Provision of services: how can you reduce implementation time?

Many companies devote most of their time to optimizing the processes of their teams so they achieve efficiency and productivity to attain their goals. These employees carry out different activities under an employment contract and have a fixed salary per month, paid vacation, health insurance, and other benefits for being formal employees. 

However, there are some other ways in which companies can benefit from the work done by professionals that don't belong to the company; in other words, they carry out tasks for the company under certain conditions. 

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This commercial agreement is known as the provision of services. It's the contract through which a person, usually a specialist in an area, such as operations, commits himself/herself to provide a service in exchange for a payment. We must say that the payment of the contract aims at achieving some goals, carrying out projects, etc. 

It's an onerous contract and its remuneration is with money (or any other way) which will be paid as the activities are completed. In this type of contract, the contractor doesn't pay for maternity leave, disability compensation, pensions, vacation, etc. 

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Moreover, the provision of services is not regulated by the Employment Code so it doesn't have to comply with the minimum wage and these professionals can be paid the amount you agree with them. For example, a professional freelance worker that's hired to provide a particular service and the company will pay the amount of money defined by the worker according to an estimated calculation. 

For this, the hired professional has to estimate a deadline, and have management and cost abilities according to the process he/she will implement; at the same time, he/she will establish the budget for their work with the contractor (customer). As the budget is established by the professional beforehand, he/she has to make an effort to meet the deadline so he/she doesn't incur costs since if work takes longer, the budget won't be increased. 

That's why it's so important to estimate the time that the process will take, make a precise calculation of the job, anticipate possible problems and deviations, avoid delays, and guarantee the provision of services carried out according to the implementation time. 

How can you reduce the implementation time of the provision of services? 

In general, the least experienced service providers make a budget that doesn't benefit them to please a demanding customer. They make the effort of finishing their job on an impossible deadline and, when they deliver it to the customer, they realize they have lost time in a job that ended up being less profitable than it should have been. 

Then, what viable solutions do you have to accelerate implementation time? Below, you'll find some suggestions that can guide you in this process. 

1. Estimate the deadline, and cost and management ability of the provision of services.

First of all, before beginning to work, you need to take the time to check the variables that will define the budget. Calculate the time that each task will take according to previous experiences and your action capacity.

Remember that when you have more experience, it'll be easier to establish the parameters for this calculation because you'll know the time in which you do the tasks, your strengths, weaknesses and you'll work more efficiently to achieve the expected result. If this is not the case and you think you can carry out the project and then, you can't, you can design a tentative schedule (something you can comply with) and stick to it. 

Make sure you define a realistic budget according to your organizational skills so that you don't come up with hidden costs at the end of the provision of your services.

2. Design the process taking into account the variables of time, cost, and scope. 

Estimate the time that the implementation of the service will take depending on your ability to design a proper execution process for the tasks. A well-designed process will do a thorough follow-up and calculation of the variables of time, cost, and scope so that it's possible to make the provision of services, accelerating implementation time. 

Doing this will make it easier for you to meet the established deadlines since your real deadlines will coincide more and more with your estimated deadlines.

3. Adding a task integration tool for the provision of your services.

Do you want to accelerate the implementation time of your service? Try adding a simple and intuitive tool that helps you make the process faster and reduce time and cost by automating repetitive and unproductive tasks. 

For example, with a digital management tool, your data entry is made just once and automatically; besides, you can do a more efficient and practical follow-up than in an Excel spreadsheet, writing down the progress of your scheduled activities in organized boards. 

Forget about planners, with a digital tool you can save all your information in the cloud to access it as much as you want and you don't have to worry about losing your planners or appointment books. 

4. Anticipate future errors from the beginning of the provision of your services. 

All the problems you identify during the implementation must be solved as soon as possible. Moreover, the management software systems you use should be integrated so that they work as one. It's very important that you don't only have a proper design of the process but also the proper tool for your needs and that's easy to use to avoid unnecessary delays.  

Ideally, you have to be able to solve any problem or error at the beginning of the provision of your services so that the tasks you carry out don't have these mistakes and ruin your work. For this, you can use a digital tool that detects possible errors immediately. Don't wait until the end of the project because your time is money. 

In conclusion, to accelerate the implementation time of the provision of your services, you should take into account three things: estimate the time in which you'll finish the task, design a well-done process according to the established deadline and add a digital management tool that helps you accelerate each task; all this will lead you to a greater performance according to your production and profit expectations.