From Profit Killer To Consultant Burn Out (And The Good Bit In The Middle)
Review the demand of potentially successful bids against available resources
This is possibly the greatest challenge for any consultancy. When, in the bid process, do you commit the resources that are required to deliver the project?
Leave it until you have a signed contract and the chances are you probably won’t be able to deliver in the timescales required by the client. Commit resources to unsuccessful bids and you risk impacting the delivery of your already contracted work.
The action to remedy these situations is often to over utilise staff, giving them unsustainable workloads and impossible deadlines.
This is where systems can prove invaluable in helping to manage the complexity of resourcing across multiple bids and projects.
Firstly, they can be used to set, monitor and update the probability of winning individual bids. This allows you to highlight when and to which bids resources will need to be allocated.
Secondly, to have a holistic view of the resourcing commitments across the business. You can see at a glance the forecasted demand on staff and therefore check their availability to work on new projects. By being able to visualise the impact of resourcing staff into new projects, priority can be assessed, achievable project plans can be created and, if necessary, existing work reassigned. At the same time, workloads can be managed to acceptable levels for individuals and across the business.
