Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
Discuss the process your CLC team is using to assess your team’s project proposals, prioritization, and selection. What challenges are you experiencing? What is working well, especially in terms of creating the work breakdown structures? If you have not started working on your CLC at this time, what challenges do you foresee? Please be specific. Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
Refer to the benchmark paper
Retail store major project proposal
- Project title
New store opening project - Opening an additional store in an adjacent community.
- Project manager: G.M.
- Problem definition or project rationale
The flagship retail store has been largely successful and the management is seeking to increase its profits by moving into a new market. In fact, three reasons were identified for opening the new retail store. Firstly, a need to create opportunities for the new community to better themselves through having convenient access to the retail goods, and working with the store through employment opportunities. Secondly, a need to make a difference in the community through opening a store that meets the needs of the community members. Thirdly, a need to create wealth for the retail store owners through bringing in more money. The new store will be in a new area and is anticipated to target new customers so that the store will have a larger customer base, make more sales, and record higher cumulative profits (Westwood, 2013). Besides the mentioned reasons, the new location offers a better and bigger store that offers greater exposure with the capacity to network and acquire goods at lower costs. Additionally, the present business model can be duplicated, and market research has been conducted, all showing that a new location is necessary for expansion purposes (Bond, 2013). As such, opening the new store is an opportunity for improvement. Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
- Goal definition
Opening the new retail store has been guided by specific goals centered on staffing, sales and customer service. Five goals have been identified. The first goal is to run a profitable business operation and improve profit margins through capturing a larger customer base and increasing revenue. The second goal is to increase customer satisfaction with the product offerings and store location convenience by 40% over one year. The third goal is to improve retail products turnover from four days to three days. The fourth goal is to growth the business operations. The fifth goal is to increase brand awareness. Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
- Objective definition
Five objectives have been identified for the new retail store. Firstly, reaching the goal of running a profitable business operation will be achieved through increasing annual sales by 20% within in 14 months of operation. Secondly, reaching the goal of increasing customer satisfaction will be achieved through increasing the retail product offerings by 30%. Thirdly, reaching the goal of improving retail products turnover will be achieved through lowering prices and engaging in product promotion and advertisement activities with an additional 40,000 spent annually on marketing activities. Fourthly, the goal of growing the business operations will be achieved through scouting new locations and opening a new retail store every two years. Fifthly, the goal of increasing brand awareness will be achieved through presenting an annual newsletter and creating a customer reward scheme (Wang, 2014). Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
- Resources
Four main categories of resources have been identified as necessary to complete the project of opening a new retail store. The first category is financial resources that includes loans, credit, personal investment, venture capital, and equity. The financial resources are required to pay for licenses, retail goods acquisition, rentals, salaries/wages, and so on. The second category is intellectual resources that include customer databases, partnerships, and company brand. The combination of the intellectual resources determines the unique manner in which the organization conducts business, which sets its stores apart from other retails stores. The third category is human resources who include all personnel engaged by the organization to successfully open the new retail store. They include cash register attendants, manager, cleaners, isle attendants, and security personnel. The fourth category is physical resources that includes vehicles, storage facility, transportation, and buildings (Hutt & Speh, 2013; Winston et al., 2013). Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
- Risk analysis
A risk analysis was conducted to identify the major risks associated with opening a new retail store. Two categories of risks were identified: internal and external risks. Internal risks are specific to the business and within the direct control of its management. External risks are general to the industry and affect all businesses operating in the industry to include competitors within the same geographical areas. Four internal risks were identified. The first internal risk is workforce risk that occurs through a misalignment between the existing and required workforce. Retail Store Major Project Proposal.The occurrence of this risk would result in personnel being absent from work so that business outputs and outcomes are not delivered. This risk is likely to occur if the working conditions, terms and remunerations are not favorable. The second internal risk is operational risks that occur if there are changes in procedures to affect workflows. There is a low risk of this occurring since the organization has established procedures that will be applied in the new retail store as part of the brand identity. The third internal risk is marketing risk that occurs if the market is not made aware of the new store through marketing activities. There is a low risk of this occurring since there is a marketing budget to ensure that the market is aware of the new store to include its location and offerings. The fourth internal risk is financial risk that occurs if funds are not available for the project. Third has been addressed by preparing a budget for the project and ensuring that funds are available before beginning the project (Baines & Fill, 2014). Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
Four external risks were identified. The first external risk is changes to consumer demands, particularly changes to retail shopping trends to include online shopping. This risk is being managed through plans for home delivery services and an online shopping portal. The second external risk is government regulations. This risk is being managed through ensuring that the new store is compliant with all relevant government regulations. The third external risk is natural disasters that includes flooding and hurricanes. This risk is being managed through modifying infrastructure and getting insurance. The fourth external risk is changing economy that is characterized by changes in customer earnings. This risk will be managed through closely monitoring the economy and changing the offerings to match the economy (Baines & Fill, 2014). Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
PSC 450 Topic 2 DQ 1
Discuss the process your CLC team is using to assess your team’s project proposals, prioritization, and selection.
A three step process has been applied to assess the team’s project proposals, prioritization and selection. The first step involved evaluating each project’s relevance in terms of identifying the benefits, determining the problems being solved, and evaluating the projects objectives. In addition, this step entailed preparing the intervention logical for the project, and determining the extent to which the project responded to the identified needs and problems. The second step involved evaluating each project’s feasibility in terms of external influences, key assumptions, and sources of verification and indicators for performance measurement. The final step involved evacuating each project’s sustainability in terms of identifying the project management activities and results that continue beyond the projects life, assassins the factors for sustainability, and checking the activities and results to continue against the sustainability factors (Wang, 2014). Retail Store Major Project Proposal.
What challenges are you experiencing? What is working well, especially in terms of creating the work breakdown structures? If you have not started working on your CLC at this time, what challenges do you foresee?
The project (opening a new store) is anticipated to present four challenges. The first anticipated challenge is staffing issues. The store has established protocols that may be difficult to new personnel to understand. Relocating old personnel to the new location may be difficult. The challenge is how to find dependable personnel who would staff the new store. The second anticipated challenge is how to understand the technology options. The store brand is moving towards new technologies that are expected to make shopping more convenient and easier for the customers. From advertising to point of sale technology and payment processing, the new store will have to evaluate a range of technologies. There will be a need to conduct research into choosing the right technologies while ensuring expenses are within the budget. The third anticipated challenge is how to stock the new store. The new store will be serving new customers with the products that need and want, and these could be different from the other stores. Understanding what the new customers will need and want is a challenge. The final challenge is how to take precautions to have a secured and safe store for both the personnel and customers. This will require secure solutions for processing payments, and functioning security cameras and functioning alarms. Also, there will be a need for insurance and emergency protocols (Winston et al., 2013). Retail Store Major Project Proposal.