Resource Management, an Overview

As a professional working in a managerial role, I can confidently say that resource management is undoubtedly one of the most critical aspects of business management today. I think we can all agree that as technology has advanced, so too have business structures, enabling us to reach new markets, offer groundbreaking products, and conduct our internal operations more effectively. With that being said, in my opinion, the complexity of business structures has also increased. Thus, the stakes are now higher than ever. It is increasingly getting difficult to maintain operational business processes in the face of such complexity, especially from a logistical standpoint, so tech companies worldwide have contributed to the field by introducing digital tools to help companies manage their affairs effectively. Microsoft is one such company and has developed and released a wide variety of business solutions, but the one that we feel is most powerful is SharePoint.  In this two-part series, I'll be introducing the concept of resource management as well as the use of digital tools to facilitate resource management in your business. In this first piece, I'll explore the fundamentals of resource management and why it is such a crucial business enterprise area. In the following article, I'll steer us towards the particulars of resource management, especially resource scheduling, but for now, let's try to better understand the term in general.

In the context of organizations and business structures, resource management is a term used to define the process of developing and applying the Resources of a business to meet its goals and objectives. Business resources encompass everything from IT services, human to financial resources. They can be defined simply as anything a company or organization has control over and can fulfill the needs of the business. Whether it's a vehicle that your business owns or a unique skill set that one of your employees has, if you as a leader can allocate it to benefit your business, it can be considered a resource within the context of resource management. The idea of grouping personnel with objects and other non-human entities may run counter to the common understanding of "resource," but just as in the Human Resource field, it is often more productive to approach the management of your workforce from a more logistical perspective, at least for the purposes of planning. If your human power outlook is quantified as well as qualitative, you can allocate them more effectively towards individual projects without losing perspective on the entire business.

Proper Planning of Business Resources

The first and most immediate goal of resource management action is to apply resources accurately. This, of course, primarily entails ensuring that your business applies Sufficient resources to the effort such that the task can be achieved in a timely fashion. This aspect involves properly analyzing the task in order to make a reasonable decision about what resources to apply. Making errors in judgment during the task analysis is a surefire way to miss-allocate resources in a way that is either insufficient or inefficient. Not only may you allocate an insufficient quantity or quality of resources, but you may also over-allocate, thereby creating waste. A perfect balance must be struck where you don't over-commit, creating waste or under-commit, creating unnecessary hurdles for your team.  

Have a look at a few solutions developed by Infowise to help organizations better manage their resources
Project Management
Equipment Reservation System

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Development of Resources

The second aspect of resource management that often gets overlooked is the Development of resources. This is an absolutely crucial consideration and can produce either prosperity or turmoil depending on how well you navigate it. As resources are expended, and the scope of work expands, the Development of new resources and the improvement of existing ones is the only thing that will keep your enterprise moving forward. Suppose you choose to act reactively rather than proactively regarding your resource development. In that case, you will constantly hit roadblocks and have to wait for your resource to catch up to your operations and rate of allocation. Imagine an army on a campaign of conquest. An over-eager general commands his men to press on but fails to call for an extension to his supply chain. The army marches until they run out of food and then wait in place while the supply chain struggles to catch up. This same concept applies to business; if any one aspect of your resource development operation falls short, you are effectively hamstringing your entire business until such time as it catches up.

Have a look at a few solutions developed by Infowise to help organizations better develop their resources
Employee Training 
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Infowise Resource Management System

Now that I've explained just why resource management is so important to modern business, you're probably wondering what methods you should use to handle it properly. As I briefly touched on in my introduction, there is a multitude of tools on the market today to facilitate strong resource management. Here at Infowise, we are rather partial to SharePoint, and have even built a powerful companion for it called Ultimate forms. It introduces many features that the base software doesn't have out of the box, many of them pertaining to resource management. I say all this to say that there are certainly tools for the job, and in my next article, I'll be exploring the various resource management tools on offer, along with how exactly they can benefit your business. Thanks for stopping by; if you have any questions, please reach out to us here at Infowise or explore further in our extensive documentation collection. 

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