A good CRM can be configured to be a complete resource management system for your business. What do I mean? Well, resources can include:
• People with particular skill sets, who are not ‘users’ of the CRM, and who are deployed for certain tasks, e.g. a contract job driving HGVs or fork-lift trucks or a security guard
• Trainers or Consultants contracted on temporary contracts to do particular assignments
• Electronic instruments issued as needed, to various members of staff
• Computers eg PCs, laptops, PDAs or Mobile phones issued for on-going use by members of staff
• Motor vehicles, cars or HGVs
• Conference rooms
• Presentation equipment
• Equipment that is hired in
How do we need to manage these resources? Generally if you set up your resources with shared calendars and to-do lists it can give you the following benefits:
• a resource can be booked within the shared diary system and every authorised user can see the details (also consider the benefits of extending your intranet to be an extranet so that other people can see the information.)
• assets can have formal actions set up for inspections, servicing, upgrading or whatever
• a simple availability view can be set up so that the most appropriate person can be selected for the task because personal skills details can be held in Contact Management
• actions can be set up in the Resource Management solution for every recurring event for any resource
• a block of resources eg conference rooms can be looked at in the shared calendars on a ‘planning view’ basis with full details of the bookings, all with hyperlinks and ‘hover over’
• The manager or executive responsible for the asset can have a control schedule showing all the events and activities booked
All in all, making sure your resources are used efficiently and are looked after effectively. If you’d like to find out more about how your company’s resources could be managed better with a CRM please contact us.
