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Three Benefits of Having a Cloud-Based Project Management System
As you probably know already, cloud adaptation has been flourishing for the last couple of years. In fact, a chorus of IT professionals and business leaders from all over the world has been singing praises about the cloud for quite some time at this point.
So the fact that almost 80% of all IT budgets in the next 15 months – according to the latest The State of Cloud Adoption and Security report – will be committed to cloud-based solutions and apps.
And whether we’re looking at SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) or PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), the predictions are basically the same – rapid growth of the workloads placed in the cloud and an enlarged percentage of the IT budget toward the cloud.
Cloud-Based PM Software
As IT systems become a vital competitive element in almost any industry, tech projects are steadily becoming bigger, touching more parts of the company and consequently, posing a risk to the company if anything goes wrong.
That’s why finishing and delivering projects has been more difficult than ever in the last few years. According to McKinsey research, conducted in collaboration with the University of Oxford, bigger IT projects on average run 45% over budget and 7% over time.
With those numbers, it’s not difficult to see why people are always looking for ways to improve their failure rates and the project management process overall. So that’s why so many companies started implementing cloud-based solutions, which enable them to work on their project anytime – anywhere.
But sometimes, people are resistant to change. And since most new companies are working on tight budgets, investing in a new software system may seem a bit risky for some. So if you’re still not sure whether you want to migrate to the cloud or not – here are three benefits of cloud-based PM software.
Three Clear Benefits of Cloud-Based PM Software
Cost-Efficiency
While the benefits of the cloud largely depend on the size and the nature of your organization, most people tend to agree that moving to the cloud will definitely save you some money. In fact, according to statistics gathered by Avatara LLC, roughly 82% of companies managed to save money within the first 12 months of implement cloud-based software.
Project management tools – which fall under the SaaS category of cloud solutions – have almost always marginal up-front cost. Furthermore, these tools don’t require any new hardware whatsoever, so you won’t be forced to hire any IT professionals to oversee the installation.
What’s more, most cloud service allow small companies to access, sophisticated tools, which they wouldn’t be able to afford in the past that will make their operations a lot easier. Lastly, almost every cloud service allows to add new users and scale back down just as easily, enabling you to adjust your team as your company grows.
Greater Accessibility
Initially, business leaders started using project management software in order to have more control over their projects and to monitor their progress more cautiously. And just like most traditional software, PM systems used to live exclusively on premise, which of course limited employee access.
While this wasn’t a major issue 15 years ago, with the rise of telecommuting, this lack of accessibility naturally became a problem. Today, according to the most recent Gallup research, over 43% of employed Americans spend at least a couple of days each month working remotely.
Basically, if you don’t start utilizing the cloud as soon as possible, you’ll left out your telecommuting employees out of the loop completely. And it goes without saying that this will hinder their productivity dramatically, reduce their effectiveness and hurt your bottom line in the long run.
Increased Productivity
Let’s stay on the subject of telecommuting for just a sec. you see, a recent study published in the Harvard Business Review has shown that offering employees the opportunity to work from the comfort of their homes can in fact, increase their productivity.
According to the study, a call-center employees who are allowed to work from their homes, complete on average more than 13% more calls than their colleagues in the office. This translates into an extra day of work per week and almost two thousand dollars in revenue per employee over a nine-month period.
But that’s not all; modern cloud based project management solutions like Active Collab has time tracking abilities that enables employers to establish a baseline of time spent per project that they can then tie other vital performance indicators like quality of work or the amount of work completed. This way, they can measure the output of their employees, relative to their working hours
Final Thoughts
And if all of that wasn’t enough to sway your opinion, you should also consider this: according to a recent CSA study, one-third of companies have a, as researchers put it, “full-steam-ahead” attitude toward cloud solutions and apps.
What’s more, the same study revealed that almost 80% of IT leaders across all industries regularly receive requests from their workers to start using more cloud-based apps with communication, content and file sharing capabilities.
So if you’re not already using a cloud based project management system to handle your projects, you should definitely give it a try. Just think about it – these solutions are cost-effective, flexible and are rather easy to obtain through the Internet. Once you start using it – you’ll wonder how ever you managed to track and deliver project without it.
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