How Attrecto improves profitability by managing utilization

In this case study, you will learn: 

• what made Attrecto’s allocations much more precise and accurate, 
• how calculating utilization helped Attrecto improve its profits and gain more momentum, 
• how Attrecto benefited from perfected people management processes. 

Introduction

Attrecto is a Hungarian software development company founded in 2010. It specializes in creating bespoke solutions for its customers from all around the world. Apart from that, it offers technology consultancy, AI projects, Digital Discovery and Value Creation based on a comprehensive and complete pre-development phase. It is also open to hiring their teams as a service. 

Additionally, Attrecto also specializes in conducting projects based on mobile and web app development, and has know-how in Adobe Experience Manager development - and does so with great success. The company has been named one of the best businesses in Technology Fast 50 for Central Europe and Techology Fast 500 for EMEA, becoming one of the leading organizations in the industry. 

Attrecto’s projects and customers

Attrecto completes a wide range of IT projects for small, medium and large companies from different industries. Its scope of work includes mobile and web apps, custom B2C and B2B systems, digitalization consultancy and UXdesigns. Despite their differences, all the operations are outstanding in their quality and design that was confirmed by dozens of satisfied customers. 

So far, Attrecto has completed over 100 projects for some of the great global brands such as Audi, Telenor, SAP, GE, AIG, Humana, Vodafone, E.ON, and Microsoft. 

Ákos’s role in Attrecto

Ákos Birtha is one of the founders of Attrecto. Right now, he is the company’s Chief Delivery Officer and he is responsible for overseeing all the activities related to software development and its delivery. In other words, he makes sure that projects are completed on time and within budget and expected quality. 

For this reason, Ákos was also supervising the implementation of external tools, including Primetric. 

Former tools in Attrecto 

Before the implementation of Primetric, Attrecto was using a lightweight solution that provided the managers with a very general overview of people workload and projects budget. It was mostly used for project allocation tracking and simple planning. However, these tools were incapable of reflecting the structure and workflow of an IT service company such as Attrecto.

As a result, the managers could only use them to access limited information about their work - and they were often insufficient. 

Challenges in Attrecto

Lack of tools that could reflect IT services processes and main KPIs (such as profitability and utilization) caused Attrecto to slowly lose track of some of the aspects in their employees’ work and their availability. Consequently, it couldn’t improve billable time, and effective rates for their clients.

However, the company was keen on improving its processes and solve its problems - and there were quite a few of them. They included: 

Limited visibility of long-term employees’ workload

Just as the company began to employ more and more people, it was becoming apparent that their allocation would be a greater challenge by the minute. 

"With the growing number of people, it was becoming harder and harder to assign people. And it was critical for our operations!"

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

The former tools used in Attrecto were only capable of creating simple allocations. However, they were difficult to manage, as they did not reflect the processes in the IT company, including:

• long-term people management and creating plans for a few weeks ahead
• skills management and finding right people for the job, 
• creating work schedules for individual employees and managing their time, 
• calculating capacity of the employees. 

To add to that, their overview was also insufficient - for example, browsing the allocations for a given project was very hard.

As a result of combining all of these factors, planning was often imprecise and caused schedule conflicts, resulting in delays and dissatisfaction among customers. It was also problematic for the managers who spend hours creating plans just to be stripped of any possibility to change them later on. Their problems were also getting more severe with every new person in the company, so an urgent solution was needed right away. 

No information on utilization and its financial consequences

Former tools in Attrecto had problems with converting the data into more valuable insights. For example, the tool was unable to calculate the utilization of employees, leaving the managers with no knowledge about benched specialists in their business. 

"The overall utilization was the first and main KPI we wanted to introduce to our processes. [...] From the financial perspective, we wanted to monitor the ratio of free team members, as we obviously have to pay them salaries even though they are not assigned to projects."

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

Time-consuming analysis caused by lack of tools

As Attrecto’s tools were very simple, they were often having troubles with analyzing and converting the data into more advanced sources, such as tables or graphs. They were also incapable of monitoring the progress of both projects and people’s work as such. As a result, the managers used to spend hours analyzing such data manually - and, this process was prone to human error. 

"The controlling capabilities of the time planned and tracked on projectswas very limited, which was needed for the managers. [...] As a result, preparing the data was a very burdensome task."

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

Management spent hours creating the reports which needed several review rounds - and they they wanted to avoid making incorrect decisions based on those. The bigger the company was, the harder it was to get the documentation, increasing the difficulty of the task even further. 

Difficult allocation process and problems finding the right people for the job 

Due to the limited capabilities of Attrecto’s former tools that contained no skill management features, finding the employees with certain skills (and free capacity) was difficult for the managers. According to Ákos, the overview was too general and it was simply not enough to effectively find the right people for a given job. 

Solution: Primetric 

A perfect match for a software development services business 

Previously, Attrecto struggled with reflecting its processes in simple tools. Fortunately, Primetric was able to change that. 

With dozens of features based on the needs of leading IT service companies, we were able to replicate Attrecto’s structure and provide it with a comprehensive overview of its resource planning. Thanks to our reporting modules, Primetric was also able to improve the analytics in the company. 

"What made you stand out from our former solutions is that Primetric really fits a software development business. It has many specific features that can combine projects with time tracking and financial controlling."

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

Utilization control and its influence on profitability

With the implementation of Primetric, Attrecto could start monitoring the utilization of employees in detail. Shortly after, they realized that it has drastically improved the company’s people planning. 

Calculating utilization allowed managers to control their people and react to any problematic situations. For example, the feature helped them to improve the accuracy of allocations, avoid schedule conflicts and manage even the smallest projects. Apart from that, it is used for creating forecasts and managing project acquisition for the future operations. 

"We have a clearer overview of availability. We can see when allocations do not go as planned, when someone is fully allocated or just partly assigned. We can also go through the benched employees and react to that situation."

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

As a result, all stakeholders can get to the desired reports easily, as they are able to monitor the work without wasting their own time on burdensome calculations. 

Quick and precise allocation of people

Attrecto first introduced Primetric to improve the overall quality of its allocations, their precision, and reduce the number of schedule conflicts - and our tool was able to give them everything they needed. 

In our Calendar module, Ákos is able to oversee the allocations for both individuals and the entire projects, as well as the whole company. The system also shows him other details for the allocations, including tracked time (if the allocation is already active), wages, position and utilization. As a result, he is able to flexibly change and manage the allocations without overbooking or schedule conflicts. 

"In previous tools, it was hard to get a general overview of the project, their planning and schedules, and other types of views. In Primetric, it came naturally - and it was great to see all the plans in such a perspective."

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

In other words, the process was simply much more natural and contained no mistakes. As a result, the project plans were more precise and less likely to generate additional costs that were usually caused by delays or schedule conflicts. 

Improved forecasting and long-term planning

Apart from current allocations, Ákos can also use the feature to plan future assignments. He can create draft or tentative projects to test different scenarios and check whether he has necessary resources for a particular project. Then, he can convert these drafts into actual active projects. He can also change them freely by dragging and dropping the allocation bar directly in the calendar. 

As a result, Ákos can now spend much less time on creating long-term plans. He can also test out different scenarios without affecting real schedules. The features can be used for filling the gaps and using the employee bench to the fullest, too, as it allows managers to monitor the capacity of their resources in different situations. 

Comprehensive automated reporting available in a few click

Attrecto is also an active user of Primetric’s advanced reporting for resource management. The module has saved the company many  hours that used to be spend on burdensome analysis. 

Thanks to the feature, the company can: 

• measure key metrics, such as utilization, capacity, project progress, and more, and act on the information to improve its operations. 
• create custom reports that compare the information of choice within seconds, 
• monitor key KPIs, as well as trends in the data, and react to any worrisome tendencies, 
• discover problems and positive occurrences that can be used to improve key processes. 

Apart from those features, the system also ensures that its summaries and reports contain no mistakes, as it simply uses real-time data to perform advanced calculations. 

Additionally, Primetric’s reports do not require any additional work. The system automatically gathers the information from its modules to create tables, charts and graphs combining, comparing and analyzing critical information. There’s no need to perform calculations in Excel - the only thing managers need to use this feature is a few seconds to find the right tab. 

"[Reports] hugely improved our controlling and analysis. Our previous tool did not provide us with such features, so this one really made a difference."

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

Advanced skills management supporting allocations

Calendar was not the only feature that made the resource management easier for Ákos. Our skills management module allowed him to sort people by their skills (either in a project of choice, or in the People panel) and find the employees that are a perfect fit for a given job. It can also distinguish regular employees from contractors. 

As a result,  Ákos did not have to spent hours looking for the people who were both available and had sufficient skills for a given project. Instead, he shortened the process to just a few seconds and could start to focus on other, more critical decisions. 

"In Primetric, I am able to query people based on skills and it just takes seconds!"

Ákos Birtha, Chief Delivery Officer in Attrecto

Benefits of Primetric

• utilization management capable of powering the acquisition of new project and the progress of the existing ones by optimizing the resources, 
• powering the managemental and analytical processes, allowing the company to scale, 
• maximum profits from every available working hour thanks to the utilization calculations, 
• precise allocations providing managers with accurate overview of employee workload and forecast actively improving company’s results,
• simple resource management for dozens of people, with no schedule conflicts in sight and no time-consuming processes, 
• advanced reporting capable of helping managers make the right decision every time, available in just a few clicks,  
• automated data gathering and analysis for key metrics - no manual calculations needed, 
• hours of saved time that can be spent on improving the company instead of preparing spreadsheets.  

Summary

Attrecto greatly benefited from improving its resource planning with Primetric, calculating utilization and improving its processes with some new tools. So far, this approach has drastically improved its use of resources, generating as much profits from the working time as possible. Its allocations are also more precise - and both employees and managers can confirm their accuracy. 

Naturally, this is only the beginning of our journey with Attrecto. In the months to come, our cooperation will expand with even more features.