Fujitsu addresses core business issues with PSNext

Fujitsu, the third largest IT company in the world, has implemented PSNext, a centralised project management solution, supplied by Management Planning Systems, to address core business issues related to projects and time billing.

"Timesheets and projects are core to the business," says Andre Barnard, Manager, Business Information Systems. "We are a consulting business - we need to know what time we are spending with customers. We need to ensure billing is correct. We also need to utilise our people better by identifying bottlenecks and areas where there may be some slack. We regard PSNext as a strategic asset to help us achieve these goals."

Fujitsu is involved in a range of services, including call centres, consulting, infrastructure management, developments, outsourcing and business intelligence. In order to keep track of a large number of projects and consultants spread over SA, Fujitsu has implemented the PSNext enterprise project management system.

"The general opinion is that PSNext is a pretty comprehensive tool," says Barnard. "In addition to time and billing, we found the strong project management functions of PSNext very appealing."

The system allows visibility across all resources and projects. Fujitsu is able to identify over-utilised skills as well as resources that may need to be retrained and re-skilled. PSNext is regarded as a vital tool to help improve service levels.

According to Barnard, the management of projects using PSNext is a lot simpler compared to the previous project management system. As PSNext is relatively easy to pick up, project managers did not have problems moving over to PSNext.

Fujitsu is planning to use (or is already using) many of the additional capabilities of PSNext. These include skills management, document management, issues and collaboration. The whole resource application is a lot simpler compared to what was used previously.

Implementation of PSNext throughout the organisation was remarkably smooth and easy. "A general comment from the staff is that PSNext is a pretty easy system to work with," says Barnard. "Nevertheless, change management issues had to be addressed during implementation. PSNext is not a stick to beat people with, but is needed for genuine measurements to improve the business."

It was important for people to buy in to the use of timesheets. Quite a bit of handholding was done initially to ensure there were no major impacts on the business.

"Management Planning Systems (MPS) was more than happy to assist us with some minor issues we encountered," says Barnard. "We regard MPS as joint partners for the future."

Xehad = Proudly South African PSEmail

Due to a strict security policy which prevents external users from accessing internal data through the firewall, Fujitsu identified a requirement to do offline timesheet capture. By using PSEmail, a Proudly South African product developed by MPS, consultants will now be able capture timesheets via e-mail, no matter where they are located. This makes it easy for consultants who sit at a client site to capture timesheets and update project progress on a regular basis.

For more information, contact MPS on (011) 706 7015, South Africa.

For more information on Fujitsu, contact Marketing Department, Fujitsu (011) 233 5911, South Africa.