Mavenlink Unveils Major Enhancements to Full-Cycle Resource Management

By Sudipto Ghosh On Mar 1, 2018

Mavenlink Unveils Major Enhancements to Full-Cycle Resource Management

Multitude of new features include a Drop-and-Drag Master Planning Console, and Demand and Capacity Forecasting Dashboard

Mavenlink, the leading provider of cloud-based software for the modern services organization and a G2 Crowd Leader, has announced the availability of an advanced Full-Cycle Resource Management solution for the $3 trillion professional and marketing services industries.

The innovative solution is designed to help professional services organizations manage resources on multiple projects across every stage of the services engagement: Estimating, Planning, Delivering, and Analyzing.

It is unveiled a new market research in the 2018 State of the Services Economy report reveals that resource management, the single biggest contributing factor to costs and performance, is consistently the biggest challenge for services organizations.

Ray Grainger, CEO and Founder of Mavenlink, said, “The sub-optimization of resources is one of the most pressing business issues for services firms today, compromising utilization rates, margins, and client satisfaction.”

Ray added, “That is why we have invested heavily to solve it. With this launch, Mavenlink offers the most robust resource management product on the market, enabling our customers to be the best resource managers out there. The agility, efficiency, and reporting capabilities now available in Mavenlink’s Full-Cycle Resource Management will give our clients a competitive advantage.”

Key Features of Mavenlink’s Full-Cycle Resource Management Solution

Mavenlink’s Full-Cycle Resource Management solution is the industry’s first holistic and comprehensive approach to resource management. It gives services organizations full visualization of current and forecasted resource needs, the tools to swiftly manage change and optimize project margins, and the data necessary to elevate the role of resource management from tactical to strategic.

New features announced include–

Master Planning Console

A drag-and-drop console allows managers to efficiently allocate work hours, and visualize and resolve resource conflicts as they arise. The visual nature of the Full-Cycle Resource Management solution makes it easy to see where resources are or need to be allocated to the current and future projects, in real time.

Key features include–

Live View Resource Pool, a comprehensive overview of all team members that allows managers to quickly sort and find the resources they need by project, role, competency, and more; and the Resource Matching Tool, which helps managers to easily find the best matched available resources for a given project.

Estimates and Scenarios

A comprehensive feature set to help managers estimate project resource needs, costs, and margins, and do what-if analysis before setting a project into motion. The ability to test resource variables in scenarios and forecast outcomes allows managers to minimize risk and make smart decisions about resources essential to projects.

Key features include–

Scenario Builder

A solution that enables company estimators to build and compare staffing scenarios, and then quickly turns those scenarios into projects; and a Profit Margin Modeler, a tool used to adjust resource compilation, rate cards, and other information to optimize profit margin for each scenario.

Staffing & Capacity Dashboard

Mavenlink’s Full-Cycle Resource Management solution also equips organizations with the most comprehensive set of resource and demand and capacity planning reports via Mavenlink Insights. The new reporting functionality includes a Capacity Demand Forecasting Report that highlights unstaffed demand and available capacity far enough in advance to make needed staffing adjustments; as well as a Roll Off Report, a daily calendar view that highlights any resource who will be rolling off a project soon to prevent margin leakage and reduce bench time.

Early Access Customers Report Immediate ROI

Mavenlink invited customers to join an early access group to test drive and collaborate on the refinement of the new features. Clients represented a broad range of services firms that will benefit from the solution, including leading digital agencies IDEO and Blue State Digital; the largest member-owned healthcare company in the country, Vizient; and a publicly held global professional services firm, Navigant Consulting.

Some of the initial benefits reported by early access customers include increased accuracy in forecasting, improved resource utilization, and increased business agility.

Erika Bellido, Operations Manager at Blue State Digital, said, “Mavenlink’s approach to resource management allows us to constantly improve the way we make business decisions based on the available resourcing data and a project’s needs.”

Erika added, “Our business moves very fast, and project and client requirements are always changing. Before Mavenlink, it was difficult to get a bigger picture on what deliverables needed to get completed and what resources we truly had. Now we can look at project needs as a whole and make on-the-fly adjustments based on ideal resource scenarios because we have the visibility into our available resource pool, the tools to make changes very fast and the insights to track resourcing trends and projections— all in a single solution.”

Currently, Mavenlink delivers enterprise-class Software as a Service (SaaS) that transforms how businesses work with distributed teams, contractors and clients around the globe. Mavenlink’s innovative technology suite enables organizations of any size to successfully manage and scale their people, projects, and profits.