Customer Stories
Moved from a localised to centralised resource management process within 3-weeks
Who are Fruitman Kates?
Fruitman Kates are a Chartered Accountancy Firm based in Canada specialising in Financial and Accounting services to private sector clients. The Firm employs 50 resources with a dedicated Resource Manager planning their workload. Fruitman’s Resource Manager, Tanya Ricci, details their decision to choose Retain Cloud as their Resource Management system.
Godsend in helping to produce quality data. It is fantastic that one tool can give us this at our fingertips.
Goals & Objectives
- Replace an Excel based resource tracking tool with a scalable resource management tool
- Move away from an emailing resourcing culture
- Create a single, streamlined view of all resources and track who is on vacation
- Assess employees’ availability for confirmed work
- Use the skills of resources as part of the scheduling process to get the best out of them
- Provide Partners with detailed and accurate analysis of resource availability quickly
Approach
An initial supplier selection process shortlisted 3 potential suppliers. The exciting roadmap of the new Cloud product, reporting and planning strengths, system demonstrations, credibility and determination of best value were the KPI’s used in selecting Retain’s Software.
Solution
Fruitman Kates selected Retain Cloud, Retain’s latest software and opted for an immediate implementation. The ambition was to go-live within a month to gain immediate planning efficiencies. The designed solution allowed Fruitman to move from a localised to centralised resource management process within 3-weeks of signature. The application was also configured to meet the specific needs defined by Tanya and her Partners.
Benefits
- Improved employee performance due to appropriate skill alignment to projects
- Client delivery was positively impacted as new projects were started sooner due to improved demand management
- Reduced human error in reporting and planning from disparate Excel documents
- Management Insights on workforce availability accessible within 3-weeks of go-live
- Increased visibility and control over resource pool and vacation balances for pro-active rather than re-active planning
- Partners brought in additional resources to match increased demand during the conclusion to the financial year
- Reviewed their vacation policy using the vacation data obtained from Retain to ensure that the firm could match client project demands in popular vacation periods