By Alex Konanykhin

We developed TransparentBusiness for our own business, to ensure everyone performs efficiently; that they’re working the agreed number of hours to achieve the required level of productivity; and that there’s no over-charging to the customer.

TransparentBusiness was developed in-house by KMGi, created to allow office-based teams, workers on the move or working from home and freelancers to be supervised, while at the same time meeting major management challenges.

With people and resources spread around the globe, we created TransparentBusiness based on our own experiences and it was such a success with clients that it’s now been made available as a clouds-based Software as a Service product.

It’s a radical new way of doing business, with many major benefits. Last year we doubled business from existing clients simply by allowing them to monitor design work in real-time. They were able to see which project tasks were completed and gauge the cost for the day, week or month.

It was a major step forward in reinforcing transparency and trust, two key ingredients for improving customer retention and, significantly, clients stopped calling us to ask for updates and feedback, so staff now have the time and space to work more effectively and efficiently.

All project features are tracked in real time. The tool also includes project planning and scheduling, unique real-time Gantt charts, task-related discussions, and project wikis, allowing users to add, modify, or delete content.

Multi-layer privacy protection makes sure that the tool is not an intrusion into a worker’s private activities. The system provides reports only for the time they bill. Contractors like the tool because it allows for automated time-logging, eliminates business disputes, and increases coordination with the client.

With more and more managers on the move, and employees able to work remotely, small businesses must recognise it makes good sense to provide flexible working opportunities for their staff.

But this brings critical management challenges – it did for us. That’s why we developed the software that provides reliable work tracking, with details accessible by clients at any time, from any computer.

It provides for online work planning and real-time monitoring, and projects can be authorised on an hourly rate basis so that the progress and efficiency can be accurately measured. It’s easy and efficient co-ordination between everyone working on a project and managers always have an overview of the exact status.”

With TransparentBusiness customers always know the status of their project, will be able to provide feedback at any point and so resolve problems, and are assured of accurate billing. This increases their satisfaction and will undoubtedly lead to sustained relationships and repeat business.

We’re offering it free to use for up to five users so that small businesses can reap some quick benefits and then add users as they need to. Larger businesses can take up the free option and they’ll quickly see the value in adding more.

About the author

Alex Konanykhin is CEO of KMGi, the company behind the offer. The cost for more than five users would be less than £1 a day per user. More information is available at www.TransparentBusiness.com .