Managing a Successful Business Project

MANAGING A
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Topic............................................................................................................................................1
Background..................................................................................................................................1
Overview of the company............................................................................................................1
Project Aim and Objective...........................................................................................................1
Project management plan.................................................................................................................2
Cost..............................................................................................................................................2
Scope............................................................................................................................................2
Time.............................................................................................................................................2
Quality.........................................................................................................................................2
Communication............................................................................................................................3
Risk..............................................................................................................................................3
Resources.....................................................................................................................................3
Gantt chart and work breakdown structure......................................................................................3
Gantt Chart...................................................................................................................................3
Work Breakdown Structure.........................................................................................................4
Qualitative and quantitative research methods appropriate for meeting project aims and
objectives.........................................................................................................................................5
Analysis of research and data by using appropriate tools and techniques.......................................7
Recommendations as a result of research and data analysis to draw valid and meaningful
conclusions....................................................................................................................................13
Recommendations......................................................................................................................13
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................14
Reflection on the value of undertaking the research to meet stated objectives.............................15
REREFENCES..............................................................................................................................17
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................18

Introduction
Topic
Main topic of this project is “Equality and diversity strategies that can help an organization
to gain competitive advantage”.
Background
Equality and diversity is one of the most important thing which is required to be focused
upon by organizations as it helps the company to bring improvement within their employee
morale, performance, and productivity (al Habibi, 2019). Developing or working upon equality
and diversity issues or strategies can help an organization to gain competitive advantage. Not
only this, it will also help them to improve their retention rate, reduce cost, reduce employee
turnover and enhances their ability to attract and recruit talented people.
Overview of the company
‘Marks and Spenser’ is a multinational British retailer that was founded in 1884 whose
main headquarter is in London. M & S sells all kinds of home products, clothing products and
food products. They have more than 80,000 employees working for them. Other than this they
have more than stores present in approximately 1460 locations. But majority of their stores are
present in UK itself i.e. they have more than 950 stores in UK itself. Other than Super market
they also have Marks and Spenser Bank which is owned by HSBC bank since 2004.
Project Aim and Objective
Aim
Main aim of this project is “To identify equality and diversity strategies that can be
adopted by organizations to gain competitive advantage. A case study on Marks and Spenser.”
Objectives
Main objectives of this research project are:
 To analyse importance of equality and diversity within an organization
 To evaluate impact of equality and diversity issues upon overall performance of employees.
 To analyse relationship between equality and diversity issues and employee’s behaviour
 To recommend equality and diversity strategies that can be used by organization to gain
competitive advantage.
Research questions
Main research questions of this research project are:
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 What are the ways in which equality and gender issues impact overall business performance?
 What is the relationship between equality and diversity issues and employee’s behaviour?
 What are the main strategies that can be used by organizations for managing equality and
diversity?
 Recommend some equality and diversity strategies that can be used by organization to gain
competitive advantage.
Project management plan
Project management plan is a plan that can be used by organization for analysing ways in
which a project can be controlled, monitored and executed (Heagney, 2016). Some of the most
important aspects of a project management plan are as follows:
Cost
Cost is one of the most important aspect of a project which helps in deciding success or
failure of a project. Cost required by Marks and Spenser for successfully implementing equality
and diversity techniques within their organization is £1000.
Scope
Competition within retail sector organization is continuously increasing which is making
it difficult for organizations like Marks and Spenser to gain competitive advantage and retain
their employees (Newton, 2016). Implementing equality and diversity techniques within the
organization will help M & S to gain competitive advantage and will also provide then with
opportunity to expand their business.
Time
In order to successfully complete the project overall time period of 10 weeks is required by
marks and Spenser so that they can successfully achieve their desired aim and objectives in a
proper and effective manner.
Quality
In every project it is extremely important to maintain overall quality of a project (Kerzner, 2017)
. In order to maintain overall quality of the project M & S will conduct an internal audit and will
continuously monitor overall progress of the project so that quality of the project is not degraded.
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Communication
M & S focuses upon maintaining free flow communication channel. This helps them to
keep a track of issue faced by their staff members so that they can analyse those issues and attain
best suitable solution to resolve their staff members problem.
Risk
Increasing competition in retail sector is one of the main risks that can impact overall
success of the business. Success of this project will help M & S to deal with external forces and
risk that an impact their overall business
Resources
It is one of the most important aspect of project planning which requires proper planning for the
success of the project (Brannen, ed., 2017)(Bernard, 2017). There are various kinds of resources
that are required by Marks and Spenser for success of this project. Some of the main resources
required by M & S are: employees who are required to be trained, HR manager and top
management to work upon current policies and practise in order to develop equality and diversity
strategies in order to gain competitive advantage.
Gantt chart and work breakdown structure
Gantt Chart
Gantt chart are one of the most useful things which is required to be focused within
project planning and scheduling of the project. Gantt chart helps in evaluating time duration
which is required for completing the whole project in a timely manner. It also helps in
management of all kinds of dependencies between sub- task or activities (Berger, 2018). It is
mostly used by project manager to identify relationship between activities, understand current
status of the project. Gantt chart helps in setting milestones for all the sub- activities of task
within which it is requited to be completed. Below Gantt chart will help in explaining all the
activities of the project, time duration required by every activity to be completed. This whole
project will be completed in 10 weeks’ time period i.e. this project will be carried out from 1
April 2020 to 9th June 2020.
Activity 1st week 2nd
week
3rd
week
4th
week
5th
week
6th
week
7th
week
8th
week
9th
week
10th
week
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Introduction
Aim and
objectives
Project
management
plan
Research
methodology
Data
Collection
Data Analysis
Conclusion
and
Recommendat
ions
Submission
Work Breakdown Structure
Work breakdown structure is a kind of structure in project management in which whole
project is divided into small components that are required to be delivered. This helps in
managing whole project work in a proper and manageable sections (Rutberg and Bouikidis,
2018) . It helps the project manager to identify time duration required for all the sub- task so that
whole project can be completed in a proper time duration with manageable sections.
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