If you’ve ever worked on a project, whether it was rolling out a new product, implementing new software, or running a marketing campaign, you know how challenging it can be to keep everything on track. There are so many moving pieces to coordinate – teams, resources, tasks, timelines, budgets…the list goes on.
It’s no wonder so many projects end up going over deadline and over budget. Some studies have found that as many as 70% of projects fail due to missed deadlines, blown budgets, or lack of resources. That’s a pretty shocking statistic when you consider how much rides on successful project execution for businesses today.
I’ve certainly been there – staring at a million tasks and priorities, trying to figure out who is doing what by when, where the budget stands, if we have enough people allocated, and on and on. Making sure a complex project comes together seamlessly is enough to give any project manager grey hairs.
That’s why I’m such a big fan of NetSuite’s robust project management module. NetSuite is a leading cloud ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution that provides an incredibly powerful, yet user-friendly platform for managing every stage of the project lifecycle. With NetSuite as your project command center, you can kiss those project management headaches goodbye.
In this article, I’ll walk through all the ways NetSuite’s project management tools can help keep your projects running like a well-oiled machine – from planning and scheduling to resource and budget management to tracking and reporting. No more missed deadlines, blown budgets, or dropped balls. Let’s get those projects across the finish line on time and on budget!
Project Planning & Scheduling Made Easy We all know that flawless execution starts with a solid plan and schedule. With NetSuite’s intuitive project planning tools, you can easily map out your entire project plan – defining tasks, setting milestones, and establishing dependencies. The visual timeline views let you see everything at a glance so you can identify any potential scheduling conflicts or resource constraints right from the get-go.
One of my favorite things about the scheduling tools is the ability to create reusable project templates. These templates let you bake in best practices, formalize your processes, and capture everything you’ve learned from past projects. That way, you get a running start for every new project instead of reinventing the wheel each time.
You can also use templates to plan out different project methodologies or phases. For example, you could have one template for kicking off a new software implementation and another for rolling out a marketing campaign. Simple but powerful!
The Right Resources for the Right Tasks Of course, the best-laid plans won’t get you very far if you don’t have the resources lined up to execute on them. That’s why resource management is a core strength of NetSuite’s project management tools.
NetSuite gives you a complete view into resource capacities, capabilities, schedules, and allocation across all your projects. You can define employee roles and skill sets, see who is available when, and sufficiently staff up each of your projects. This centralized resource hub makes it easy to locate the right people for the right tasks and balance workloads accordingly.
No more overallocation headaches or scrambling to find someone with a specific skillset. You’ll have all the resource management information you need right at your fingertips.
Seamless Task Tracking & Team Collaboration
Once you have your plan and peopled lined up, it’s time to start executing. NetSuite’s task management and collaboration tools will be your new best friends for keeping everyone marching toward the same milestones.
Within the solution, you can easily create tasks, assign them to specific team members, set due dates, and monitor status in real-time. Team members can log their time directly against tasks to build a clean audit trail. They can also attach documents, provide updates, and surface dependencies or risks.
Project managers get a comprehensive dashboard to view all tasks, see what’s complete or running behind, assess resource workloads, and identify potential delays before they impact the timeline. At-a-glance traffic light indicators let you spot potential problem areas so you can take action to get things back on track.
The built-in team collaboration tools are also a huge plus for boosting productivity and keeping everyone aligned. No more endless email threads or scattered comments in different tools. With NetSuite, all your project communication happens in a central hub. You can @mention colleagues, provide real-time updates, share files, and even create discussion threads around specific tasks, issues, or deliverables.
Say Goodbye to Spreadsheet Accounting Nightmares Let’s talk budget. How many times have you found yourself driving blind when it comes to tracking project financials? Pulling numbers from all over the place into spreadsheets, trying to consolidate spending data, juggling invoices, the whole nightmare. NetSuite saves you from getting lost in that accounting black hole.
Since NetSuite is an integrated cloud ERP system, the project management module seamlessly unifies all your project financial data in one place. No more digging through documents or checking multiple sources to understand your budget status.
With NetSuite’s powerful project accounting capabilities, you can set budgets upfront, map out costs for labor, materials, expenses, track actuals against your budget, monitor profitability, manage billing and revenue recognition, and run any reports you need. It puts complete visibility into your project financials right at your program managers’ fingertips.
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And since it automatically syncs project data bi-directionally with your core accounting and ERP systems, you can finally wave goodbye to manually moving data between spreadsheets, apps, and systems. Your project finances stay accurate and up-to-date automatically, no sweat.
Get the Reports & Visibility You Need Speaking of reports – NetSuite’s business intelligence tools for project reporting and analytics are bar none. Need to know the status of all projects across your portfolio? Done. Want to view resource utilization by role or department? Easy. Looking to share profitability metrics with the executive team? No problem.
NetSuite comes loaded with tons of built-in project reports spanning status updates, budgets, KPIs, costs, billing…you name it. But if you want to get more granular, you can easily configure and slice the data how you want with custom reports, dashboards, even data visualizations.
The pre-built KPIs and dashboards shine a spotlight on all your key project metrics, providing that 30,000-foot program management view. But you can also drill down into the details to course correct on the fly, analyze trends and patterns, and make data-driven decisions to improve delivery and drive project success.
Best of all, you can share these insights across departments in real-time for total transparency and stakeholder alignment. No more chasing down information across siloed data sources or consolidating slides/spreadsheets for exec presentations. The analytics are dynamic, integrated, and accessible anytime, anywhere.
Run Your Entire Project Portfolio Of course, few organizations run just one project at a time anymore. Most are juggling multiple projects concurrently as part of larger portfolios or programs. NetSuite has your back to manage that added layer of complexity.
Using NetSuite’s portfolio management capabilities, you can centralize all your active, planned, and completed projects into a master command center. You’ll be able to holistically prioritize projects based on your strategic imperatives, available resources, budgets, and other parameters.
Having all your projects and programs centralized in NetSuite makes it easier to spot dependencies and risks across your portfolio. You can balance resource allocations for maximum efficiency, identify conflicts, and re-prioritize projects based on shifting business needs. Portfolio dashboards will highlight key metrics like costs, revenue, profitability, utilization, and project health.
And because NetSuite provides complete governance tools, you can establish role-based controls, approvals, issue tracking, and audit trails across all your projects. That way, best practices and standardized processes are enforced without exception.
Take Your Projects to the Cloud As a true cloud solution, NetSuite’s project management tools come with all the inherent benefits of anytime, anywhere access in a mobile-friendly environment. That means your project teams can easily stay connected and continue executing no matter where they are working.
Distributed team members can log in to collaborate on tasks, share updates, upload files, track time, and update project records. No more things slipping through the cracks or lost productivity from folks being off-site or unable to access key project management information.
And with automatic updates and upgrades handled seamlessly in the cloud, you can wave goodbye to costly, time-consuming software deployments and maintenance. Everyone is always working on the latest version with the most current data, real-time.
The cloud also provides enhanced security, disaster recovery, and business continuity capabilities to keep your critical project data safe, backed up, and accessible. No more risk of lost documents or data corruption destroying months or years of work.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. NetSuite’s integrated cloud project management suite is an incredibly robust and user-friendly solution for managing projects of any size, type, or complexity.
FAQs:
NetSuite is a leading cloud-based ERP solution that offers a robust project management module. It helps manage every stage of the project lifecycle, from planning and scheduling to resource and budget management, tracking, and reporting. This ensures projects are delivered on time and within budget.
NetSuite provides intuitive project planning tools that allow users to map out entire project plans, define tasks, set milestones, and establish dependencies. Its visual timeline views help identify scheduling conflicts or resource constraints early, ensuring seamless project execution.
Yes, NetSuite allows users to create reusable project templates. These templates help formalize processes, capture best practices from past projects, and provide a running start for new projects, saving time and ensuring consistency.
NetSuite offers comprehensive resource management tools that provide visibility into resource capacities, capabilities, schedules, and allocation across all projects. Users can define employee roles and skill sets, view availability, and efficiently staff projects, preventing overallocation and resource shortages.
NetSuite’s task management tools allow users to create, assign, and monitor tasks in real-time. Team members can log time, attach documents, provide updates, and manage dependencies. The built-in collaboration tools centralize project communication, enhancing productivity and alignment.
NetSuite integrates project financial data within its cloud ERP system, enabling users to set budgets, track costs, monitor profitability, manage billing, and generate financial reports. This unified approach ensures accurate, up-to-date financial information without manual data consolidation.
NetSuite provides a wide range of built-in project reports, including status updates, budgets, KPIs, costs, and billing. Users can also create custom reports, dashboards, and data visualizations to get granular insights, track key metrics, and make data-driven decisions.
Yes, NetSuite’s portfolio management capabilities allow users to centralize all active, planned, and completed projects. This helps prioritize projects, balance resource allocations, identify dependencies and risks, and re-prioritize based on changing business needs.
Being cloud-based, NetSuite offers anytime, anywhere access, enabling distributed teams to collaborate and update project information in real-time. It also provides automatic updates, enhanced security, disaster recovery, and business continuity capabilities.
NetSuite’s cloud infrastructure offers robust security features, including data encryption, access controls, and regular backups. This ensures critical project data is protected, backed up, and accessible, minimizing the risk of data loss or corruption.
