efficiency
- Helps to increase market share and profitability
- It can make a business more durable and adaptable
Mar 30, 2022 | Business, Counterpart Insight, Project Management, Tips & Tricks
Below we have identified four common problems and how to solve them.
Firstly, what are Key Performance Indicators in business management?
Key Performance Indicators or KPIs as they are more commonly known are a way of measuring how well the business is meeting its objectives. In other words, KPIs provide organisations with the means of measuring how various aspects of the business are performing in relation to their strategic goals. KPIs provide critical performance-based information that enables an organisation, and its stakeholders, to understand whether or not objectives are on track and thus take action accordingly.
1. How do you measure everything?
Unfortunately, there is often a disconnect between whether something can be measured and whether it should be measured. Therefore, one of the biggest mistakes that people make with KPIs is measuring everything that is easy to measure, regardless of its relevance to the business. It is essential to have a system that provides you with the right tools when it comes to reporting and measuring. Best practice has shown that reporting on risks, issues, budgets and resources, help you make the right business decisions.
2. Not linking KPIs to your strategy
KPIs are only really useful if they are aligned to your strategy and inform strategic decision making. Anything else is just window dressing. When KPIs are not linked to your strategy, you end up wasting a lot of time and money collecting information that is not going to benefit the business. KPIs are useful if they deliver mission-critical information that is relevant to your business. Once you know what you are trying to achieve in your business, you should use those objectives to help you select the relevant KPIs.
3. Providing accurate reporting
It is key for any business to provide accurate reporting in order to deliver a critical analysis of how the business is performing in all areas of the organisation. It is essential to have a tool that can generate a report within seconds and can be downloaded in the form of PDFs or Excel Sheets, which helps you integrate any sort of information.
4. What are the benefits of a project report?
It keeps project stakeholders informed of critical aspects of project health such as status, schedule, issues, scope, resources, cost, etc and allows management to take action to address project issues and risks. Project status reports can also be used to provide a documented history of the project. It is key to have a tool that understands that everyone is in an individual and can give you the ability to filter reports depending on different parameters including programmes or project managers or even the timing.
For more information and how we can support all your business initiatives
Mar 10, 2022 | Business, Counterpart Insight, Tips & Tricks
Does your company struggle with the financial management of strategic initiatives and projects?
Below we have identified four common problems and how to solve them.
1. Recording Transactions Accurately
Managing corporate finances requires accurate record-keeping, which companies may find challenging. Without correct financial data, management may be unable to stay on track with long term project spend. A portfolio management tool can help you manage your monthly actuals against your budgets, enabling you to manage your financial performance across all your strategic initiatives and projects.
2. Seeing the bigger picture…
It is sometimes challenging for companies to see the bigger picture. Standard finance and ERP software platforms are not designed to manage projects and initiatives. It is important to have a software solution that supports and complements your finance system. This solution can also help streamline your organisation’s initiatives and budget tracking to deliver actionable intelligence through key metrics and KPIs. This will allow you to make the right strategic decisions and enable you to reach your business goals now and in the future.
3. Managing your costs vs resources
Managing the costs associated with all your resources can be time-consuming for any financial department. If one does not have an effective system, this can lead to financial and resource errors. Having a resource scheduling tool that includes dynamic timesheets allows the finance person to keep track of employees’ and consultants’ progress, minimising budget overspend.
4. Publish Accurate Financial Accounts
Accurate journal entries translate into financial accounts which enable the company to publish correct financial statements in line with accounting standards. Although this sounds simple, it can be extremely difficult for some organisations. CFO’s often act as stewards for an organisation’s financial portfolio and assets. They are also strategic advisors who play a key role in setting actionable goals. Hence an efficient Work Management Solution can help with this structure and drive business strategy to focus on the most important initiatives.
Learn more about how Counterpart Insight can help you.
