The kind of results produced may be gleaned from this example.
PLAN
Resources Now elicited decisions and data from managers on factors like
The plan (see below) guided spending and performance.
MONITOR
ACTUAL SPENDING was recorded, or alternatively the volume of items ACTUALLY SUPPLIED, together with factors which influenced expenditure and performance.
From such factors, Resources Now worked out BUDGET & OPERATIONS MONITOR for the New Projects Programme (see below). This gave the PRIORITIES and COSTS revealed by what was spent and supplied.
REPLAN
You can replan in the light of your Resources Now Monitor. You adjust plans to reality, and/or your spending and performance to your plans. (For the priorities and costs implicit in actual spending and performance do not always accord with our best laid plans).
YOUR RESULTS
What Resources Now produces is not the computer's decisions, but your plans and budgets. For Resources Now adopts your values. Or those of you and your colleagues working as a team. It doesn't just analyse. It draws inferences, weighing and checking out your decisions and data and their implications. It actually calculates plans and budgets from your views - if you want it to. Or Resources Now can stop short of that and still earn its keep as your 'sounding board'.
ITEMS (names)
DEMANDS (volumes)
The powerful self-contained ‘advisory' or 'decision-insight' program
Resources Now PROGRAM
No accountancy/maths know-how needed
No computer/technical know-how or programmers
DECISIONFRIENDLY
Line or service managers, planners, financial advisors, management accountants, administrators, consultants, trainers
USER-FRIENDLY USERS
Designed to pay for itself by improved financial management and cost effectiveness
COST EFFECTIVE
Tasks: Allocate scarce or new resources Evaluate spending, performance and results
VERSATILE
Applications: - Your own, your team's, your organisation's plans - Revenue or capital, departmental or master, small or multi-million budget By: Individuals or teams, interactively or with processing by assistants Methods: 58 ways to plan or budget (with straightforward intuition or sophisticated modelling)
Easy to start. Quick to do. Fast to finish You move through the program easily with selfexplanatory menus and prompts
EFFICIENT
You only use the parts of the program you want You can switch focus easily, and continue where you left off after any interruptions Single or multi-user inputs can be combined A plan/budget can be produced in 30 minutes High speed results displayed, printed and stored You can revise decisions till satisfied; or use 'What if' facilities.
RESULTS
Works out plans and/or budget allocations - what to spend on what Evaluates implications of spending & results - reveals implied priorities, unit costs, emphasis Fully uses your views, decisions, estimates, data Double-checks your thinking
Takes account of any combination of factors
SUPPORT
Supported by continuous responsive and expert consultation, research, training, advice
TESTED
6 years' University research and field trials with practising managers
UNIQUE