The current economic crisis is causing managers to revisit how they do business. In most cases, minimizing costs is high on the agenda.

When costs are cut, there is usually a negative effect on productivity. If resources are cut, people may not have all the resources they need to work productively. If people are cut and there are insufficient people left to do the work, reductions in output usually follow.

Solutions where people are expected to do more are common, but invariably there is a point where doing more and more work can no longer be sustained. A better solution is to find ways to change the way work is done. For example, more effective business processes can streamline work flow, and improve productivity.

TASKey has spent over 12 years developing and validating a solution that makes it easier for people to work together more productively. The solution automates many of the manual processes that people need to employ to manage work.

A distributed management method with web and mobile software makes it easy for each user to see how they fit into tasks, see what is happening, manage their own time, and keep everyone informed about changes and progress. Using the web and mobile software, managers and people doing the work can reduce the time they spend coordinating work in the order of 30-50%.

Time and cost savings come from significantly reduced interruptions to workflows (and therefore less rework), less meetings, less travel to sort out problems, less work being forgotten (falling through the cracks), and improved personal . Also people managing schedules, chasing information, and reporting progress can be redeployed to more productive work, and there is less absenteeism.

TASKey’s solution results in managers doing less time consuming coordination work. But significantly more coordination is achieved, because coordination work that managers often miss or cannot do is done by the software. The web and mobile software works 7x24, tracks and coordinates thousands of people doing thousands of tasks and actions, and the team relationships between stakeholders, sorts out information on a need-to-know basis (privacy and security), keeps all stakeholders informed of changes and progress, and creates an audit trail of critical events.

Allocation of work is also better, because managers can instantly see the actions key people have done, are doing or plan to do. An added benefit is that past processes can be templated (copied, improved and pasted) to significantly reduce planning time and make continuous improvement easy.

TASKey’s web and mobile software offers a new solution that automates a lot of management processes that are normally done manually. But most importantly, it does the work that is not done, but should be done: work that is too complex, is forgotten, occurs when a manager is absent or when a manager is busy on some other task.

The bottom line is that TASKey web and mobile software lets people work together more productively, and most importantly, sustain and improve that productivity. Less people will be required to manage work, so costs can be cut while productivity is increased.

So when the economic crisis is over and growth returns, people can be added where they can be most productive. TASKey’s web and mobile software has automated many labour intensive business processes, so many of the usual overheads associated with growth will not be required.

By,
Dr Neil G. Miller