May 2010 - International Center for Research on Women
HQ Location: Washington D.C.
Asia Regional Office: New Delhi, India
About
Founded in 1976, ICRW has earned a reputation as the leading international institution tackling the complexities of the world’s most pressing problems – poverty, hunger, and disease – by demonstrating that a focus on women and gender is necessary for lasting social and economic change. Their work begins with research that uncovers the realities of women’s lives and brings to the sharper focus the issues and constraints they face.
ICRW translates research findings into concrete steps that program designers, donors and policy-makers can take. ICRW collaborates with partners in communities across the globe to integrate women’s needs into the design and implementation of programs and policies. They develop practical solutions that achieve greater impact, ensure efficient use of resources, and most importantly, empower women to change their own lives and the lives of their communities for the better.
Around the world, ICRW leverages its action research into policy priorities for governments, international organizations and donor agencies to advance gender equality. ICRW’s powerful advocacy is rooted in empirical evidence that demonstrates unequivocally to policy-makers and program experts what need to be done, how and why.
In dealing with issues of such breadth and complexity, ICRW uses project management techniques to clearly define the scope of their programs and associate budgets and resource requirements.
Challenge and Solution
ICRW experienced significant growth and as a result needed to reengineer their budgeting, time reporting and resource allocation tools. Their existing approach to budgeting and forecasting based on fragmented data in Access and Excel was no longer supporting their needs They determined a need to upgrade their accounting system to support their new, larger operation. Basic business questions were unable to be responded to in a timely manner. ICRW recognized that the impact of upgrading and updating their system was vast and included staff, supervisors, project directors, and portfolio managers.
To improve project management and user acceptance, it was desired that the new system would provide managers and staff with an easy to use, web-based interface. It was also key that the new system would provide visibility to manager and staff of project status and their assigned workload.
ICRW selected Microsoft Dynamics SL as their accounting system but identified that the needs of project managers and staff would require additional capabilities. Their vision was an integrated approach to timesheets, financials, and project management, delivering information to managers across the organization when they needed it. Made aware of the tight integration between Unanet and Dynamics SL, they proceeded to evaluate Unanet Project Portfolio.
ICRW chose Unanet Project Portfolio for several reasons. They found the Unanet software to be easy to use and feature rich, including resource planning, labor cost collection, and real time project management. Visibility of forecast revenues and fully-burdened costs were available across all projects in the periodic formats needed by management. Because the Unanet reports were similar to what they created manually, they did not need to create new reports with report writers.
Implementation of timesheet software was the first step, followed by the integration of the accounting and payroll systems. This was done with a series of training courses, within a small group classroom setting, and focused on time tracking and using reports. Next, the addition of project budget planning systems were put in place. Lastly, expense reporting training and new procedures were implemented.
Data flow between finance and project management is automated. Finance staff create people, projects and tasks in Dynamics SL which then populates the Unanet fields. Project Directors, who are the budget owners, enter budgets in Unanet, which are then approved by Finance.
The benefits of the integrated system are many fold. Every person has a time allocation for their work on funded projects. They see the plan of their time and can initiate discussions with the project director. People now know what their plans are, what is expected, and what they have accomplished.
The new system moves beyond labor hour cost collection to one that also calculates utilization. Director of Finance for ICRW, Nadia Cherrouk commented, “Information is more accurate as it does not have to be re-entered is thus more trustworthy and available faster.” Additionally, the amount of time taken for approval and to complete a time period has been reduced because of anywhere, anytime access. IT and Global Support Director, Nancy Dimaio noted “Project managers are able to get information immediately on how time entered impacts their budget.” With real time reporting and transparency with security by organizational and role access, ICRW also closes the books faster. Integration between Unanet and the ADP payroll system further reduces administrative effort.
Beyond cost collection, the system provides real time reports of the needed information on utilization, project forecasts, and resource allocation in the desired graphical and periodic formats needed to make timely decisions. In a true matrix approach, users can execute reports by departments or by projects. Internal program managers have improved access to information when they need it.
The future goals for the system include taking advantage of additional capabilities for resource management. The system will also provide business intelligence reporting, including earned value management, to support senior management decision making.