Strategic Project Management: Case Study Of DeGrandis Sporting Goods

DeGrandis Sporting Goods Strategic Plans

Strategic project management is often regarded as tactical process that involves combing the aspect of business strategy and that of project management. (David, 2011 p.89).

This presentation aims to look at the various strategic plans of DeGrandis Sporting Goods developed by the CEO of the Australian based company Fergus DeGrandis.

 A performance evaluation will be conducted on these three projects developed by the CEO[00:32].

The three projects developed are;

Project A-DeGrandis Running Shoes

This project was specifically aimed at introducing the DeGrandis  running shoe to the entire company’s range of products.

Project B-Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) Partnership

The primary and sole goal of this particular project was to enable DeGrandis Sporting Goods become the sole and official supplier of various forms of sporting equipment and gears to the Australian Olympic Team (Zhu, 2014 p.89).

Project C-Ladybird Sporting Apparel

This project set in the new  Ladybird brand of sporting apparel to the DeGrandis Sporting Goods range of products. This product was environmental friendly also internationally recognized.

DeGrandis Strategic Goals

. Financial Strategic Goals

a). Growing Shareholders value-This is a goal that is aimed at increasing the value and worth of DeGrandis Sporting Goods and thereby increasing the values of all the shareholders and owners of the company.

b). Management costs- Management costs are an expense, DeGrandis Sporting Goods aims at reducing the management costs as much as possible so as to avoid future insolvency  (Sun, 2010 p.23).

1. c) Ensuring Financial Sustainability-Remaining financially stable is one of the key objectives of DeGrandis Sporting Goods. This even involves seeking outside sources of revenue to manage extra costs if need be.

d). Maintaining a high level of profitability-DeGrandis Sporting goods aims at ensuring a balance between its revenues and expenses and by so doing maintaining a reasonable amount of profitability

e).Balancing the budget- It is the goal of DeGrandis Sporting Goods to display high level of discipline in terms of good planning by having a balanced budget. A balanced budget shows good planning skills and a high level of management excellence.

f). Increasing Revenues-Basically, revenues imply the growth of an organization or a company. It is therefore the goal of DeGrandis Sporting Goods to increase its revenue as much as possible so as to display a high level of growth and expansion.

Customers objectives

a). Best Value for the cost-This involves matching the price of a particular product with its corresponding price. DeGrandis Sporting goods aims at ensuring that the price of their products have proportional value to the value and quality of the product  (Tannenbaum et al,2013  p.90).

b). Broad Product offering-This involves offering a wide range of products that are of the best quality and class regardless of the price.

c). Reliable Products and services-This involves on the reliability of DeGrandis products and services. The products we offer should be reliable and customers should put some level on dependence on us to deliver.

d). Partnering with customers to increase and provide solutions to issues affecting them-This objective was specifically proposed by DeGrandis Sporting Goods so as to reflection upon the level of customer intimacy. It involves listening to the customers with an extra ear and even forming partnerships with them so as to deliver the solutions on issues affecting them.

1. Internal objectives

Financial Strategic Goals

a). Investing on a certain amount in innovation-This involves investing in various innovative activities in regard to the company’s products and way of doing things

b). Differentiating the company’s products-The features and aspects of the various products should be differentiated so as to enable customers tell the difference among these various products.

1. 4. Operational Excellence objectives

a). Reduce the cost of operation by a certain level annually-Involves reduction of the overall company’s operational costs.

b).Investing more in Total Quality Management-This involves quality improvement in regard to all aspects of the company.

c). Reducing the levels of bureaucracy-This involves the continuous reduction of the lengthy processes that are involved in the acquisition and issue of various staffs in the company[2:00].

Ethical standards refer to the fundamental principles and values that need to be adhered to and followed by an organization (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017 p.201).

The following are the ethical standards of DeGrandis Sporting Goods

a). Ensure environmental protection

b). Ensure good relationships with the customers

c). Ensure good relationships with the stakeholders

d).Acting with at   good-faith when dealing with customers and other relevant stakeholders (McDavid et al,2012 p.89).

e). Abiding by the rules and laws of Australia and acting in line with all the appropriate legal requirements

f). Transparency in regard to the company’s operations[3:00].

Project A introduced the DeGrandis  running shoe to the company’s range of products. This strategy was very crucial and there are a number of ways in which this particular project aligns itself with the projects strategies despite the few ways in which it goes against some of the company’s strategic objectives (Bititci et al,2012 p.13).

Ways in which it agrees with the company’s strategic on objective

1. a) This project is in consistent with the projects objectives in that it delivered a new brand of shoes within the required timeframe, one of the DeGrandis objectives is improving focus on research and development, this objective was fully met by the introduction of this particular project
2. b) Customer satisfaction. This product ensured customer satisfaction; we see that the customers loved the new brand of shoes.
3. c) Increasing Revenues, we see that the new product has increased the company’s revenues by over five million us dollars. This is a very good indication and it ensures company’s financial sustainability (Rummler & Brache, 2012 56).

Ways in which it disagrees with company’s strategic objectives

Looking at this project, there are no any possible ways in which it disagrees with the company’s strategic objectives. 

Alignment with ethics

This project is not in consistent on some of the most important ethical aspects of DeGrandis Sporting Goods. For instance, in this particular project there were some cases and instances of child labor related to the Chinese suppliers. This is totally against the company’s code of conduct that prohibits 

Project A is very crucial for not only company’s survival but also growth.

It facilitates the rates of expansion of DeGrandis Sporting Company by meeting almost all the strategic objectives ranging from financial, operational and even customer affairs (Poister,2010 p.41).

 Although it does not consider an important ethical standard by having some essence of child labor in it, it is a very good project that should be perused at all costs if necessary since its returns are way much better that the expenses[6:00].

Alignment with strategy

This is a strategy that was meant to enable DeGrandis Sporting Goods become a renowned and official supplier of various sporting equipments to the Australian Olympic Team.

The following are some of the ways in which this particular projects aligns with the company’s strategies

a). All the stakeholders were consulted and their needs recognized. This is a very important aspect of DeGrandis Sporting Goods of customer and stakeholder’s satisfaction (Kwakkel et al,2010 p.200).

Customer Objectives

b). Requirements for this particular project were all met.

c).The project increased sales to up to over 3million dollars.

Alignment with ethics

This project had some aspects of unethical issues in that it was later found out that the project sponsor who happened to be a member of the company’s management team had paid an extremely high ranking  official an incentive to approve the partnership.

This is a form of bribing which is against the key standards and ethical values of DeGrandis Sporting Goods[7:30].

Conclusion

This  project’s sole purpose was making the company become an official supplier of sporting equipment to the Australian Olympic Team(Albrechts &  Balducci, 2013 p.35).

 It was very crucial and the CEO of DeGrandis Sporting Goods played a very important role in proposing this project.

This project is very crucial for the development and growth of DeGrandis Sporting Goods.

 It should continue being implemented (Teigão  & Partidário, 2011 p.65).

There are certain amendment that needs to be made in regard to this particular project, the incident of bribe that was noticed in this project is unacceptable and measures should be taken so as to rectify that[11:00].

Alignment with strategies

This is a project that introduced the lladybird brand of sporting apparel to the DeGrandis Sporting Goods product range. This project was in alignment with the strategies for DeGrandis Sporting Goods in the following ways;

a). It introduced a new range of products, this is one of the strategies for DeGrandis Sporting goods which states that there should be a wide range of products that should be dealt with (Teigão  & Partidário, 2011 p.65).

b). The aspect that this particular brand is internationally recognized is very crucial and means a lot for DeGrandis Sporting Goods

c). The project budget and time frame for the project were not met

d). The new line of clothing was not properly marketed and tested before the product was actually launched.

1. e) Customers consider this particular brand of product of Ladybird clothing as having an inferior quality and this has really affected customer’s satisfaction (Sirat,2010 p.41).

The introduction of the ladybird brand brought about some serious negative consequences.

 For instance, we see that customers consider this product to be of inferior quality and they have even raised complaints.

This is an operational issue that should have been considered so as to see how the product would perform (Boyne, 2010 p.71).

This project should be discarded by the company and a new project be introduced that would bring with it positive results.

Before any project is implemented, it should be tested prior being launched so as to make it successful and to avoid any possible causes of future losses as is the case for this project (McLean, 2018 p.10).

Customer satisfaction should always be considered and up held by all means necessary so as to make customers loyal[15:00].

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