Problems Overcome
Our
methodology overcomes the common issues associated with
traditional planning and budgeting, for example when
budgets are:
>
Allocated based upon historic spend plus inflation,
with little time given to determining whether the
current
service levels are now efficient or appropriate
> Influenced by the aims of
individuals rather than
the priorities of the organisation and its strategy
> Spread
across many functions making it difficult to
identify potential cross organisational benefits
The methodology also accelerates the delivery of
benefits from other strategic initiatives such as
outsourcing, process reengineering, transformation
and shared service centres:
>
Provides a structured means to prioritise and track
such initiatives
>
Makes sure that the proposed benefits are
feasible and that the organisations management are
fully prepared to deliver "promised benefits"
>
Rebalancing resources following major changes
where there has been a major shift in resourcing
during the implementation phase of a project
>
Serves as an important check that value will
be
extracted from all improvement programmes
In the public sector it also helps to ensure that:
> Value
for money is achieved
> All spending is prioritised, auditable and transparent
>
Highlights the need for consistency between desired
outcomes and performance targets
> Annual
budget setting is linked with long term project
spending needs
Methodology And System
Risk Avert's methodology and supporting system
provides the following key functionality:
> Planning
guidelines based strategic objectives are
cascaded down to budget holders
> The entire
planning process is tracked and progress
communicated to executives
>
Existing budgets, projects, activities and
processes are
analysed identifying current improvement opportunities
>
Challenging mechanisms to identify, agree and
develop new ideas to increase efficiency and identify
alternative
> Service
level options are defined, budgeted, justified
and implementations planned
>
Prioritisation process to prioritise the services
levels
and calculate the funding strategy
>
Tracking of agreed funding decisions through to
implementation
> Extensive management and executive information
> Data sharing between existing enterprise systems
Links Strategy and Budgets
The requirements of the strategy are driven
through the budget funding process
Service Level Prioritisation
Defines service level options and
prioritises their importance
Increased Productivity
Identifies and tracks productivity improvement opportunities
Overhead Cost Reduction
Can deliver substantial overhead cost
savings (from 5-30%)
Benefit Maximisation
Benefits promised from projects are tracked
to delivery
Business
Contingency Plans
By having all service level options identified and prioritised, the organisation can quickly adapt to increases and decreases in business activity
Management Development
Makes management responsible for justifying
their service levels and continually identifying
and implementing improvements
Increases Organisational Knowledge
The process and its outputs create an
invaluable inventory of the organisations
operations, cost structure, service levels and
management capability
Transparent, Open and Fair
The all approach is highly participative and
its results are based on a rational assessment
of prioritises by senior executives
Auditable
The system tracks all information prepared
and the decisions taken providing an excellent
audit trail for future reference.