Corporate Australia should keep costs low with robust project portfolio management practices in good and bad times, says CPA conference keynote speaker
SYDNEY, 7 September 2009 – Sydney-based consulting and technology company mbh management (mbh) maintains that Corporate Australia should utilise strong internal project portfolio management tools and techniques to identify and manage costs effectively as a standard business practice in both up and down economic cycles.
When giving the closing keynote speech for CPA Australia’s Corporate Restructuring Conference this Friday, 11 September in Sydney, mbh Managing Director Mark Heath will discuss what organisations should and should not do in the current environment to quickly reduce costs and maintain profitability. “Obviously, we are just coming out of corporate earnings season and there’s been an enormous amount of attention and discussion about the relative performance of many publicly-traded organisations. A more important but completely ignored question is how much better these same organisations would have fared if they had already adopted rigorous project portfolio management protocols and tools to ensure their operational costs were minimised and the potential return on critical projects was maximised,” said Mr Heath.
Project portfolio management systems and applications provide visibility into the current state of organisational initiatives, resources, and spending through the centralised collection and management of data from multiple sources and perspectives across an enterprise. Portfolio management integrates information from multiple business and information technology systems and supports multi-dimensional views of this data for better visibility and understanding of resource supply versus project demand, as well highlighting conditions requiring executive action and decision-making.
“Organisations should continually maintain clearly defined project portfolio management processes that allow an accurate view of the costs and likely return for each capital investment. So, when any kind of ‘shock’ does occur, the organisation can dynamically and intelligently modify its cost structure as appropriate, instead of blindly cutting staff and hoping for the best – which will invariably impinge growth once conditions improve and new staff must again be hired to meet an upsurge in customer demand,” concluded Mr Heath.
CPA Australia’s Corporate Restructuring Conference – Sydney
CPA Australia’s conference entitled, “Corporate Restructuring: Revitalise and Transform Financial Performance,” will be held in Sydney at the Marriott Sydney Harbour Circular Quay from Thursday, 10 September to Friday, 11 September. This two-day conference will use real-world business cases to provide participants with all the essential tools and knowledge to facilitate a successful restructuring effort. Besides Mr Heath, keynote speakers will include representatives from Aussie Home Loans, Hewlett-Packard Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation, and National Foods. The complete conference program is attached to this release.
Should you wish to attend, or for more information, please contact Rebecca Kington, External Affairs Advisor, CPA Australia, at (02) 9375-6223 or Rebecca.Kington@cpaaustralia.com.au.
About mbh
mbh is a consulting and technology company that enables organisations to understand, manage and drive benefit realisation for key projects. mbh achieves results by utilising an innovative business management philosophy known as ‘managing by project’, which administers new organisational initiatives like projects and promotes creativity with cross-functional teams and key elements derived from several, interrelated management disciplines.
mbh’s operations consist of a main headquarters in Sydney and another office in Adelaide. mbh is comprised of three core businesses – consulting, training, and UniPhi, which is a web-based enterprise portfolio and project management software solution. For additional information on mbh, please visit www.mbh.com.au, and for UniPhi, please visit www.uniphi.com.au.