11 Best Operations Management Software Solutions for Agencies

Investing in an operations management software solution is key to stay competitive in the professional services landscape.

However, choosing the right software for your agency’s needs can be challenging. According to a survey by G2, software buyers report that research is the most time-consuming part of the buying journey (36%), with evaluation coming in second (29%).

To simplify this process, we’ll provide a comprehensive list of the 11 best tools for supporting your agency operations, with key features, benefits, and downsides based on user reviews.

Operations management involves overseeing the processes, resources, and activities necessary for the efficient production of goods and services. Here are some of the best tools that support your operations strategy, reduce costs, and improve quality.

Productive is a comprehensive agency management tool that supports your day-to-day agency operations. It’s designed by industry veterans to optimize processes for agencies of all shapes and sizes, from managing prospects to invoicing and reporting.

One of the best features of Productive is that it offers an integrated platform, which can improve efficiency, data accuracy, and overall operational analysis. This is coupled with a user-friendly interface and responsive customer support to guide you through the implementation process.

Now, let’s explore some of Productive’s key features in more detail.

Productive provides simple time tracking for the management of billable hours. Your teams can track their tasks:

With time approvals, project managers can determine which hours are billable and non-billable and request changes or additional details for completed work. Productive also includes time off management — once the requested time is approved, it’ll be visible in your resource plan.

Getting your projects into order is crucial to sustainable business operations. Productive enables this with its Project Management capabilities — get visibility into your project progress with various customizable views, including Gantt, Kanban-style, Calendar, List, and more.

Larger agencies that work on multiple projects in a shorter span of time can benefit from project templates that provide easy initiation and task organization. Another great feature is Productive’s notifications, which can be customized for frequency, including by specific actions and features and across devices.

To keep your clients in the loop, you can invite them into your projects free of charge with the Client Portal. They can create, view, and comment on tasks to speed up feedback. You can also give them access to their budgets with specific permissions rights to ensure full transparency.

Create a responsive resource plan with Productive. Create bookings by inputting hours per day, allocating a percentage of the employee’s capacity, or according to total available hours. You can drag-and-drop your entries, bulk edit, or delete them to reallocate resources easily.

Productive’s capacity planning capabilities include financial management and forecasting. With the Profitability view, you can check the impact that your resource allocation has on your project budget burn and profit margins. Making changes to your allocation immediately impacts your metrics, so you can plan out different scenarios and make informed decisions.

To learn more about the importance of this process, check out our guide to capacity management in operations management.

With Productive’s Budgeting feature, you can build budgets for different client engagements, including fixed price, hourly, hybrid, or retainer. Keep track of your spending and separate complex budgets into multiple phases for streamlined cash flow.

Productive’s project budgeting capabilities also support:

To learn more, head over to our guide on project management budgeting methods and how to best apply them.

Productive’s Reporting feature offers over 50 agency-focused templates that give insights into key agency metrics, such as billable utilization, profit margins, revenue, expenses, and more.

Build reporting dashboards and share them with relevant team members. You can also schedule reports to be sent to external emails to always stay on top of your project performance.

Additional features include: Sales, Docs, Automations.

Integrations include: Xero, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Breathe, Zapier, Slack, Jira, and more.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial, so you can see what it can do before committing to a paid plan.

Asana is a project management software with features that enhance your team’s productivity and efficiency. Additionally, Asana’s collaboration feature allows for easier progress tracking and stakeholder communication.

Key features:

Asana offers several benefits, including its user-friendly interface, customizable project workflows, and real-time collaboration features. This makes it suitable for teams with difficulties organizing their projects and ensuring everyone’s on top of tasks. As a downside, Asana lacks some essential financial and reporting features that would make it a truly robust business management software solution.

ClickUp is a project management software with resource allocation, data visualization, and reporting capabilities. With its strong collaboration tools and customizable interface, ClickUp helps agencies streamline operations and improve productivity.

Key features:

With various project management features, including an agency time tracking software, task management, and workflow organization, ClickUp provides great project delivery support. While ClickUp has workload views for capacity visualization, agencies looking for more robust scheduling and forecasting software might want to look for an alternative software solution.

You can also check out our list of the best ClickUp competitors.

Odoo is an open-source software with a suite of business management applications for streamlining operational costs and automating manual processes. It’s a highly versatile solution with customizable modules.

Key features:

Odoo’s versatility is both its advantage and disadvantage. While the tool is highly flexible, reviewers frequently comment that it’s difficult to find reliable sources that help them implement the different modules. Additionally, certain users have noted that it’s resource-intensive and requires robust server support for optimal performance. Therefore, Odoo might be incompatible with smaller to mid-sized companies.

Odoo is also a popular alternative to Bitrix24, so you can head over to that article to see how these tools compare.

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a CRM for agencies that helps businesses meet customer expectations with sales performance management support.

Key features:

Users praise Sales Cloud for its automation and analytics capabilities — as a solution for client and prospect management, it can be a strong pick to streamline manual tasks. However, some downsides are associated with the tool, as users frequently comment that they feel it’s pricy compared to similar solutions and complex to learn. Additionally, some users reported performance issues.

Jira is an operations management platform tailored to agile and software development teams. Thanks to a robust GitHub integration, this tool helps developers streamline daily operations and focus on their coding.

Key features:

While Jira is a powerful software solution for development projects, such as website project management, it might not be as suitable for agencies working in different niches. Additionally, software development teams that use different project management methodologies other than agile might also need to do more extensive customization to get the most out of the software. Therefore, agencies looking for a more flexible tool might want to consider alternative options.

Wrike is a workflow management software with a range of features for effective operations management. It provides easy visualization of priorities, boosts collaboration, and supports project control.

Key features:

A notable advantage of Wrike is that it offers integrated task and resource management. It can be a useful solution for agencies looking for essential resource planning features with project management capabilities. However, reviewers note that Wrike’s user interface can sometimes be confusing and that they could use more advanced tutorials for streamlined implementation.

Learn more about Wrike vs Asana vs other popular project management tools.

Netsuite is a cloud-based enterprise resource planning or ERP for service industry, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and more.

Key features:

Users frequently praise Netsuite for its robust management and advanced financial tracking capabilities. On the flip side, using Netsuite effectively can demand extensive technical knowledge and investment, making it less suitable for teams with tighter resources. Reviews also note that it’s pricy, so it might not be a good option for smaller teams. Additionally, Netsuite doesn’t offer a free trial, which can be inconvenient during the research phase. Luckily, there are many Netsuite alternatives out there, so we are confident you will find something that is a good fit.

You can also check out our in-depth comparison of Netsuite vs QuickBooks vs Productive to learn more.

Basecamp is an operations management software known for its simple and user-friendly interface. Reviewers on Capterra comment that Basecamp is “great for small projects” and “super easy for anyone to use”.

Key features:

Basecamp’s user-friendly interface and strong collaboration tools make it ideal for small agencies focused on project and task management. However, its limitations in versatility, robust resource management, and lack of time tracking and financial reporting tools make it less suitable for more comprehensive business process management.

Zendesk is a human resources (HR) management solution that helps businesses connect with customers across multiple channels.

Key features:

Zendesk has a user-friendly interface with customization options that help agencies modify it to their needs. Additionally, this operations software provides valuable insights into customer support processes. As the main downside, users note that the tool starts at a relatively high price and might not be suitable for those looking for simpler customer support features.

Trello is a project and task management solution known for its user-friendly interface and strong collaboration tools.

Key features:

One of the main advantages of Trello is its user-friendly interface, with Kanban-style boards and drag-and-drop functionality that makes it simple to organize and prioritize tasks. This can be useful for teams and project managers new to software solutions. However, Trello has limited reporting and analytics features and might not be suitable for businesses that want in-depth operational insights.

You can also check out our Trello vs Wrike comparison to learn more.

Operations management software solutions are tools designed to help businesses streamline, automate, and optimize their day-to-day operational processes. Depending on your industry, this can cover a variety of functionalities, such as production management, inventory management, and supply chain management. For professional services, operations software supports resource management, reporting, finances, and project execution, among other processes.

Read the full story: With Productive, Brand Labs Development Agency Has Full Transparency of Their Business

Agency professionals believe that implementing project management and operations software has a positive impact on: projects being completed within the deadline (65%), work visibility (61%), team collaboration (58%), the quality of the deliverables (57%), client expectation management (54%), and more (Statista).

How do operations management software solutions achieve this?

A good operations management solution includes sales support, time tracking, task and project management, collaborative documentation, resource planning, budgeting and billing, project reporting, and forecasting.

However, while the exact capabilities you’re looking for might depend on your agency’s size, composition, and client projects, there are three main criteria that all potential tools should satisfy:

In today’s dynamic business environment, choosing the right operations management software is a key strategic decision for professional services agencies. This ensures optimal resource allocation, successful project delivery, and in-depth insights for current and future endeavors.

Your software pick should align with current operational requirements and offer scalability to accommodate future growth. Consider additional factors, such as how user-friendly the interface is and how comprehensive the tool is. These considerations are crucial to getting the most out of your software solution.

Looking for a tool that supports all of the above? Book a demo with Productive, the all-in-one tool for successful agency operations.

Various types of software are used in operations management, including resource management software, enterprise project management tools, resource planning software, and enterprise resource management software. These tools help in efficient human resource scheduling, financial management, and project planning.

Operations management software refers to applications that help manage the day-to-day operations of a business. The software aids in resource availability and planning, managing timesheets, and ensuring projects are completed on time.

Operations management isn’t usually the same as project management. Operations management focuses on all activities that ensure that an agency is functioning, whereas project management is focused on specific client projects.

No, an operations manager is not the same as HR. The operations manager focuses on overall business operations, while HR specifically deals with human resources, managing employee relations, and workforce planning.

The five Ps of operations management are:

The 4 Vs of operations management are:

The main goal of operations management is to optimize efficiency in the production of goods and services while ensuring they effectively meet customer requirements.

The first step to good operations management is clearly defining objectives and understanding the available resources, including manpower, materials, and machinery (if applicable to your industry). This involves resource planning tools and skills management.

The salary depends on the industry, experience, and region. Generally, both positions can be financially rewarding, with variations based on specific roles and responsibilities.

The position above an operations manager typically is a senior executive like a Chief Operations Officer (COO) or a General Manager, depending on the company’s structure.

An operations manager is usually a specific type of manager focusing on the operational aspects of a business. Their ranking depends on the specific organizational hierarchy.

Challenges in operations management include handling a diverse and remote workforce, managing the workload, ensuring resource availability for future projects, adapting to technological changes, and balancing the demands of larger teams and project schedules.

Resource management software assists in operations management by providing tools for resource scheduling, allocating time to projects, managing hourly rates, and offering custom fields for specific needs. It helps in effectively utilizing resources and maintaining resource schedules for current and future projects.

Resource forecasting is vital for predicting resource requirements for upcoming projects. It aids in planning the availability of resources and prevents over or under-utilization, ensuring that projects are adequately staffed and resources are optimally used.

For larger teams, operations management software offers features for team collaboration, personal dashboards, and task-level tracking. It helps organize workloads, maintain project schedules, and ensure effective communication among team members.