Reduce Project Overruns by 20% – Complete Visibility is the Key
Background
Hexagon commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study to examine the potential return on investment (ROI) organizations can realize by implementing EcoSys™. EcoSys is an Enterprise Project Performance (EPP) solution that supports the success of all projects within an organization by consolidating enterprise-wide project data, across the full lifecycle, into one management platform.
Forrester interviewed four organizations with experience working with Hexagon’s EcoSys. From their discussions with decision-makers, Forrester was able to quantify some of the primary benefits of utilizing EPP software. These benefits were consolidated into 5 key findings:
- EcoSys Reduces Project Cost Overruns
- EcoSys Allows You to Pivot Capital Spending
- EcoSys Improved Project Controller Productivity
- EcoSys Enhanced Collaboration
- Ecosys Allows you to Decommission Legacy Systems
In this blog post, we’ll explore how EcoSys reduces project cost overruns.
Key Challenge: A Lack of Visibility
The root of all challenges experienced by our decision-makers seemed to be a lack of visibility into important project data, such as progress, productivity metrics, budget information, and more. This poor visibility was caused using disjointed systems to manage the enterprise-wide project ecosystem.
Unreliable Data
Prior to EcoSys, interviewees relied on multiple spreadsheets for project cost management. This antiquated way of managing project information forced project teams to manually collect & assess performance data from a multitude of differing sources. Without one source of truth, important project information was often late and inaccurate, which made the reporting unreliable.
Delayed Forecasting
To add to the problem, manually harvesting data is a cumbersome process that caused a lag in data acquisition. This led to a delayed understanding of inaccurate project costs. Because of this, project cost forecasts did not provide a true picture of the financial needs of a project. This resulted in an inability to be proactive in identifying causes of project cost overruns, and without sufficient notice to affect positive changes in outcomes.
The Solution: Obtaining Near-Real-Time Project Cost Data
Project and portfolio leaders within the customer organizations knew they needed to enable their teams to view cost data in real-time, quickly analyze their findings, and adjust plans as needed. The decision-makers turned to an EPP solution, which gave them the agility to accurately forecast project costs. Because data was readily available throughout the project lifecycle, project teams gained an extreme level of visibility. This empowered them to drill into root causes, and act quickly when unforeseen cost changes came into play.
“On the cost management side, EcoSys has provided us with the ability to do more near-real-time analysis and have agility within the portfolio. EcoSys shines in cost management.”
Director of Project Management, Energy Industry
The Result: 20% Reduction in Overspending
After acquiring a richer data environment, project teams were empowered to accurately assign dollars, staff, and other resources throughout the project lifecycle. The configurability of the EcoSys platform further added to cost management success as dashboards were tailor-made to each stakeholder type. This fostered healthy accountability as multiple professionals were notified in anticipation of potential overspending or variances.
“We won’t overspend this year because EcoSys provides a platform that allows us to real time manage our budget and respond to changing business conditions. Two years ago, we overspent by 15%. This year we will come within a couple percent of plan. EcoSys helps support that maturity.”
Director of Project Management, Energy Industry
Forrester Consulting study found that the organizations interviewed realized an average of 20% reduction in project cost overruns over 3 years. When viewing the benefits modeled into a composite organization, it saved US$7.4M that would have otherwise been wasted. These savings were then reallocated to other projects to maximize overall project returns.