Introduction to Project Planning and Development - Essay Example

Table of Contents Project Plan 3 Objectives 11 Stakeholder analysis 12 Risk analysis 14 Resources required 16 Conclusion 18 Company Overview In this study we would develop an online book shop project plan for the college students in UK. The suggested name for the online book store would be “Study Hub”. This online store would enable the students to buy books, as well as sell or trade their old books. The website would also offer certain specific services for the students, which is discussed later in this report. This website would be an online store exclusively for the students. In the initial level, the website would be functional only in UK. Location & Ownership The office for Study Hub would be located in London, UK. The Study Hub website could be designed by Vizion Online. It is located in London, UK. The URL for the website would be www. studyhub.com. The Study Hub would be a sole proprietor form of business. Keys to Success The owner has to plan the key areas which would help the online store to get recognition among the college students and in the market. To taste success the owner has to: Recruit highly experience management staff and a strong marketing team, who have good knowledge in sales of college books or similar college related functionalities. Develop, implement and maintain a marketing plan from the grass root level. Offer the customers unique and innovative products and services. Select and develop partnership with the suppliers in this industry. Project Plan The project plan would include the following stages: Definition Initiating Planning Executing Monitoring and Controlling (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, n. d.). The Gantt chart of whole Plan: Definition: The stage would include making sure the goals and objectives of the project, and it needs the risk analysis during the implementation of the project. It would communicate with all Gantt Chart of Definition: Initiating: This stage would include scoping the project in the situations of Deliverables, Deliverables, Technical requirements, Limits & exclusions and Reviews with customer. It also includes carefully selecting the partners such as suppliers, software application, website designing, hosting and maintaining companies. Gantt chart of Initiating Planning: It includes creating a project plan, analyzing the online market of UK and the allotting capital to different functions. Developing promotional strategies to create recognition in the market is also important. It would also include allocation of funds for contingencies and crisis situations. Moreover, in the initial months the company might incur loses, so funds should be kept for paying salary to employees and dues to the suppliers or money lenders. Gantt chart of planning: Executive: Executing would include the launch of the website. It should be ascertained by the owner that the website is working properly and all the links are functional. The website should also adopt proper SEO tools for high recognition in the search engines. Gantt chart of Executive Monitoring and Controlling: The sales figures have to be regularly monitored and the workforce has to be controlled and trained at frequent intervals to increase their efficiency. The company can also plan their future expansion plans in this stage (Acf, n. d.). Gantt chart of Monitoring and Controlling: Gantt chart of monitoring the sales figures: Training the workforce: Gantt chart of tracking customer feedback: Gantt chart of meeting workforce: Milestones Finished the project plan Launching the website Auditing of the financial statement Milestones in Gantt chart Objectives Study Hub would be to achieve the following objectives: Strategically plan the promotional campaign to attract at least 500,000 registered customers or users within the first year. The sales force would be given a target of about 50,000 user visits per month. Develop plans for expansion in other countries. Increasing the product line Completion of the project plan for the first year. The project should deliver satisfaction to its stakeholders. Stakeholder analysis According to Kerzner (2009) “Stakeholders are individuals or organizations that can be favourably or unfavourably impacted by the project. As such, project managers must interface with these stakeholders, and many of the stakeholders can exert their influence or pressure over the direction of the project.” Therefore, Stakeholder analysis is a tool to spot out the key people in the company, who needs to be satisfied. After analyzing the stakeholders, plans are made to safe guard their interest and satisfy them. Priority should be given to high satisfaction of stakeholders and efficient management of the business. The stakeholder analysis includes the following steps: Identifying the stakeholders Prioritizing them on the basis of their financial contribution in the business. Accessing the needs of the stakeholders Monitoring the satisfaction level of the stakeholders and managing them (Harrision, and John, 2009, p. 12). The stakeholders of Study Hub would include the owner, employees, customers, suppliers, the community, money lenders, public groups, media, and the Government of UK. Since Study Hub would be a sole proprietorship form of business, so no shareholders are involved in the business. It would be the responsibility of the owner to pay the regular internet and capital loaned from the lenders. The company should also maintain healthy relationship with the suppliers and clear their dues on time. The primary stakeholders are the suppliers and the creditors of the company because they have contributed capital directly or indirectly for developing the company. So they are concerned about the profitability of the company. In this study there are no shareholders because it is a sole proprietorship business, where there is only one owner. So the major stakeholder is the owner and the creditors of the company. The owner of the online store would receive the profit if the business performs well. Apart from this, the company must carry on the business according to the policies stated by the government of the country. The company must pay their tax at regular interval and keep all their financial statements error free and transparent, through proper auditing from independent auditors. The customers are also the stakeholders of the company. The college student must be paid the genuine price for the products sold by them and on time delivery of products to the desired destination is also important. The company should always remain in touch with the customers, asking for feedbacks, informing them about new product on store, through e-mails. The society is also a stakeholder because the business would also affect the culture and society of the country. Here the college students would be helpful if they get to buy class notes and text books of the next semester at lesser price. So the online book store, Study Hub would be used to impart education and knowledge in the society (Weiss, 2008). Risk analysis “Risk is a measure of the probability and consequence of not achieving a defined project goal.”(Kerzner, 2009) However, risk analysis helps to estimate the level of identified and approved risks. This includes the frequency of their occurrences and accordingly uses those results to plan out better structure to minimise those risk factors. The risk analysis starts with the detail evaluation of the risk factor, and then enough information regarding their frequency of occurrence is estimated, so as to predict the future events. The analysis of risk is often based on the elaborate information that can be acquired using a variety of techniques. They are: Analysing the plans and the related documents: The plans which are formulated and the documents prepared for the plans are rechecked to eliminate mistakes and loopholes. Simulation and Modelling: Modelling of risk is done to arrive at an accurate result and simulation is another method, which is applied when it is difficult to arrive at an exact answer. Simulation is an excellent approach for modelling risk. Interviewing: Surveys can be conducted within the organisation and employees can be interviewed for taking feedback on the probable risks for the business in the market or industry. Results drawn from tests: The different types of research study undertaken by the management of the organisation and its results can also help to analyse the risk (Kerzner, 2009). It would be advisable, that the company follows the slow and steady formula to win the online race (Webb, 2003, p. 133). There is a table to analysing the risk in competitor, financial, technical and policies. Risks Probability Impact Risk level A. Loss in Competition High High Serious B. Financial Failure Low High Moderate C. Technical Failure Low High Moderate D. Policies Changed Low Medium Minor The main risk that the store might be faced is intense level of competition from the major players in the online book stores in the market. The store would face competition in the books segments, in other segments such as auction websites, and second-hand online book store. Many of the competitors have greater resources, large customer base and high brand recognition. The vendors also offering their services to those big online stores feel more secure in dealing with them, rather than a new company. The competitors could offer products at a competitive price because of their better technology, infrastructure and higher revenue. Technical risk could be the key risk of the project as the project is an online book store that it could make the online-store in trouble. However, Study Hub’s website would be designed by Vizion Online and purchase admin software from Almabyte Ltd. Both of the companies have rich experience in website technical that it would have less opportunity to make the Study Hub in technical failure. Financial would play important role in running a business. If the planner calculates error it would make big trouble. During create the business plan, the cost of the project need to be calculated in short-term. To reducing the risk of financial, the owner could be suggested that the owner finance business by using a combined investment formula, that is lend money from banks or financial institution and also invest owner’s saving. This reduces the risk and choosing a single source for financing a company is not generally preferred in business. As a legal project, it would accord to the policies of the countries. As a stable society, policies would not change frequent and the impact of policies changed is dependents. Such as the Tax policies changed might affect the profit but if the business still profitable it will not affect too much. During the risk analysis, loss in competition would in serious risk level, financial failure and technical failure would in Moderate risk level and the polities changed would in minor level. Resources required In order to start an online book store, the owner has to gather various important resources. They are: Financial Resources: According to the opportunities and the requirements of the Study Hub, The Company would require initial capital investment. This can be arranged by taking loans from banks or financial institutions or the owner can invest from his savings.. The firm must be able to generate profit from the first year. The chief financial officer or the senior accountant of the business would monitor the financial aspects of the business. Human Resources: The Study Hub would include a management team under the owner of the company. The management team would include experts from management, financial and technical areas. The next category would include the sale force, which would generate business for the company and also deliver the products to the customers. The owner has to recruit highly experienced people to form its management team. They should be the full time employees of the company. In the sales force, the business development executive could be full time employee with 1 or 2 years of experience in sales and for the delivery staffs, college students could be recruited on part-time basis. This would save the cost of the company. HR manager should be recruited for hiring and training the workforce. Technological Resources: The focus would be on the college students while developing the website. The website would be developed using the technologies of Microsoft. This would give the owner to add more products or services to the product catalogue. The website would be created, hosted and maintained by external sources. This would be done to reduce the cost of the company in the initial stage. The textbook exchange, classified, auction and the user admin software has to purchase from Almabyte, London. The website would be designed by Vizion Online. The company chosen for web hosting and maintenance is London Web. As the hosting, designing and maintenance of the website is external sources, so it would be their responsibility to monitor the technological aspects. The company may hire an IT professional for monitoring the website activities and also performing the administrative duties. Product Storage Space: This business would not require any shop for selling products, but it is necessary to store the products for delivery. So the owner can rent a property in the initial stage of the business. The property can be rented in those parts of the city where the rent is lower. In this case the place of store does not matter because the products would be delivered to the customers at their door step. This would be the office of the owner and since it is a sole proprietorship form of business, the owner is going to monitor all the employees including the senior level employees. Conclusion The study includes developing a plan for the online book store. The book store would be selling products like textbooks, class notes, second-hand books of college students, old test papers, and tutorial CD or DVDs. It would also include services like classifieds, were the students can post their advertisements regarding textbooks, renting rooms or vehicles, etc. This is the most unique feature of this website because most of the available websites are for sales for only new books and fresh research report from different companies, but here the students would get second hand books at lower price and also class notes and old question papers which are usually not available at any online book store. The owner had to formulate a framework for planning out all the resources required for launching the business. The stakeholders of the company have to be kept in mind and risks relating to the business need to be evaluated while developing the plan. This will help the owner to take measures in advance. The future step in this plan would include business extension in other countries. The product line can be increased such as the website can sell college stationary, electronic gadgets and the classified section can also include advertisements regarding sell of pets, etc. The online book shop can also sponsor student functions and activities to get more exposure. References Acf., no date. Introduction to Project Planning and Development. [Pdf] Available at: < http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ana/relevant/Documents/Project_Development_Manual_Intro.pdf > [Accessed 22 June 2012]. Harrision, J. S., and St. John, C. H., 2009. Foundations in Strategic Managemen. 5th ed. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, no date. Project Planning. [Pdf] Available at: [Accessed 22 June 2012]. Kerzner, H., 2009. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. 10th ed. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Webb, A., 2003. The Project Manager's Guide to Handling Risk. Farnham: Gower Publishing Ltd. Weiss, J. W., 2008. Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues. 5th ed. Management Approach. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Appendices: Read More