Personal Strategic Planning in Motorcycles Organization - Essay Example

Personal Strategic Planning in Motorcycles Organization Introduction The organization is a manufacturer of medium sized motor cycles. The company is a recognized brand in the market as far as fuel efficient middle weight motor cycles are concerned. Recently the management of the organization is considering including high powered motorcycle. The management wants to target a totally different segment of customers for this new project. The organization has fixed a price point of $55,000 to $100,000. They have fixed their deadlines for five years to complete this project. In the process of this new project the company, will stick to its basic brands which are the middleweight cruisers. Targeted customers for the new brand will belong to 35- 60 year age group. The organization is eyeing for a proper combination of new and old products. The management of the company has a global vision for this new project. The main objective for this new project is to come up with a touring class motor cycle for long distance journey. Project organization and process outline The company should act as a pure project management organization. This project will call for major changes than their existing working project. According to the need of this project a very well skilled, small and dedicated separate team should be included. A separate independent team will help the organization to carry out their tasks. Here the project manager should act as an entrepreneur to do justice with the new project. With the help of this management project manager of the company can focus towards the project more efficiently. All the responsibilities related with the project lies with the project manager. Here in this kind of project, members of the project team must report to the project manager (Verzuh, 2011). They are given certain deadlines and those deadlines must be followed. This project management will help the organization to avoid the confusion of multi leadership. Each and every individual will be assigned with their structured work for the creation of touring class motor cycle for the company, but their common objective will be same. Every functional department will be included within this small project team. It will be helpful for the team to concentrate towards their works and the project organization will get all round support to fulfill the project within the stipulated time. First of all the organization has to collect all the raw materials in their plants for the new motor cycle. Then the manufacturing will get started in the welding department where every process will be controlled by computer. Next, the molding process will be done where plastic resins will be heated for melting. This process will be done by the member from plastic department of the company. The painting of plastics and metal will be done on the painting department. All those painted parts will be dispatch to the assembly department for the assembling purposes. 1100CC engine and other parts will be mounted. Then at the last step wiring cables, brakes, exhaust pipes, lights, Wheels and many more parts will be installed. According to above written process the touring class motor cycle will be developed. Strategy to balance short- and long-term needs. Crucial resources It is significantly important for the organization to balance the both short and long term strategy simultaneously. Crucial resources for the existing business interests are like more marketing supports, sales support to increase the sales as the brand is already exists in the market. It requires more innovation related support as the market is getting saturated for the existing product (Wheelwright, 2010). On the other hand the company has to focus towards the new project heavily. This new business requires superior and dedicated workforces. Scope of R & D is also significantly huge with this new project. The company has to allocate lion’s share of its financial resources for this new project. This project is for the long term purpose so the company has to take very calculative decisions for this project. On the other hand the existing business is more of a short term and so business decisions related with this project should be more instant. The organization should spend appropriate amount of money for existing middle weight motorcycle as the brand is already established in the market. It will help the company to strengthen its position on the short term basis and will create a future platform for the organization to come up with the touring motor cycle. Marketing and promotion will be a crucial resource for the both existing and long term project. Recommended leadership style for project management The effective management of a project that is undertaken by an organization depends on the leaders to a great extent. The leadership style is a critical element that helps in managing the various phases of the project. The style that is most appropriate for a project management depends on the versatility and nature of the project. The leadership style that is most appropriate in this particular case is participative leadership approach. This form of style would enable the project heads to communicate directly with the team members so that the most successful strategies can be implemented. The project that has been undertaken by the company is to launch motorcycles that would possess larger engines and this product is new for the company with a completely new target market. This would encompass a major change in the organization as there would be a requirement to restructure different departments so that the needs of the new cruiser can be effectively met. This change needs to be counteracted through an appropriate leadership style that would enable the leader or the management to interact with the team directly so as to mitigate the risks that would be linked with the project and also to gather their feedback that would be beneficial for successful implementation of the project. The leaders should possess the basic skills such as conflict management and time management in order to provide guidance for the project. The effective communication is another factor that should be present in the project leaders of this organization so that they can communicate well with the peer, project clients and team members which can be enhanced through participative leadership style (Bonnici, 2011). This form of leadership style proves to be beneficial when working in collaboration with the team members and would be advantageous for the organization as a whole. Recommended risk mitigation strategies There exist certain factors during the project development process which are often overlooked and this in turn results into risks which have an adverse impact on the project. The three major risk mitigation strategies that can be adopted by the organization are risk acceptance, risk limitation and risk transference. Risk mitigation can be stated as the procedure through which an organization can avoid the adverse effects that are created by any form of risks. The risk acceptance is the mitigation strategy that is generally incorporated by those organizations who do not desire to spend sufficient amount in handling risks. The project plan for developing larger engines of motorcycle comprises of major risk elements in the form of product failure, operations failure or increased costs for the company. These failures are common risks which need to be accepted by the company and in any such cases where the product fails miserably in the market or there are higher costs in comparison to the revenue; this kind of mitigation strategy is highly recommended for the company. The other mitigation strategy is risk limitation that is used by majority of the organizations. In the case of this motorcycle company the project heads and management should be ready with a backup if there is any form of financial risk or operational risk occurring in the system. This form of strategy limits the exposure of an organization and in turn also reduces the level of risks in the system. The management through this mitigation strategy would be able to analyze the risk before hand and develop strategies accordingly which would help in reducing the effects caused on the system (Brebbia, 2014).The third strategy and the most suited one for this particular case is the risk mitigation strategy called as risk transference. Through this the company can share the level of risks by transferring certain operations such as customer service to a third party that is ready to bear the risk. Conclusion The project management is a wide concept that comprises of various critical elements which help in designing, developing and implementing a project design. The case that has been referred to is that of a company which is undertaking a transition from middle weight to larger motors of motorcycles. The focus of the new project is to attract those customers who have a preference towards large motors. The project encompasses wide array of risks as the new product can adversely affect the old product or it may even result into a product failure when launched in the market. The management of the project can only be effective when appropriate leadership style is been incorporated and the structure is so designed that all the parts involved in project handling is given equal importance. References Bonnici, C. A. (2011). Creating a Successful Leadership Style: Principles of Personal Strategic Planning. UK: R&L Education. Brebbia, C. A. (2014). Risk Analysis. UK: WIT Press. Verzuh, E. (2011). The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons. Wheelwright, C. S. (2010). Managing New Product and Process Development: Text Cases. New York: Simon and Schuster. Read More