SUCCESS STORY - Razor USA
"With Project Insight, we have reduced the headache of keeping everyone updated as to the project development status and actually focus on the real work of creating fun toys for kids."
--J. W., Project Manager, Razor USA
The Company
Razor USA LLC is a privately held company based in California that was founded in June 2000. Razor is famous for the Razor scooter, which was introduced to the U.S. in mid-2000, and was one of the top gifts of the 2000 holiday season. Besides its line of leading-edge scooters, Razor also offers the Scream Machine™, the Pocket Rocket™ mini electric motorcycle, and an ever expanding line of electric-powered ride-on toys.
The Challenge
J. W. is a project manager for Razor who oversees a number of new product development projects. Before using Project Insight, Razor communicated about projects and shared files and information primarily via email. J. W. reported, "Once we had multiple projects running in parallel, this system became unmanageable and very limiting, since we didn't have any visibility as to the real-time status of each project."
The Razor product development team began running into roadblocks due to the lack of efficiency and dependability of email. They experienced a number of delays all along the way from project launch to project completion. Because project status reports were not available in real time, tasks were often unnecessarily delayed and some actions were taken redundantly. J. W. stated, "What's more, coordination with other stakeholders was difficult due to the lack of official task handoffs, causing task ownership failure points."
Razor was finding that stakeholders were not receiving real time project schedule and workload reports that help determine task priorities across all projects. That meant that limited capital and human resources were being assigned to non-critical activities. Time delays were slowing project completion and affecting the ability of the sales team to make commitments, not to mention having an adverse impact on Razor's relationships with sales channel partners. J. W. and other managers were concerned, knowing that ineffective resource utilization affects human resources, budgets, and other project outcomes. What is more, outside the company, potentially poor product quality affects warranty expenditures as well as the products' brand names and goodwill.
The Solution
J. W. and his team began a search for a project management system that included all critical project management functions such as:
- Project scheduling
- Task flow
- Project status updates
- Upload and sharing of documentation
- Intuitive and user friendly
- Easily expanded
- Accessible from any location in the worldwide
Razor quickly found that many project management systems were either too complex, requiring too much time for implementation, or required significant upfront capital investment. After a review of the solutions in the market, Razor chose Project Insight.
The Results
After purchasing Project Insight in 2004, Razor quickly began implementing the system with ten internal team members and one outside partner vendor. The biggest win, according to J. W. has been project visibility and documentation.
Now Razor can optimize its project coordination and communication, minimize wasted resources, lower project risk, and ensure their project schedules and outcomes.
As J. W. summarized their situation, "With Project Insight, we have reduced the headache of keeping everyone updated as to the project development status and actually focus on the real work of creating fun toys for kids."