Resource Management and Costing

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Effective resource management relates to how an organization’s physical resources such as employees, facilities, and equipment interrelate with other financial resources at a manager’s disposal (i.e. additional budgetary expenditures) to deliver outputs which ultimately support departmental and/or program outcomes. Knowing the true costs associated with these outputs is paramount in making accurate and sustainable business decisions.

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Developing meaningful operational models of the key business processes which underpin an organization’s programs, products and/or services is a critical requirement for enhancing the understanding of how work gets done at a tactical level. It provides a solid foundation for mapping the cost flows from departmental/program resources while recognizing the operational limitations that exist in any business process.

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By using basic business process mapping techniques and purpose-built software for visualizing, calculating operational and financial cost flows, and scenario-playing, clients can utilize their business models to support a wide variety of decision-making requirements such as:

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Work planning, operational budgeting and forecasting – the ability to develop realistic budgets directly linked to current and future operational deliverables;

 

Constraint analysis and capacity management – the ability to determine where and why operational bottlenecks exist and explore ways to optimize current resources and/or consider alternative resourcing strategies;

 

Operational efficiency and business process improvements – the ability to identify and track meaningful efficiency  indicators and understand both the operational and financial impact of proposed business process changes;

 

Cost to serve, user fees and/or transfer pricing – the ability to develop accurate and defensible direct or shared services costs at the program and/or internal support services level;

 

Performance budgeting – the ability to link performance targets and/or service standards with the resource and business process requirements to achieve these targets.

 

The QMR Managing for Results team has over 25 years’ experience in using proven implementation techniques for helping clients identify opportunities for better resource management and costing. This is achieved by conducting strategic resource alignment assessments; scoping/prioritizing operational modeling efforts; building and validating business process models using leading-edge software; and leveraging the scenario-playing capabilities of these models to support better decision-making.