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Student Assignment Covering Form

Course/Unit Information

Course

Pearson BTEC Level 5 Higher National Diploma

Unit No.

Unit No. 6

Unit Name

Managing a Successful Business Project

Unit code

D/508/0491

Batch

SEV10-MSBP-HawwaHaide-1710

Instructor Information

Name

Hawwa Haide

Phone

Email

hawwa@westford.org.uk

Assignment Information

Full/ Part Assignment

Full

Date Assignment Issued

15th October 2017

Date Assignment Due

11th November 2017

Turnitin Class ID

16507561

Turnitin Password

MSBP1710

Student Information

(To be filled by the student prior to submitting the assignment)

Name

Sallu Varghese

Email

salluvarghese@gmail.com

Date of Submission

[Publish Date]

Student Assignment covering form is an integral part of the assignment document and should be submitted along with all submissions.

Student Declaration

I, Sallu Varghese, hereby confirm that this assignment is my own work and not copied or plagiarized. It has not previously been submitted as part of any assessment for this qualification. All the sources, from which information has been obtained for this assignment, have been referenced as per Harvard Referencing format. I further confirm that I have read and understood the Westford School of Management rules and regulations about plagiarism and copying and agree to be bound by them. Attached is the Turnitin report for reference.

Students Signature : image1.png

Students Name : Sallu Varghese.

Date : [Publish Date]

Turnitin Report : image2.png

Achievement Feedback Summary

Assessor’s Name

Hawwa Haide

Pass

Merit

Distinction

Grades Awarded (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7, M1, M2, M3, M4, D1, D2)

LO1 Establish project aims, objectives and timeframes based on the chosen theme

P1 Devise project aims and objectives for a chosen scenario.

P2 Produce a project management plan that covers aspects of cost, scope, time, quality, communication, risk and resources.

P3 Produce a work breakdown structure and a Gantt Chart to provide timeframes and stages for completion.

M1 Produce a comprehensive project management plan, milestone schedule and project schedule for monitoring and completing the aims and objectives of the project.

LO1 & 2

D1 Critically evaluate the project management process and appropriate research methodologies applied.

P1 Achieved / Not Achieved

P2 Achieved / Not Achieved

P3 Achieved / Not Achieved

M1 Achieved / Not Achieved

D1 Achieved / Not Achieved

LO2 Conduct small-scale research, information gathering and data collection to generate knowledge to support the project

P4 Carry out small-scale research by applying qualitative and quantitative research methods appropriate for meeting project aims and objectives.

M2 Evaluate the accuracy and reliability of different research methods applied.

P4 Achieved / Not Achieved

M2 Achieved / Not Achieved

D1 Achieved / Not Achieved

LO3 Present the project and communicate appropriate recommendations based on meaningful conclusions drawn from the evidence findings and/or analysis

P5 Analyse research and data using appropriate tools and techniques.

P6 Communicate appropriate recommendations as a result of research and data analysis to draw valid and meaningful conclusions.

M3 Evaluate the selection of appropriate tools and techniques for accuracy and authenticity to support and justify recommendations.

LO3 & 4

D2 Critically evaluate and reflect on the project outcomes, the decision-making process and changes or developments of the initial project management plan to support justification of recommendations and learning during the project.

P5 Achieved / Not Achieved

P6 Achieved / Not Achieved

M3 Achieved / Not Achieved

D2 Achieved / Not Achieved

LO4 Reflect on the value gained from conducting the project and its usefulness to support sustainable organisational performance

P7 Reflect on the value of undertaking the research to meet stated objectives and own learning and performance.

M4 Evaluate the value of the project management process and use of quality research to meet stated objectives and support own learning and performance.

P7 Achieved / Not Achieved

M4 Achieved / Not Achieved

D2 Achieved / Not Achieved

Overall Feedback Summary

Over All Grade

Choose an item.

Date

[Publish Date]

[To Achieve a PASS, all P grade descriptors should be achieved; To achieve a MERIT, all P and M grade descriptors should be achieved; To achieve a DISTINCTION, all P, M and D grade descriptors should be achieved.]

Summative Feedback

Overall feedback on current work with emphasis on how the student can improve and achieve higher grades in future.

General Guidelines

Please read the instructions carefully and tick the checkboxes

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Complete the title page with all necessary student details and ensure that the signature of the student is marked in the declaration form.

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All assignments must be submitted as an electronic document in MS Word to the LMS (Use 10 Tahoma script).

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Assignment that is not submitted to the LMS by the prescribed deadline will be accepted ONLY under the REDO and RESIT submission policy of Westford.

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The results are declared only if the student has met the mandatory attendance requirement of 75% and/or a minimum of 50% under extenuating circumstances approved and ratified by the Academic Director. The student has to repeat the module (with additional fees applicable) if the attendance is below 50%.

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The assignment should not contain any contents including references cited from websites like www.ukessays.com, www.studymode.com, www.slideshare.net, www.scribd.com

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Submit the assignment in a MS Word document with the file name being:

First Name Last Name_ abbreviation of the subject.

Example: John Smith_BBE.

Quick reference Checklist for the Students before submitting the assignment:

1. Adherence to the deadline of submission date.

2. Original cover sheet and format retained.

3. Student information and signature intact.

4. Font style and size used as instructed.

5. Harvard Referencing System and Citations are strictly followed.

Assignment title

MANAGING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PROJECT - THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY ON BUSINESS ACTIVITY

LO1 Establish project aims, objectives and timeframes based on the chosen theme.

LO2 Conduct small-scale research, information gathering and data collection to generate knowledge to support the project.

LO3 Present the project and communicate appropriate recommendations based on meaningful conclusions drawn from the evidence findings and/or analysis.

LO4 Reflect on the value gained from conducting the project and its usefulness to support sustainable organisational performance.

Introduction:

This assignment is based on Pearson-set theme of ‘Managing a Successful Business Project-The impact of digital technology on business activity’. Digital technology has revolutionised the way we conduct business. Over the last decade it has dramatically changed traditional business models and transformed business activities. The use of digital mobile technology has provided businesses with a wealth of choice and opportunity. This has enabled existing products to become more profitable and innovative new products to be developed, leading to increasingly diverse product portfolios. Its impact is evident at the core of all key business systems:

● Administration - cloud technology enables effective filing, storage and sharing of information.

● Communication- social media and mobile technology allows businesses to connect, communicate, collaborate and build relationships on a global scale.

● Storage and Distribution - `The Internet of Things’ is connecting and integrating systems throughout business structures.

● Production - Artificial intelligence and big data analytics are driving Innovation and product growth.

However, changes in the way we work are not without their challenges as businesses have to adopt and deal with change management, recruit and sustain creative talent, invest in new technologies and respond to an ever increasing competitive environment.

This assignment is based on examination of impact of digital technology on how we conduct business through the context of a given project. This will provide an opportunity for all of you to contextualise the implications of digital technology in the workplace and also analyse how it is shaping the future workforce and the customers’ perceptions. It will also enable you to explore both the challenges and opportunities that rapid technological advances represent for businesses.

Project Evidence / Outcomes:

It is important to recognise that your project work is reliant on gathering information/data that can be analysed. The scale of your project must have both both primary and secondary research. You are advised to use secondary research in your project work to help you provide a context to conduct and interpret primary data collection logically. Thus, the project should be able to yield data/information that could be compared with the findings of secondary research. You should be able to see how project objectives have been met, how you have explored the research material relevant to the project objective, how you have developed and formulated their outcomes and answers to the central questions posed by the objectives, and what you have learnt in carrying out this project. An important part of the conclusion must be an awareness of the significance of results. Well edited, focused writing and presentation, where the key decisions, developments, lines of argument and salient research are explained succinctly, is preferable to unstructured writing and presentation where little attempt to select or edit material has been made.

Project Topic: How digital technology has transformed business activities e.g. operations, marketing, accounting, HR.

Project Case:

Enabling a Customer-Centric Experience through Project Management Organization:

du Telecom and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Industry

BACKGROUND

Throughout the United Arab Emirates (UAE), du Telecom provides mobile and fixed telephony, broadband connectivity and IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) services to people, homes, and businesses. When it opened for business in 2006, the company boldly entered what was already a saturated market with 100% penetration. Although du Telecom recognized that the telecom industry in the Arabian Gulf is fast growing and that the company would face ever increasing competition, it approached the market as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. Within four years, du had acquired almost 40% of the region’s mobile market share and was maintaining an annual growth rate of more than 32% in a saturated market.

1 Established in 1987, Huawei is a global leader of ICT solutions and the largest telecommunications equipment maker in the world. Their telecom network equipment, IT products and solutions, and smart devices are used in 170 countries and regions.

2. In 2013, du signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company. With this understanding, du and Huawei are working together to better define the best practices in portfolio and project management concepts, processes and techniques for their industry, including knowledge transfer and research.

3. du and Huawei are operating what they term a “distributed PMO” in two countries. This requires that both understand how a PMO functions in that type of environment. The two companies decided to work together to exchange best practice industry methodologies, concepts, tools and techniques, while also better defining best practice portfolio management concepts, processes, and techniques.

THE CHALLENGE

du knows that every project takes place in a specific context, be it a stand-alone project or part of a greater program, or one among a portfolio of projects. A project may also involve a team whose members have never worked together before, and it may require assigning responsibilities and roles to people who are new to them. All of these factors are identified and considered as part of a project. With all of these considerations in mind, du was looking for partners who could help them overcome these challenges. This provided the trigger to initiate an engagement with Huawei, where in a region marked by fierce competition, telecom operators contend with constant change and long-term uncertainty. One key shortcoming that du explored for surmounting these challenges was the role of project leadership—a capability that delegates and facilitates faster decision making and improves time to market.

THE SOLUTION

Project leadership is a skill that requires time to develop—in a person or an organization. Achieving success requires an analysis of setbacks and failures as a roadmap for improvement. Focusing on each project’s challenges and learning from them helps build a more successful project management capability. PMI’s in-depth report “Capturing the Value of Project Management Through Knowledge Transfer” reveals that while capturing lessons learned is critical, what an organization does with that knowledge once it is captured, is equally important.

As part of the MoU, Huawei and du work together to improve project management practices between the two companies through knowledge sharing, exchange visits, and other forms of collaboration. Having robust project management capabilities gives decision makers real-time visibility on project health, trends on investment returns, and the appropriate control to enable decision making that reduces uncertainty and opens up opportunities. As part of the process, du and Huawei use the OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model or OPM3®) model to accomplish management and control. Organizations turn to OPM3® because it helps them bridge the gap between strategy and individual projects. It provides a way to advance strategic interests through the application of project management principles and practices. This generates consistently successful, high-quality projects that achieve their goals in a timely manner.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

The aim of du-Huwaei partnership project was to ensure how use of digital technology will transform business activities like operations, marketing, accounting and HR, to finally satisfy the end user who is their customer. As a result of their collaboration, both companies report a reduction in project failure, an appropriate level of quality, and results that meet requirements and customer expectations. Both were also able to free up staff for other assignments and increase efficiency both on the project and within the business, making things simpler and easier for staff. du and Huawei instituted a single point of contact responsible for the management of an overall project. This produces consistent communications among staff and suppliers and also keeps costs, timeframes, and resources within budget. Finally, robust project management practices and effective use of digital technology are all finally meant to manage customer expectations with a customer-centric vision. Within the du Telecom–Huawei collaboration, project management practices touched upon the DNA of the telecom business, which is customer experience. Good project management and use of digital technology became the enabler for that customer experience.

Scenario:

You are expected to read the above given case study on du Telecom and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., and answer the questions that follow. You will also have to refer to other sources of information in your research to analyse all the questions in more detail. Read the higher grade descriptors carefully to check out on their specific requirements, which will help you achieve higher grades. You will have to do your own research on these companies to enable you to do a holistic examination of the involved project work, and you must completely comply with answering all the basic requirements stated in the questions below.

du Telecom–Huawei collaboration as an entity has set very high benchmark and standards to garner almost 40 percent of the market share in UAE. Use of digital technology is transforming business activities like operations, marketing, accounting and HR into effective and efficient ways of handling these important business functions, to finally satisfy the end user who is their customer. To achieve a focused strategy in the Telecom industry, du is constantly trying to enable a rich customer centric experience in all their projects being undertaken by them currently. du wants to enhance the customer experience of its existing customers and desires to carry out some research in this regard, to find out customer perceptions and experience with regard to their mobile telephony networks, as well as if they have been able to enhance the customer experience through some of their innovative telecom and internet applications. Their basic aim is to enable them to drive strategic continuous improvement programmes, as well as allow them to drive high-impact change initiatives on a regular basis. They want to collect business intelligence through use of data analytics, give a high quality service experience and also develop a 360 degrees customer view.

You have been appointed as the Project Manager, du Telecom–Huawei, to conduct this whole project, make the project report and carry out the involved research, based on certain important criteria which have been given below. The report will encompass all criteria listed below in the questions, and it will be submitted individually by the given due date.

Project Report:

You are expected to conduct this project work individually, write a project report and incorporate the answers to the following questions within the report itself, by referring to the du case–Huawei study given above. You will use existing sources of research work in the form of published articles and journals, as well as other secondary material and literature available on the company, industry, customer experience and digital technology.

1. a. Devise your project aims and objectives of du–Huawei Company, in line with some of the digital technology measures being used by the company in their business activities of operations, marketing, accounting and HR. Based on these digital technology and marketing measures used by the company, what customer centric approaches do you desire to undertake to enhance the overall customer experience; these should also form part of your project aims and objectives.

b. You must produce a comprehensive (i) project management plan that will cover aspects of cost, scope, time, quality, communication, risk and resources. This (ii) project management plan will also give out how the project is to be planned, executed and monitored. The (iii) project management plan should in addition give details of the actions required for the integration and co-ordination of various planning activities to carry out the project.

c. Produce a work breakdown structure and a Gantt Chart to provide timeframes and stages of completion.

2. Carry out small-scale research by applying qualitative and quantitative research methods, which will be appropriate to meet the project aims and objectives set by you. To do this, you will design a questionnaire to carry out the quantitative research, by taking responses from existing du customers, and du staff (if feasible); minimum sample size chosen must be 30 respondents. You will also carry out interviews of at least 5 respondents to help you carry out your qualitative research effectively.

3. a. You will then use simple statistical tools and techniques like graphs, charts, histograms, averages, etc. to analyse your data which should help you to come to certain conclusive research findings.

b. Thereafter, you should communicate appropriate recommendations as a result of your research and data analysis, which will also help you to draw out valid and meaningful conclusions, which you need to present to the du–Huawei Management.

4. a. Reflect on the value of undertaking this particular research to meet the stated objectives, as well as reflect on own learning and performance.

b. Make a (i) project log book which should provide evidence of the project development process and your ongoing reflection. The (ii) project log book should also provide evidence that you have thought about the direction of your project, and in particular, what problems you encountered and steps taken to address them.

5. 5. Finally, carry out a (i) performance review of your whole project, which should provide evidence of reflection and also the (ii) performance review evaluation of the project management process and individual performance.

Note: Please ensure that the specific requirements of the M and D grade descriptors are addressed for achieving higher grades. Remember that each of the M and D grade descriptors requirements have to be addressed within each of the corresponding P criteria(s) itself while answering any specific question(s) given above. DO NOT try and answer the M and D grade descriptors separately as a separate task.

The submission on the LMS is in the form of an individual written report. This should be written in a concise, formal business style using single spacing and font size 12. You are required to make use of headings, paragraphs and subsections as appropriate, and all work must be supported with research and referenced using the Harvard referencing system. Please also provide a bibliography using the Harvard Referencing System. The recommended word limit is 4000–5000 words, although you will not be penalized for exceeding the total word limit.

DU

CONSUMER RESEARCH WORK

Abstract:

In this research work, the two organizations cooperate, du and Huawei. This research work is done as the two organizations have collaborated and research work is required in order to know one of the organization. This research research shows what customers' needs and expectations are from du. It has a specific structure on how to do the work and its process. The results of the questionnaire are in the relevant graphs and charts. There are also recommendations for the organization. In the end it is the thinking that the entire report is presented.

Table of contents

1) Introduction to the report

· Aim

· Objective

· Customer centric approaches

· Milestone schedule

· Project management plan

· PRINCE 2

· Project schedule

· Work breakdown structure

· Gantt chart

· Qualitative research

· Quantitative research

· Pie charts

2) Recommendations

3) Conclusion

· Reflections

· Benefits

· SMART

4) Appendix

5) Bibliography

Introduction of the report,

As part of the Du project management team, our aims are:

1) to achieve new profits and ways to meet the needs and desires of customers by providing them with new types of services.

2) The organization wants to do this by overcoming challenges such as new types of clients and their transactions.

Objectives:

1) To overcome current challenges.

2) Provide a new service to its customers.

3) Gain profits from research work done.

Customer centric approaches are:

Customer-focused approaches where the organization focuses on ways to sell its products or services to customers in ways that persuade them to buy their products. The customer's focus is that he wants to focus on the products and services that will satisfy his customers.

Customer centric of Du:

When Du look at an organization as the organization of different problems faced by its customers try to find solutions to problems in different ways. This is done because each client's problems will be different from the other, and each client will not necessarily call at the same time. The Organization is therefore working through new ways of solving its existing problems and future problems, if any.

As a team we are working to provide a new type of services to provide their customers, we seek a customer-centric approach such as looking at any calls from customers. Calls can come for installation or contrast in broadband, and various other factors. We then examined our research in different ways that could be a problem and then found a solution to it, that is by giving them a personal solution to any problem. We do this by making ourselves available to go and sort out any issues.

Process in order to get a project management into place is by having 4 basic steps. They are:

Evaluate: This is where the team meets together to find out what their goals are and goals and what their goal is.

Design: This is where design or style determines how to reach goals and goals.

Development: This is when the team starts to actually work on the project and move forward.

Analyze: This is when the team gets together to see their fulfillment and see if they are able to reach their goals and goals.

The process in order to get this done is having many section workers who can do calls and can help solve our clients' issues. This can be beneficial to our customers in order to solve their issues and not cause any dissatisfaction. This in turn will help reach our goals.

The search methods in order to know the issues with our products are, that we use after-manufacture services and then try our best to find out which solutions can be found. Then the research team also searches from other companies around the world if any such service is provided, and if so, they conduct research on how to make the service better.

Their important agenda is where the project management team meets together the milestones that will help the organization move forward. The emerged milestones are,

Quality: This is where the organization ensures that the services provided with customers are of high quality.

Price: Prices of services provided are reasonably priced so that they can be purchased by or provided by all customers of du services.

Completion: This factor is where the team takes completion of the project but with all the challenges that are put in mind to ensure that each of them is completed on time and with keeping the budget in mind.

The project communication plan:

Task

Method of communication

Frequency of repetition

Note

Milestone schedule

Meetings

Weekly once

During the week

Meetings, as a team will discuss the milestones in the organization.

Project management plan

Emails and meetings

Weekly once during the meetings

This plan will be reviewed with all team members

during the week

Meetings will be mailed to everyone for personal reference.

Gantt chart

Emails and meetings

Weekly once during meetings

The Gantt chart must be followed by everyone according to their administrations

Areas of function

Respectively. They will be mailed to everyone personal reference.

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