Europeans from the school bench absorb the basics of managing their business, many use the principles of project management, such as Prince2 or even P2M. The Russians, as usual, have their own pride ...
There is something to be proud of: Russian small business is taking leaps and bounds in its development, striking in the scope of even foreigners who have seen the kind. At the same time, it is striking not only in its scope, but also in the disorder with which our businessmen are doing business. It would seem that the simplest thing: to control your resources and use them with maximum efficiency. But alas and ah: the majority of small businessmen and many medium ones have difficulty imagining where their money is, where it takes time and what the hired employees do. Moreover, if it’s even more or less clear how to deal with money, then in the sphere of time management there is complete “confusion and reeling”.
The easiest way, accustomed to the conditions of the Russian business weather, is the total control of employees: who does what. The method works, no doubt, but only when all the employees are in sight, and a lot of effort is being spent on it, there is no more time for business. Although it is possible to hire a special person to fulfill this role (some kind of HR manager). True, this person will bring additional costs to the cost of your products, and the effectiveness is very controversial. Not to mention the lack of a complete and understandable “picture” and the ability to analyze it.
A more civilized way involves analyzing the time spent on various operations. It also works very simply: the boss constantly collects data on the time spent from each employee. As a result, for each month summarize how much time is spent and on what projects (orders, work) by each employee. Having these data, you can see which of the employees “digs the ground”, who only “waves the sword”, and who didn’t “hit the club with a club”. Summing up the time on orders (tasks) - you can see which projects turned out to be more costly in time and money. And if you compare costs with revenue, you can immediately see which turned out to be not very profitable and which are better to bet on in the future. Immediately immediately visible projects, which are generally better to refuse, because they take up too much staff time.
There are other, more “advanced” methods. They have a very high efficiency, achieved by a complex mathematical model, but only with proper use. Usually, these are expert systems written for a specific enterprise. Moreover, the complexity of their use makes us look for simpler and more understandable things.
Therefore, a method of analyzing the time spent in one form or another is widely used throughout the world.
It would probably be great to have a program in which you can record who, how much and what you spent time and money on. And also for the program to show reports for analysis. The professor at the University of Groning addressed this very question to the owner of a small computer business. The Dutch business is quick-witted, so the idea was quickly appreciated and a simple and understandable service was created, accessible via the Internet: http://clockwise.info/en.
Like all the brilliant ideas that arose at the intersection of business and science, it turned out to be so successful that it constantly attracts many users with simplicity, comprehensibility and power. The service itself was implemented a long time ago, in 2001, but Dutch businessmen constantly want to add something to it, which is called “expand and deepen”. But not the way it is usually done in Russia: different “hooks” (© V. Putin) and decorations for the sake of just decorating or getting money from clients are not screwed to the program. The development came precisely from users, from managers and company owners, so all the improvements needed, valuable, useful and insisted as a good cognac.
Dutch managers and businessmen do not just work for themselves in ClockWise (KlokVise), but connect their employees and even customers to it. Control and manage time, report, issue bills, keep calendars, etc. And all this happens almost automatically, with minimal distraction from work. Interestingly, some very “Russian” features were noticed: for example, you can “take” several hours from the future if you get “processing” in time. Apparently, the problems of the Dutch business are akin to ours. Although not surprising.
Everyone needs to manage time, from small to large. Here the Dutch are doing this with ClockWise. Everyone uses this service, from small entrepreneurs to giants such as Philips.
Now more than seventeen thousand (!!!) people enjoy the service. And this is for tiny Holland, which, for example, is one third smaller than the Smolensk region. Enjoy in the literal sense of the word, because the company providing the service does not do any advertising at all, and sales occur only on the recommendations of businessmen. There was even something like a small Dutch subculture (or business club) focused on this service.
To do or not to do is up to you. But I liked it: expensive, high quality, powerful! You can try for several months absolutely free.
Ivan Zaburdaev.
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2012
info@clockwise.info
