Analyzing the Economic Impact of Global Outsourcing on John Lewis

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This project analyzes global outsourcing's impact on John Lewis.

MANAGING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PROJECT
JOHN LEWIS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................1
TITLE......................................................................................................................................... 2
A) DEVICE PROJECT AIMS AND OBJECTIVES.............................................................................2
PROJECT BACKGROUND.......................................................................................................2
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES.........................................................................................................2
B) PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN............................................................................................3
WORK-BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE........................................................................................ 7
GANTT CHART...................................................................................................................... 8
C) CONDUCTING PRIMARY AND SECONDARY RESEARCH.........................................................9
SECONDARY RESEARCH........................................................................................................9
PRIMARY RESOURCES.........................................................................................................11
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND ACCURACY AND
RELIABILITY OF THE APPLIED RESEARCH METHODS...........................................................13
D) ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH DATA...........................................................................................14
E) CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION............................................................................22
F) PERFORMANCE REVIEW.....................................................................................................24
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 25
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INTRODUCTION
Globalization has caused a great disruption in business activities and performance of the
global as well as local business organizations. It has integrated and connected the
economies and businesses across the globe. It has resulted in increased business
opportunities as well as competition for the business organization (Cavusgil, et al., 2014).
Here, a business project for John Lewis will be developed to support the organization in
identifying the opportunities and challenges caused to the business due to globalization.
This project is aimed at gaining the advantage of globalization to increase the profitability,
performance and brand value of the company in the market. Different aspects of project
planning and management will be designed and implemented in this project to formulate an
effective project for the company. It will support the organization in gaining a competitive
advantage in the industry.
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TITLE
"Identifying and analyzing the economic impact of global outsourcing on the business
operation of John Lewis”
A) DEVICE PROJECT AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
PROJECT BACKGROUND
John Lewis is a high-end department store based in the UK. The company is founded by John
Lewis in the year 1864. In present, it operates around 51 retail stores at different locations
of the UK. The company mainly offers fashion, electrical, homeware and beauty products to
its customers. The company is owned by the John Lewis & Partnership organization. it is one
of the most recognized brands across the UK. The company has gained the advantage of
globalization in enhancing its product quality and profitability through outsourcing products
and material from India and China (John Lewis & partners, 2018). Globalization has allowed
the company to enhance its product quality and profit by sourcing material and products
from the economies where product cost and labor cost is comparatively low. This project
will emphasize identifying the economic impact of outsourcing on the business operations
of John Lewis.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This project is aimed at identifying and analyzing the economic impact of outsourcing
products and materials from outside the country on the business operations of John Lewis.
The project will also focus on analyzing the economic advantage of globalization for the
company. In order to achieve the set project aim, the following objectives have been
developed;
 To identify the economic benefits of globalization to the retail organizations
 To ascertain the advantages and disadvantages of global outsourcing for John Lewis
 To analyze the economic impact of outsourcing on business operations of John Lewis
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B) PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN
A project management plan is a formal document that is used to manage the successful
execution of the project. a project management plan defines how a project is executed,
monitored, controlled and completed by documenting the necessary actions of the project
(Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). The major elements of a successful project are encompassed
below to efficiently design and implement a business project.
ASPECTS OF COST:
A project cost is an important aspect that contains a specific budget for performing different
activities of the project effectively. It provides a prior understanding of the required cost to
complete a project successfully. For this project, a budget of £28,000 is estimated that
involves all the activities and resources required to execute the project.
ACTIVITY COST
Project design £5,000
resource allocation £11,000
Conducting
secondary research
£3,000
Designing survey
questions
£500
collecting and
recording data
£2,000
Analyzing research
outcomes
£1,000
Final report
preparation
£1,000
SCOPE
This project will support John Lewis in having a clear understanding of the economic impact
of its business decision of outsourcing products and materials. The project result will
provide a clear overview of the benefits and limitations of outsourcing for the company as
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well as it will also support in further strategic planning of John Lewis to increase its market
share and profit in the market.
TIME
Time is a crucial aspect of every project, in the absence of a proper time schedule; a project
may get delay and cannot be able to effectively achieve its set objectives. Quality and
reliability of the project are negatively affected due to mismanagement of time (Kerzner and
Kerzner, 2017). Thus, it is very crucial to formulating an effective time management plan
that would enable to perform the project activities effectively. Around 10 weeks would be
required to perform all the activities of the project.
S.No. Milestone Date Milestones Deliverables
1. 24th December
2018
project planning Complete project plan is
developed
2. 2nd January
2019
Resource allocation Assessing the required
resources and allocating to each
and every responsible person to
perform different activities of
the project.
3. 19th January
2019
qualitative and quantitative
research
Collecting data through primary
and secondary research
methods
4. 2nd February
2019
analysis of results Analyzing collected research
data to formulate relevant
results
5. 23rd February
2019
completion of the project Obtaining meaning from the
project research to support the
implementation by the
organization
6. 2nd March 2019 quality assurance and control Making sure that the project
activities and tasks are
performed with proper quality
and control.
QUALITY
A project quality should be maintained to ensure that the project would successfully deliver
the set aims and objectives. In this project, quality is maintained by using the techniques of
quality control and quality assurance. These techniques will support in monitoring and
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controlling the quality of each and every activity of the project (Meredith and Mantel Jr,
2011). Along with it, the project performance would also be compared with the set plan at
every stage of the project to ensure all the activities are performed with great quality.
COMMUNICATION
An effective system of communication is very important to ensure that all the activities of
the project are going in the right direction. Communication is a key factor in deciding the
success and failure of any project. A communication plan supports maintaining a proper
flow of communication among all the members involved in the project. In this project, the
progress report, feedbacks, updates, and recommendations among the project members
are communicated through relevant means such as fax, e-mail, mobile applications, and
calls. This will support in providing proper direction and progress to the project activities
and helps in achieving the set aims and objectives (Meredith, and Mantel Jr, 2011).
RISK
Risks are the inherent part of every business activities and operations. This project is also
exposed to different kinds of risks that may affect the performance and result of the project
and cause a delay in the project activities. However, a risk management plan is set out to
identify and mitigate the risks to support the successful completion of the project (Hillson,
2017).
Possibility
Of Risk
Details Impact On Project Activates Response To Risk
moderate technological
risks
It causes a delay in
the project
at the
beginning of
the project
Always keep two
or more copies of
files on different
systems and
ensure the
availability of
alternatives.
low lack of
response
This may affect the
quality of the project
during the data
collection
procedure
By keeping a
limited sample size
for collecting
project data and
information.
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High lack of time It could affect project
outcomes and
relevance.
at the
beginning of
the project
Trough developing
a comprehensive
time management
plan.
RESOURCES
The major resources required in this project are the money, man and material. to ensure
proper availability of funds a project budget has been prepared and the key resources to
this project is a project team that will consist of around 10-20 members and all the project
activities are divided and assigned to each project members to ensure a clear understanding
of roles and responsibilities.
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WORK-BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE
A work breakdown structure can be termed as a deliverable-oriented breakdown of the
project activities into smaller components. It supports organizing the teal work into
manageable sections by dividing the complex project activities into simple and manageable
tasks (Lock, 2017). The different activities of this project are presented in the deliverable-
oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work that should be executed by the project
team.
Figure 1: Work Breakdown Structure
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WorkBreak-downStructureProjectPlanningDevisingProjectAimsAndObjectivesProjectManagementPlanningResourceAssessmentAssementOfRequiredResourcesProjectResearchConductionSecondaryResearchConductingPrimaryResearchDataCollectionAndRecordingDecodingAndRecordingCollectedDataInProperFormatDataAnalysisResultsAndConclusion

GANTT CHART
A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart that is used in project management to ensure
successful completion of the project within set time. It is used to create a graphical
illustration of the project activities against the set time schedule and helps in planning,
coordinating and tracking specific tasks in the project. it is a kind of Bar chart that is used to
illustrates the project schedule (Lock, 2017). A Gantt chart for this project is presented
below:
TABLE 1: GANTT CHART
ACTIVITIES/WEEKS 1ST 2ND 3RD 4TH 5TH 6TH 7TH 8TH 9TH 10TH
Project planning
Resource allocation
Secondary research
Primary research
Data recording
Data analysis
Results and
conclusions
Report formation
Monitoring and completing the aims and objectives
Monitoring and controlling of the project activities is necessary to make sure that the all the
activities are performed as per the set plan and expectations of the project manager to
successfully achieve the set aims and objectives of the project. the monitoring is done at the
completion of each and every activity of the project through comparing performance,
progress, and outcomes with the set plan.
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C) CONDUCTING PRIMARY AND SECONDARY RESEARCH
A business project research supports in gaining a significant understanding of the related
subject and its relevance in the current business environment. research helps in having a
conceptual knowledge about the project topic and identifying current opportunities in the
market. In this project, a combination of both primary and secondary research methods is
applied to gain a comprehensive knowledge in relation to the project topic (Costley, et al.,
2010). This would support in achieving the set aims and objectives of the project
successfully and would support in formulating a meaningful result and conclusion based on
the obtained information.
Here, in this project, a mixture of primary and secondary research is applied to identify and
analyze the economic impact of outsourcing on the business operations of John Lewis
organization (Saunders and Lewis, 2012). At first, the secondary research has been
performed by using a method of a literature review to identify the current scenario of
business in the retail sector of UK the benefits of outsourcing products and materials from
foreign countries. The secondary data has provided significant information about the
economic benefits of globalization to the existing business organization in the UK.
Moreover, primary research has been done through a survey questionnaire method. The
survey is aimed at identifying the advantages and outsourcing to the John Lewis company
and its impact on the business operations of the organization.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
The secondary research has been performed by using the method of the literature review.
For this, a range of peer-reviewed sources has been used to gain relevant information
related to the project aims and objectives (Saunders and Lewis, 2012). The different
literature sources such as books, articles, journals, and other online sources like websites
and blogs have been reviewed to gain significant understanding about the benefits of
globalization and outsourcing in the business operations of an organization.
According to Cherunilam (2010), Globalisation has emerged as the extreme force that has
transformed and shaped the present business world by affecting the environment, society,
and the business process. The corporations, consumers, suppliers, and retailers all are linked
with by information, material and capital flow as the business operations are dispersed
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across the globe. Globalization is connecting the world much closer and now the lives of
people are intertwined in all parts of the globe. Minonne and Turner (2012) have stated that
Globalisation has also facilitated global economic integration and is one of the largest force
that affected the world economy and businesses. Globalization has facilitated a free flow of
goods and services between the nations because of the reduction in the trade barriers. It
has created a new environment for facilitating the flow of capital and investment, free
movement of labor and the free flow of technology among the countries. globalization
benefits in the fast flow of capital and investment among the countries, increase the quality
of food, decrease price, improve the standard of living and increases free trade (Brondoni,
2014).
NiraNjaN and Rao, (2011) have stated that Outsourcing provides several benefits to the
retailers. It offers multi-channel customer support to businesses. It facilitates retailers by
offering flexibility and scalability, as the retail industry tends to be seasonal industry were
retailers need additional support during peak season. Through outsourcing, the required
products and material retailers can gain a competitive advantage in the market. According
to Vagadia, B., (2011) Outsourcing brings the advantage of cost saving as it facilitates the
organizations to have good quality products at a low cost due to the difference in the labor
cost in western and Asian market. In India, the labor cost is comparatively low and the
western countries like Uk can gain the advantage of this factor by outsourcing its products
and material from India. It supports saving around 60% cost of production by outsourcing to
Asian countries like India and China.
According to Lockamy III and McCormack (2010), Global outsourcing enables the business
organization to gain economies of scale that in return results in increased profitability and
performance of the business in the market. In recent years, global outsourcing has great
attention of the business organizations. Globalization has forced local and multinational
organizations to outsource their products and services for reducing production cost,
enhancing competitive capability and satisfying the needs of customers. Contractor, et al.
(2010) has stated that global outsourcing helps companies to find new sources such as
unique materials, low labor cost, and new market opportunities. It encourages companies to
incessantly change and evolve in order to improve their flexibility. Global outsourcing
benefits in accessing skilled resources and save on infrastructure and technology. It also
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