Project management responsibilities for MSPs, agents, and other technology partners involves tackling and prioritizing a complex set of issues. Getting project management (PM) right comes down to having a well thought out plan in place, excellent communication practices, and finding a team you can trust. It also requires strategic and tactical planning with stakeholders and project members for ongoing collaborative management. Whether you’re focused on continuous improvement projects, increasing customer satisfaction scores or implementing multifaceted services and solutions – effective project management can provide much-needed focus, lower costs, and improve quality across your business. Depending on your organization’s goals, size, and culture, outsourcing project management responsibilities may be something you should consider. Understanding the benefits and risks of leveraging external project management talent can help your organization make an informed decision. Let’s take a look at the biggest motivations and benefits behind enlisting the help of project management experts to get the job done.
Specialized experience adds focus and clarity
The decision to go with external vendors who specialize in project management of crucial channel tasks is a big decision, but it can also result in a big payoff. Consider the fact that the right PMs can bring a whole new level of experience to any project. They can share their best practices and honed skills collected from multiple clients and industries and apply that to your specific challenge. Highly skilled outside experts can also bring added clarity and focus on any project. If you’re an MSP expanding your services, technology stack, revamping its onboarding program, or you’re looking to gain efficiencies around NOC and Help Desk services, the right project management expert can provide industry leadership, best practices, and proven processes to meet your goals and grow faster and with less risk. Experienced outsourced project managers can support businesses in meeting clearly defined goals with single-minded focus. A high-level of experience, insight, and objectivity brought from the right outsourcing partner may be just the edge your team needs to tackle your most challenging project and make a substantial impact on your business.
Driving down costs
Whether you have a small, mid-market or large-scale organization, labor is a huge percentage of your ongoing operating budget. Labor costs can account for as much as 70% of total business costs, including employee wages, benefits, payroll or other related taxes (Source: Paycor). Not only that, keeping and retaining top talent is also very challenging and time-consuming in today’s growing economy. Your full-time staff still may not have the time or the specific skills needed to take on the responsibility of managing complex projects effectively. If these skills are not available internally then outsourcing to an experienced project management team may be the best option, compared to the cost of hiring a more expensive and possibly less experienced internal project manager.
Outsourcing offers a winning solution to these cost challenges and can fill the experience gap. By relying on a project management expert, companies pay for only the skills and time they need, giving them greater predictability in spending and a team that has a vision centered on following the plan, advancing the project, and meeting the benchmarks in their scope of work. They can maintain their focus on the end project goal, without being bogged down with other day-to-day tasks like an internal team would. You can count on outsource partners to take the lead on critical functions like managing multiple resources, scheduling, planning, task assignment, and deliverable control and keep your internal staff highly focused on core tasks like generating revenue and providing a high-level of service to customers.
The best project managers, whether internal or external, work behind-the-scenes to plan, schedule, innovate, and problem solves to meet the project goals quickly and efficiently, so the rest of the team can focus on revenue-generating work. By relying on outside project managers your team benefits further from laser-focused industry experts who have developed best practices and insights. This level of project management intelligence will enable you to avoid costly missteps and more quickly implement proven processes that will translate into better service for your end-user customers. If you want help evaluating your best route for smarter project management in 2019, talk to Outsourcive today!