The website Software Advice carried out a study of potential buyers (mainly SMEs) to find out their principle reasons for buying Project Managment software. The results are quite surprising! Here are just a few...
58% of respondents use only one method for their Project Management and 42% use multiple methods. Method, in this instance refers to either using a technique or a tool. In Planzone, we have many clients who apply the PRINCE2 method while using our software, which is one of the reasons we have a ready-made model for Prince2.
But it is surprising to see that 70% of respondents still use manual methods to manage their projects: whiteboards, emails, spreadsheets while 32% use a Project Management software and 20% use non-specific software for Project Management.
In our case, nearly 80% of our customers were using Excel to manage their projects before subscribing to Planzone. They decided to change to a specific software for Project Management after being faced with several limitations : interfaces that were non-collaborative, isolated from other Project Management components and not dynamic. You might like to refer to an article we wrote on this subject: "3 reasons you shouldn’t use Excel schedule for project management". Part of the success of a project rests on the ability of team members to exchange information easily, particularly teams that are geographically distant. Hence the importance of an online PM tool.
The study reveals how 60% of respondents consider task and time management to be by far the most imporant feature of any Project Management software. A fact that is hardly surprising!
Time spent working on a project is one of the main factors in profitability as it is closely related to billing and budgeting. Devices such as timesheets are thus needed to monitor team members’ progress.
Task management is itself the heart of Project Management. Literally it is the sum of all the individual tasks that leads to the overall success of a project. In short, the task is central to the process.
A plus with Planzone is that a variety of other components can be attached to your tasks: comments, discussions, documents ... allowing you to work in an broader, more unified structure. With the centralization of task management you never forget anything , avoid missing deadlines and wasting time.
Among the multitude of reasons given for buying a Project Management software: 64% want above all, to improve their organization and the workflow efficiency; 40% want more visibility and a better reporting standards and 23% simply need the features intrinsic to the tool. Features that are simply not feasible with the manual methods mentioned above...
These needs are also in line with the features sought by the majority of buyers, including task management, tracking hours worked and monitoring the progress of a project. Task management is especially crucial to the organization of projects and the optimization of workflow.
Don’t hesitate to try out Planzone so that you can understand how a Project Management tool can help you manage tasks better and contribute to the successful completion of your projects.
