A Lesson From Amazon

When Amazon started offering 2-day shipping, they changed everything in the e-commerce space. Now, consumers could basically have anything that they wanted from the internet in a matter of 48 hours. With that kind of availability, the demand for goods online skyrocketed. 

According to ShipBob, “People shop online for convenience — which means they’re also looking for convenient delivery options. In the age of Amazon Prime, today’s consumers expect 2-day shipping everywhere they shop online. In fact, 73% of consumers view fast delivery as critical online shopping criteria (a 16% increase from 2020), 85% of shoppers are more likely to buy when 2-day delivery is offered. 46% of consumers value fast delivery more since the pandemic.”

While it is true that not every organization is in the ecommerce space, those numbers for any buyer persona are compelling. A case could be made for any kind of efficiency change in business processes if buyers are more likely to buy with those kinds of stats.

“Once they started shipping products in just a few days, it became the new standard that all companies needed to meet. The fundamentals of transportation haven’t changed significantly since the ‘90s, so what did? The digitalization of the workplace ushered in a new era that changed how products are marketed, how orders are taken, and how products are warehoused and distributed.”

How Process Is Part of Operational Excellence

By improving a process like decreasing shipping down to 2 days, organizations are able to achieve operational excellence. Amazon was able not only to increase their sales, but create a demand for goods and services to be available at all times and promptly. This demand is part of what has led to them being the giant that they are today.

As a Forbes article states, “Process excellence is one of the most essential elements of operational excellence. When Amazon was ramping up to scale, they needed to develop the best practices for processes as they went along, building systems and writing the software that powered their growth.

Not only did their process improvement help them reshape the demand for goods and services and helped them reach their goals, but it helped them establish a new standard of excellence that would only have been possible by improving their efficiency.

How Time Tracking Is the Key To Process Planning and Execution

Time is the one element to any project or project portfolio that does not change no matter how big or small your organization is. Yes, with more resources you can get more done quickly. However, everyone has a finite amount of resources. Also, every organization has competing goals and priorities, and has stakeholders with different perspectives that impact and vary the amount of work that can get done in a portfolio. Every organization therefore has a unique situation with their time management every quarter.

Time tracking is the answer that project management offers not only to determine if work will get done on time but also to track the productivity and effectiveness of time allocation when it comes to meeting the delivery goals of your team. That means your team can be adaptive in real-time by tracking your time tracking data. Just like how you get live updates about your Amazon order’s shipping status, tracking time enables operational excellence because you can use that data to make a change in real-time. 

Here is an example of how to utilize time tracking from our project management tool, Proggio:

So rather than wondering if the work will get done on time. Time tracking is the sure way to benchmark the pace of the project. That way you can proactively plan and adapt if the pace is causing you to change plans. And, this also helps you look at the time tracking of all your projects so that you can see how you are pacing with everything at once. It is important to use a PPM that organizes this data for you so you can confidently make decisions moving forward that are realistic in helping you reach your goals.

Conclusion

So when it comes to planning your next big project, or if you are in the heat of the battle of managing your current projects, time tracking in a tool like Proggio can help you achieve operational goals faster. Like we said, Amazon established a new standard of excellence when they cut down shipping times. By monitoring time and using tools like Proggio to track your progress and pace in projects, you can more confidently make timing decisions, and meet the delivery goals your team has for achieving operational excellence.