Jennifer Childs Case Study

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WEIGHT SCORING MODEL

CRITERIA

WEIGHT

PROJECT 1

PROJECT 2

PROJECT 3

Potential Income

4

Job Creation

3

Uses Core Competencies

2

Increases competitive edge

1

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The strategic objectives of these projects are to increase the company’s long; term growth but the CEO needs to provide her managers with a more detailed RFP.

A Return on investment and cost benefit analysis should be done to obtain a future return for the company for each project.

Product Development

Product Development should be the first project to be considered, because the search for new and improved products is the starting point of any company’s Value Chain and is the key aspect to adding value and gaining a competitive edge. Funding for this project should be considered as a priority and should be done timeously to secure the research and development of the prescription drug in order to be first to market.

Recommendations however are that a specialized scientist and sophisticated lab equipment may be extremely costly and completely out of budget. The current state of the research department of the company is that the development of the drug, does not fall under the company’s core competencies, due to lack of skilled staff and the sophisticated equipment. Therefore whilst the project is key to growth, the company should make the “Buy” decision in terms of procurement and outsource the research and development of the product to a company who has the ability and resources to do so. A legal contract and non-disclosure will be drawn up in such a case, as per procurement procedure. Julie will manage the progress and monitoring of the project as part of the Supplier Performance Phase of the procurement cycle.

Factory Layout Proposal

The change of the factory layout is the second project of priority and falls within the next step of the Value Chain process being, material management and production, this strategy looks at redesigning the machine worker interface with the purpose of increasing operational efficiency.

Recommendations are that an analysis be done to reflect the expected increase in production efficiency and effectiveness which would outweigh the old system created by the CEO. The presentation should also show how employee team’s creation and participation will increase the morale of the staff which makes for more satisfaction and commitment.

Upgrading of IT Systems

The upgrading of the computers and software will assist with both customer services and accounting and whilst customer services is the final step in the Value Chain process, we cannot overlook the fact that any company in the New Economy has to implement continuous improvement as a critical part of their strategy.

Recommendations are that because computers and software systems can be very costly and because of the risk of disruptions to systems, thereby defeating the objective of more efficient customer services, the computers and software should be implemented in stages over a period of time.

Employing of more Sales Staff

Whilst this department was not included in the request for a project we do need to acknowledge the critical need for sales whose purpose is the location and persuasion of new customers to the product and the introduction of new product to existing customer is a crucial value chain activity.

However this department needs to be made aware that more sales force to drive sales will have no effect if production is not up to standard to meet sales demand and there will be no major increase in sales of out-dated product.

This initiative will also increase cost immediately before sales are increased and is therefore not in line with the proposed strategic objective.

Question 3

Which balanced scorecard perspective does the three projects & Joe Sanchez initiative resort under?

References:

Module ACPM04 - Project Procurement Management Study Guide

Project Management Techniques - Rory Burke

A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge - William R. Duncan – PMI Standards Committee

Successful Project Management 6th Edition by Gido and Clements

Module 1 Project Management: Leading, Creating, Implementing and Improving.

www.balancedscrorecard.org

www.procurementacademy.com