Yes. Black holes and eclipses matter a lot for service sector firms when they are unable to find the reasons for low profit.
And surprisingly this happens when the project wise profits are decent.
A good project management software may not help you in tracking the profitability of the firm, because the problem may not be with project management but with non-management of non-project work.
EFF Factor calls it eclipse of non-project work costs on profit of all the projects.
Non-project work in service sector terminology means “non-billable” work.
This could cover Idle time, Administrative work, Training, Research, CSR, Strategy/ policy development, Marketing or any other activity on which time spent cannot be billed to any client.
Most firms do not bother to track and monitor such time systematically.
The costs attributable to such activity may overshadow the profits being earned from billable work. We call this eclipse for it’s shadow effect which at times could be very serious.
EFF Factor’s framework of “Management by Billing Rates” addresses this problem efficiently by offering a complete picture of billable and non-billable activity in terms of money. Different solutions to suit different cultures and practices can be worked out by discussing the issues with EFF Factor “Productivity improvement team”.
The information of the eclipse on real-time basis helps firms take prompt corrective action.
Black hole is another phenomenon where due to lack of proper control, substantial information of billable or non-billable work remains unreported. We call it “black hole” because, this black hole, sucks in valuable information of time spent by people, leaving no clue of its magnitude.
The real reason of non-reporting or short reporting in large number of cases, as our research suggests, is a larger component of “non-billable time” in a person’s daily work and absence of appropriate evaluation methodology for the same. Identification of the reasons behind “non-reporting” and addressing them appropriately, is a better way of dealing with the problem. Other option is to allow “the black hole” to swallow large volumes of high value information and leave the management in the dark.
EFF Factor captures information about “Non reported time” too and offers it in a manner that the whole picture of the firm’s net profit is available with complete analysis. At a click of a button person-wise analysis is also available.
We call this dashboard as Mirror of your actions and inactions.
Eff factor prompts you to take prompt action.
Pay for EFF Factor.
Stop paying for inactions.
Think EFF Factor and control Black holes and eclipses that matter.
