H&M's Response to Globalization: Challenges and Opportunities

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[MANAGING SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PROJECT]
POSITIVE ECONOMIC, ETHICAL AND CULTURAL IMPACTS OF GLOBALIZATION ON
DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS OF H&M

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................3
OVERVIEW OF H&M................................................................................................................. 4
ACTIVITY – 1 RESEARCH PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN..........................................................5
PROJECT AIMS & OBJECTIVES...............................................................................................5
PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN.............................................................................................5
COMMUNICATION MATRIX..................................................................................................8
PROJECT TIMELINE............................................................................................................... 9
WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE.......................................................................................10
ACTIVITY – 2 PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION AND LOGBOOK....................................................12
EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT RESEARCH APPROACH AND METHODS IN ORDER TO ASSESS
THE RELIABILITY AND ACCURACY.......................................................................................15
ACTIVITY - 3 RESEARCH ANALYSIS & PERFORMANCE REVIEW...............................................18
ANALYSIS OF THE RESEARCH DATA....................................................................................18
COMMUNICATING THE RECOMMENDATIONS...................................................................23
REFLECTION UPON THE LEARNING OBJECTIVES THROUGH PERFORMANCE REVIEW........24
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 26
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 27

INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of this report is to highlight the significance of globalization in the context
of increasing competition and financial shift from developing to the emerging countries.
Globalization has put challenges and opportunity for the business. Moreover, globalization
provides drives to the cross border trade of goods & services and thereby increases the level
of migration between various countries.
In today’s competitive economy, globalization leads to the emergence of global brands and
also allows significant expansion of foreign direct investment. The purpose of the report is
to examine the conduct of H&M business as well as assessing its implications in terms of
enhancing the future workforce. Furthermore, this research project provides evidence in the
form of the project management plan, project Logbook and performance review. Thus,
small-scale research is carried out with the purpose of fulfilling the aims and objectives of
the project (Coe and Wrigley, 2017).

OVERVIEW OF H&M
H&M is a Swedish based multinational company that offers a wide variety of fashion
products for men, women, children’s and teenagers. The company has its establishments all
over the world and thereby operates in 62 countries. Moreover, it employs more than
132000 employees in more than 4500 stores across the world. Apart from this, H&M ha 15
production offices in Europe & Asia and thereby establish a good relationship with 700
independent suppliers.

ACTIVITY – 1 RESEARCH PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN
A project comprises the set of activities that are undertaken in order to accomplish the
project aims and objectives. It also provides a clear and transparent view of the business
idea. A management plan of the project focuses on the cultural, ethical and economic
impact of the globalization in context to H&M. Thereby, a management plan can simply help
the H&M to achieve the stated aims & objectives of the project (Petermans and Kent, 2016).
PROJECT AIMS & OBJECTIVES
The main aim of the project is to assess the positive economic, ethical and cultural aspect of
globalization so as to drive the business of H&M in the fashion industry. Globalization plays
a major role in increasing the cross border trade of goods and services. It also enhances the
level of the competition and thereby leads to an economic shift from developing to the
emerging countries. As a result of globalization, new avenues are opened up for H&M for
expanding their business (Hanson et al., 2016).
The ultimate goal of H&M is to become the most recognizable brand in the fashion industry
by running their business operation in an economic and environmentally sustainable
manner.
Some of the significant objectives of the organizations are:
 To assess the impact of globalization with respect to the HR, finance and marketing
department of H&M
 To expand the business operations of H&M
 To evaluate the economic, ethical & cultural impact of the globalization in context to
the business of H&M
 To drive the activities of the human resource department in order to improve the
competitiveness in the industry
PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN
A Project management plan considers all the activities of the project and provides the
defined approach for effective monitoring and controlling of all the task. It considers the

several aspects of scope, time, quality, cost and other aspects for the success of the project
(Enderle, 2015).
The significant aspects of the project are as follows:
Figure: Elements of Project Management Plan
Source:
PROJECT SCOPE STATEMENT
The scope statement defines the boundaries and provides the framework within which
project activities can be effectively executed. It enables the project manager to assess
the economic, cultural and ethical impact of globalization in order to drive the business
of H&M. This can further help to achieve a competitive edge in the industry and improve
the overall profitability (Wrigley and Wood, 2018).
PROJECT BUDGET
It is been estimated that a total of £100,000 will be required in order to successfully
attain the established aims & objectives of the project. This cost also takes into account
the cost of research. The budgeted plan aims to enhance the activities of Human
resource, finance, marketing and operation in context to the business of H&M (Enderle,
2015).

PROJECT QUALITY
The incorporation of quality standards and controls throughout the project will certainly
help H&M to improve the quality of goods and services. Furthermore, it will help to
satisfy the customer needs and requirements and thereby raising the satisfaction level
(Enderle, 2015).
PROJECT SCHEDULING
This is an important criterion for achieving success. It shows a relationship among each
of the activities of the project, encourage the setting of the real time and cost estimate
for the project activities. Furthermore, it helps to identify the bottleneck activities for
the purpose of making better utilization of the managerial resources (Chiu and Hofer,
2015).
PROJECT RESOURCES
The resources comprise of all hardware and software resources in order to improve the
strategic alliance between the various department such as HR, marketing and operation.
The effective monitoring of the resources needs to be done throughout the project in
order to enhance the brand value (Kumar, 2019).
RISK MANAGEMENT
An element of risk is associated with the departmental activities of H&M, thereby
required to be assessed at first in order to maximise the overall productivity of the
organization.
Risk Assess its Impact
Technical
risk
The technical uncertainty needs to be assessed so as to reduce
the ambiguity and inter department problems. The aspect of
technological obsolescence also results in technical risk
(Kumar, 2019).
External risk Identify the risk in the external competitive environment so as

to improve the sustainability of H&M in the long run.
Project
related risk
This risk may be associated with the potential budgets,
scheduling of the personnel, resources and customer
requirement in the fashion industry.
COMMUNICATION MATRIX
A proper flow of communication must be ensured for the effective accomplishment of the
entire task. The application of various mobile phones, tablets, e-mails and such other mode
can help in easy exchange of the information in order to meet the set deadlines. Moreover,
the proper coordination between the employees and staff will help to strengthen the
departmental relationship and thereby increasing the revenue of the company (Enderle,
2015).
What To whom Mode Frequency
Plan updations Employees Emails Weekly
Status of the project Managers Meetings Quarterly
Resport assessment Project manager Emails Half Yearly
Findings & Significant
results
Participants Letter and Report On project
completion

PROJECT TIMELINE
Gantt chat will help the project manager to collect the sufficient and relevant information of
various departments of H&M within the allocated time. This will help to identify the series
of activities that are required to be achieved. The project is expected to be completed
within 3 months (Sezer et al., 2016).
MONTH
WEEK 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
RESEARCH PROJECT
IDEA GENERATION
INITIATION OF DATA GATHERING
DEFINING AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
LITRATURE REVIEWS
EVALUATE SECONDARY DATA
DATA COLLECTION
RESEARCH METHOD
DATA COLLECTION
ETHICAL AND OTHER ISSUES
LIMITATION OF RESEARCH
REVIEW OF PROJECT
FINAL COMPELTION OF PROJECT
SEPTEMBERMAY JUNE JULY AUGUST
Figure: Gantt chart
Source: Author’s work, 2019
MILESTONE SCHEDULE
The main purpose of the milestone schedule is to identify and critically evaluate the project
management process. It further helps in effective monitoring and completion of the aims
and objectives as per the project time line (Hu and Haddud, 2017).
Milestones Due Date Responsible Person
Project initiation 1st July 2019 Top management
Project Planning 8th July 2019 Top management & senior
executives

Conduct of research 16th July 2019 Research project team
members
Project planning 2nd August 2019 Managers & engineers
Organization of resources 12th August 2019 Managers
Project Execution 6th September 2019 Workforce & engineers
Incorporating Quality
standards & controls
21st September 2019 Manager
Completion of the project 30th June 2019 Top management and
managers
WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE
Research is based upon the theme “Influence of globalization of the business activities of
H&M”. The overall research will be broken down in different activities in order to effectively
carry out the research. This further defines the steps needs to be undertaken at a different
level of the project management phase (d'Avolio et al., 2015).
A work break down structure ensures the completion of the task on time as well as lead to
the implementation of the entire task on time. Moreover, it helps to manage the
complicated task and provide a process for minimizing the overall project risk (Gurung and
Prater, 2017).

The work breakdown structure based on the theme of the research project is as follows:
Figure: work break down the structure
Source: (Hu and Haddud, 2017)
PROJECT PLAN
Influence of Globalization
on rthe business activities
of H&M
Impact on administrtion
Impact on Finance
Impact on Production
Impact on Marketing
Assessing the positive
influence of economic, ethical
and cultural as pect
work culture challenges
Examination of
globalization impact on
workforce