Monterail is a leading Polish software development company. Since 2010, its once small team has expanded to over 110 people, securing a place on the list of Europe’s 1000 fastest-growing companies created by the Financial Times.
The company has successfully delivered over 300 web and mobile apps to a wide range of clients, from startup unicorns to leading enterprises across various industries, becoming one of the leading IT enterprises in Central Europe.
- Industry: Software Development
- Size: 110+ employees
- Use cases: Resource management
Overview
As Monterail expanded, it remained committed to its principles: delivering top-quality work on time and within budget. Smooth operations were essential, but with more demand came more projects and resources to handle, and scheduling conflicts and resource allocation errors became difficult to avoid.
Recognizing the need to improve its operations – from the allocation and planning processes to reporting – Monterail chose BigTime Foresight to provide a comprehensive approach to its people and project management. With Bigtime Foresight, Monterail’s data gathers into a single source of operational truth. Key stakeholders have visibility into resources and results, ultimately optimizing the planning processes and improving financial performance.
Challenges Before BigTime Foresight
As Monterail grew in numbers, resource planning specialist Alexandra Ardelean struggled to meet the incremental demands of her core responsibilities. Remaining accurate in planning and allocations became increasingly difficult, given the manual compilation of data from multiple Excel spreadsheets.
By collecting data from various sources, Alexandra explained that the tedious process heightened her concern about completeness, accuracy, and timeliness of important information. Human error was inevitable and led to schedule conflicts and suboptimal use of employees’ time, which reflected in diminished financial performance.
Monterail eventually researched and implemented a resource management solution, Resource Guru, to improve planning efficiency but realized “it lacked a lot of functionalities, like a feature for tracking complex financial data and reporting,” Alexandra said. The software also did not integrate with their time-tracking tool, which prevented the team from having a real-time view of resource availability.
Issues Monterail faced before BigTime Foresight included:
- Limited insight into resource availability: With disparate spreadsheets and a separate time-tracking software, managers struggled to accurately monitor workloads and compare plans to actuals, causing frequent schedule conflicts, incorrect allocations, and projects that ran over budget.
- Lack of comprehensive reports: The reporting process was time-consuming, unreliable, and unsustainable for a rapidly growing company. Information flows based on Excel spreadsheets and by word of mouth made it difficult for managers to collect and share the latest data, prohibiting informed decision-making.
- Difficulties optimizing allocations: Given their reliance on fixed spreadsheets, managers struggled to determine employee workload, resulting in schedule conflicts, missed opportunities, and growing costs.
Operational Excellence with BigTime Foresight
Committed to providing value to customers, Monterail decided to improve its operational excellence by implementing BigTime Foresight. After its previous experience with other vendors, the decision was clear: BigTime Foresight was a scalable tool capable of supporting its growing number of employees better than the alternative options.
Thanks to multiple integration options and quick data migration – in under 14 days – BigTime Foresight provided Monterail with a complete overview of all key data, the ability to balance capacity and utilization across teams, and enhanced reporting for deeper insights.
With BigTime Foresight, Monterail can now:
- Manage availability, skills, and costs consistently and accurately: BigTime effortlessly consolidates data on individuals and their workloads and seamlessly tracks time and projects, offering key stakeholders a comprehensive view of vital KPIs. This empowers Monterail to optimize processes, enhance productivity, and boost profitability, without lengthy meetings.
- Highlight and share insights for better decision-making: With data in a single system, Monterail can create reports in just a few clicks and confidently share them with key stakeholders, knowing the reports are based on consistent and accurate information.
- Balance capacity and utilization across teams: Monterail can now create draft allocations, allowing them to explore different options and guarantee the success of any new initiatives. This proactive approach minimizes schedule conflicts and overallocation, fostering smoother operations.
Thanks to the integration of BigTime Foresight, Monterail has experienced a significant transformation in managing its resources, enhancing both the visibility of resource availability and the accuracy of the planning process. Alexandra and her team no longer worry about overlooking crucial planning and allocation data while juggling numerous spreadsheets. Gone are the days of scheduling meetings solely to verify work and rectify errors. With BigTime Foresight, Alexandra’s team can quickly deliver accurate information, allowing managers to focus clearly on making better, more informed decisions.
With BigTime Foresight, Monterail has seen:
Data accuracy
Seamless data syncs and up-to-date reports have reduced the risk of error and worrying.
Visibility
In 30 seconds, Monterail sees employees’ availability to plan future projects.
Time savings
Multiple hours are saved monthly without meetings needed to plan and check data.
