PM-Partners group Offers iPlanWare EPM Solution to Help Medium Enterprises Better Plan and Deliver Projects

Sydney, Australia -- August 8, 2011

PM-Partners group, today announced that it has partnered with UK-based iPlanWare (www.iPlanWare.com) to offer an easy-to-use and fast-to-implement Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution to medium enterprise organisations in Australia.

"For medium enterprises to grow and be successful, their projects must be successful," said Pete Swan, Director for PM-Partners group. "Yet between 30% and 55% of projects continue to fail."

Combined with the right people and processes, an EPM technology solution enables organisations to better plan, execute and deliver on their entire portfolio of projects. With iPlanWare, teams can collaborate using an intuitive web interface, managers gain visibility into project status while executives gain insight into portfolio status.

Deriving benefits from an EPM solution required changes in people and processes as well as technology, said Swan. "Tens of thousands of dollars are lost in bad EPM deployments by organisations which are too focused on technology instead of practice maturity. They are basically automating chaos." At the very least, organisations need to establish and continually improve a project management office (PMO), something PM-Partners has been doing for over 15 years.

"By leveraging PM-Partners services including PMO start-up assistance, managed PMO and managed portfolio in conjunction with iPlanWare, organisations in Australia now have a compelling option when looking to develop and optimise their project and portfolio management processes," said Ian Harrison, CEO for iPlanWare.

PM-Partners group previously maintained a vendor-agnostic position and will continue support clients that choose their own EPM technology solutions. However, the project services firm was increasingly being asked to recommend, implement and support EPM solutions and made a strategic decision to specialise.

PM-Partners group evaluated 180 EPM suppliers before choosing iPlanWare, only short-listing vendors that offered solutions as both Software as a Service (SaaS) and on-premises deployments.

"Medium enterprises need an EPM solution that is quick and easy to deploy but also has the functionality and flexibility to grow as they grow," said Swan. "With iPlanWare they can get started for a few thousand dollars and be up and running in a few days. As their maturity and business complexity grows, they also have the option to evolve the system or even bring the EPM technology deployment in house."

Another important requirement was comprehensive project portfolio management (PPM) and business intelligence support including executive dashboards.

"Resource management is one of the biggest problems in organisations today," said Swan. "But to make best use of your resources, you first need to prioritise and select the right projects to run. That means giving executives the visibility and intelligence with which to make top down decisions. Choosing the right system is a minefield and to make matters worse system implementation seems to be regularly challenged or unnecessarily expensive. We can now help our clients with system selection and if required take them right through to operation, running the system for them for a while if they wish under a managed services agreement -- reducing the risk completely."

About iPlanWare

Founded in 1999, iPlanWare's software is used by customers worldwide across verticals ranging from IT, healthcare, consulting, telecommunications, insurance, government and not for profit. iPlanWare PPM helps organisations of all sizes make better use of their resources, deliver more projects on time and get complete visibility into initiatives. With iPlanWare organisations select, staff and manage their projects better.

For more information about iPlanWare's PPM solutions, please visit www.iPlanWare.com.

About PM-Partners group

PM-Partners group has helped Australian organisations achieve better business outcomes for 15 years. PM-Partners group are Australia's most highly certified project management specialist, and each year assist in the delivery of projects valued at over $500 million. PM-Partners group talented team of over 100 experienced consultants, project managers and facilitators work with organisations throughout Australia, Asia, Europe, and the USA, managing over 300 client engagements and projects in various industry sectors each year.

For more information about PM-Partners group, please visit www.pm-partners.com.au.