Press Room
How one company cut its reporting overhead by 80 percent

This article, by the ITMJ Staff, originally appeared in IT Manager's Journal.

Corporate IT budgets have been slow to recover from deep cuts earlier this decade, and IT divisions are under the gun to fix what's broken, keep existing systems running smoothly, and get more bang for the bucks they spend. How do they achieve this? What are tactics being used? What is some software helping IT departments to do more with less?

PFSweb faced this problem:

PFSweb, a Plano, Texas-based global provider of integrated business process outsourcing solutions, operates an IT department that provides three strategic functions: developing business software for sale in a direct license model and a fully hosted ASP model; operating a hosting center that provides clients with access to IT systems and software; and operating a professional services organization that provides project management and software customization and implementation services for clients.

PFSweb formerly used a combination of manual forms, spreadsheets, and project management software to perform this function, but as the organization grew, it became apparent that this crude method of accounting would not scale with PFSweb's growth and would cost the organization in lost revenue and could lead to inappropriate classification of IT activities.

"We knew that our old system would not scale with our growth and would cost the organization in lost revenue and mistakes," said Michael Willoughby, PFSweb's Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. "With the strict requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley act looming on the horizon, we knew we needed a solid solution to replace our old system."

So PFSweb began to look around for help.

The solution:

PFSweb found Journyx Timesheet, a Web-based software for time, billing, and project management used by IBM, Analog Devices, VeriSign, Siemens, and many other companies to properly categorize IT activities, manage projects, and forecast future activities, track employee vacations, and reconcile contract labor activities against invoices.

"After a thorough evaluation of all the options, it was apparent to everyone on the selection committee that Journyx was the best value and the perfect solution for PFSweb," Willoughby said. "We converted our entire IT development and operations staff from the old system to Journyx. With Journyx, we cut our overhead associated with time tracking and reporting by 80 percent the first month."

Journyx provided an overnight implementation cycle, non-existent support requirements, user-friendly ubiquitous browser-based interface and the best- in-class features of the software. Journyx also provided PFSweb a variable cost model which enabled them to pay for the software on a per-user basis rather than paying a large up-front license fee. PFSweb was able to convert its entire IT development and operations staff from the old system to Journyx and cut its overhead associated with time tracking and reporting by 80 percent the first month.

"The flexible license model, combined with the high-performance hosting service provided by Journyx, is perfect for a growing company like PFSweb," Willoughby said. "In today's competitive business environment, all companies need to focus their precious IT resources on supporting core-competency activities and can't afford to be distracted from their mission by re-inventing the wheel that Journyx has already perfected."