Project Management Plan for Levi Jeans' Success - MBA642 Report

This report provides a comprehensive project management plan designed to address the market failure of Levi Jeans. The project utilizes the five stages of IPECC (Initiation, Planning, Execution, Control, and Closure) as per PMBOK. The report begins with an analysis of the factors contributing to Levi's failure, including cost, marketing, market forces, international factors, the skills and personalities of the project management team, Levi's culture, and competitive pressures. A detailed project plan is then constructed, outlining the processes and deliverables for each stage of the IPECC framework. The report emphasizes the importance of defining clear success criteria and selecting appropriate project management software, with Zoho software being proposed. The criteria for success include a commitment to authenticity, effective marketing, open communication, adapting to trends, competitive strategies, comprehensive planning, and proactive risk management. The report concludes by highlighting the benefits of using Zoho software for managing the project, including real-time data access, social media integration, mobile accessibility, and Gantt chart visualization. The project aims to guide the project team towards achieving success in the Levi's Jeans project.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project initiation, planning and execution
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Undertaking research on Levi Company.....................................................................................2
3. Project management plan to manage Levi jeans success.............................................................4
4. Criteria for success of the project and the PM software that will be suitable.............................5
4.1 Criteria for success of the project..........................................................................................5
4.2 Importance of Zoho software.................................................................................................7
5. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
The paper mainly reflects on Levi Jeans which mainly faces failure in the market. The
main aim of the project is to provide an opportunity for successfully analyzing the different
organizational factors which further promote effective project management by successfully
analyzing different elements of project planning and execution phases. In this paper, a proper
project plan is created for achieving success by utilizing five different stages of IPECC as per the
PMBOK. In addition to this, Zoho project software is utilized for completing each of the step of
the project.
2. Undertaking research on Levi Company
It is found that proper research is mainly undertaken in the market in order to analyze the
reasons behind the failure of Levi jeans. The factors that are researched are elaborated below:
Cost: The Levi Jeans which were manufactured generally include all the different types
of iconic style that an individual can love to wear and it is mainly manufactured by using 100%
of high-quality denim due to which the prices of the jeans are quite higher as compared to other
brands (Giri et al. 2018). The cost is considered as the investment of the brand and the cost of
making the jeans is not just the element of the factory.
Marketing: It is found that effective marketers not only take steps for understanding the
needs of the market but they also determine how the product will meet the needs of the
consumers (Warren 2017). As effective marketing is not done before launching the product
therefore the company will be unable to satisfy the needs and requirements of the consumers
effectively. In addition to this, it is found that the advertising campaign that was conducted in
the year 2001 is the most hated campaign in the recent history.

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Market forces: Levi’s mainly failed to recognize and to enter a new as well as booming
premium jeans market which was mainly originated in the year 2000. The executives of the
company admitted to the see the premium trend of jeans and due to which the company was
forced to cut costs by closing a number of factories and further laying off thousands of the
project workers.
International factors: It is found that in the year 2000, the company generally failed to
make 75 global brands with the help of value as per the Interbrand 2000 brand Valuation survey.
It is found that the inclusion of the various rival brands including Gap as well as Benetton
generally served to rub much more salt in the wounds of Levi (Giri et al. 2018).
Skills and personalities of PM team: The access of cloud-based PM platform is not
given to the team members who involved in scheduling, estimating as well as task management
work as they do not have basic analytics skills and therefore the delivery cycle of the project
generally gets impacted (Warren 2017). In addition to this, the project team members of Levi
Jeans do have problem solving skills which is considered as a major issue for the failure of the
jeans.
Levi’s culture: The culture of Levi is mainly fueled by the strong values as well as
creativity. The company utilizes innovative as well as sustainable practices while making jeans
(Bentley, Daskalova and White 2017). The brand of the company generally gets locked in an
endless quest for appearing innovative as well as youthful by properly launching a number of
styles however Levi is now proving the law that is associated with diminishing returns. It is
found that marketing related expenses generally increases while the brand value generally gets
decreased.

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Project management competitors: It is found that the company have strong competitors
around the globe and the companies which will provide proper competition include Wrangler,
Diesel, Lee Jeans, Pepe Jeans, Calvin Klein, Armani as well as Killer. It is found that in order to
compete, the organization utilizes innovative designs but the brand faced difficulty to exist in the
market (Ruiz and Holmlund 2017).
3. Project management plan to manage Levi jeans success
The plan for successfully managing the Levi Jeans project by utilizing five different
stages of IPECC of PMBOK are mainly illustrated below:
Project initiation: In this phase, the charter for the entire project is developed which
further helps in indicating what the project is generally achieving and the resources that are
mainly utilized for undertaking the project effectively (Kusters 2016). In addition to this, the
funds that are needed for the Levi Jeans project are also indicated along with the expectation of
the client. It is the work of the project managers to properly analyze the charter effectively in
order to clarify various elements which requires clearer definition that requires to be negotiated
effectively.
Project planning procedures: In this phase, the budget that is required for undertaking
the project is determined and additionally the resources which are required for the purchasing of
Levi’s jeans are assigned in the project (Papke-Shields and Boyer-Wright 2017). In addition to
this, it is necessary to determine the competitors and they in which proper competitive advantage
can be gained in the market. Moreover, the critical success factors as well as risks which are
associated with the project are also listed in this particular phase.

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Project execution processes: In this phase, the cotton yarn for the manufacturing of
Levi’s jeans are prepared which is further dyed and weaved. After then the desired design for the
jeans gets selected then the entire jeans is prepared as per the jeans and then proper rivets,
buttons as well as zippers are put. Proper quality of the materials needs to be maintained so that
proper competitive advantage can be gained in the market. Furthermore, proper marketing of the
jeans is done so that the buyers will get attracted for buying them (Kusters 2016).
Project control processes: In the control step, the project manager control the schedule,
cost as well as quality of the project in order to validate the entire result as per the project scope.
Each of the particular element of the project are analyzed so that proper corrective action can be
taken effectively such that if any changes occur then the project manager mainly decides to
successfully implement the project plan for Levi’s jeans.
Project closure processes: After the successful execution of the project phases, the
entire project is reviewed and proper documentation is created. The documentation which is
prepared generally includes details as well as information related with the Levi’s project so that
the information can be utilized further (Nicholas and Steyn 2017). After preparing the document,
the stakeholders who are involved in the project are released so that they can be involved in
some new project.
4. Criteria for success of the project and the PM software that will be suitable
4.1 Criteria for success of the project
The criteria that must be utilized by the company of Levi’s Jeans in order to become
successful are mainly elaborated below:

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Commit and stay committed: The company must commit for maintaining as well as
reinforcing its authenticity by maintaining the quality of services and products that are mainly
delivered. It is found that the company must have strong Authentic Brand Index which further
reflects that stronger the brand perceived by the company then more likely people become
advocates for that particular company (Butler, Vijayasarathy and Roberts 2019).
Proper marketing: It is quite necessary to use social media for reaching out customers
easily and for providing accurate information for the new products as well as services of the
company. In addition to this, understanding the search engine optimization is necessary for
determining the requirements of the customers so that the product that will be manufactured by
Levi’s will meet the needs of the consumers.
Open communication: While executing the project of Levi’s jeans, it is necessary to
closely look at the details and generally listen to different outside sources of information so that
it can be utilized for achieving success in the project (Kerzner 2017). It is found that by keeping
the communication open for the team members then the problem associated with the project can
be resolved effectively. Furthermore, communication generally focuses on the organization and
it helps in dragging the project timeline.
Defying the trends: All the brands generally needs to evolve in order to remain quite
relevant. It is found that despite of the powerful brand equity, the company must favour brand
integrity over jumping into the latest trends (Butler, Vijayasarathy and Roberts 2019). In
addition to this, it is necessary to hire experienced design team so that they can make popular
fashion directions like coloured denim for women which helps in attracting customers towards
the brand of the company.

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Proper competition: It is found that competitors will consistently try to offer proper and
better customer service as well as effective marketing. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate
the offering with the proper goal of creating proper tremendous value for the users whom the
Levi’s Jeans were serving (Demirkesen and Ozorhon 2017). In addition to this, the needs of the
customers must be prioritized for becoming customer centric organization.
Proper planning: It is found that comprehensive project planning while undertaking the
Levi’s project is needed in order to achieve success. All the project stakeholders must direct the
steps for executing each of the steps of the project (Anantatmula and Rad 2018). Planning will
help the project team in meeting the deadlines of the project and generally help them in staying
organized. Furthermore, good planning helps in keeping track on the Levi’s Jeans project but
also helps in keeping the project stakeholders very much aware about the progress of the project.
Proper risk management: During the planning phase of Levi’s Jeans, it is very much
important to produce risk log with appropriate action plan for the different types of risk which
the project can generally face (Demirkesen and Ozorhon 2017). In addition to this, it is quite
necessary to ensure that all the project stakeholders know about the risks that can hit the project
can create loss. If anything happens, then the project manager will be able to manage the risks
effectively with proper confidence and thus the success within Levi’s Jeans can be achieved.
4.2 Importance of Zoho software
The Levi’s Jeans must utilize Zoho project software in order to manage each of the steps
of the project successfully. Zoho is considered as one of the online applications that helps the
individuals in managing the work effectively and assists in minimizing the total cost of the
project. The utilization of Zoho software for managing the project effectively generally helps in
providing real time access to important data and has proper opportunity to track (Michael,

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Austine and Abdulahi 2018). In addition to this, this specific application generally helps in
maximizing social media as most of the customers generally utilizes Facebook and Twitter and
that further helps Zoho CRM as one of the important tools which is helpful in linking with the
various products as well as services. Moreover, Zoho is found to be accessible on the mobile
device and it is found to be dedicated for all the iOS as well as android users and generally helps
in staying in control. The Zoho project helps in giving clear and bigger picture of the Gantt chart
by reflecting the dependencies and critical tasks of the project and it further helps in saving time.
5. Conclusion
It can be concluded from the entire paper that utilization of proper success factors within
the Levi’s Jeans would be helpful in resolving the challenges due to which the company faced
failure. The reasons behind the failure of the project are researched and elaborated in the paper.
In addition to this, the paper showcases the plan for successfully managing the Levi Jeans project
by utilizing five different stages of IPECC of PMBOK. Moreover, the utilization of Zoho
software is elaborated.

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References
Anantatmula, V.S. and Rad, P.F., 2018. Role of organizational project management maturity
factors on project success. Engineering Management Journal, 30(3), pp.165-178.
Bentley, F.R., Daskalova, N. and White, B., 2017, May. Comparing the reliability of Amazon
Mechanical Turk and Survey Monkey to traditional market research surveys.
In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in
Computing Systems (pp. 1092-1099).
Butler, C.W., Vijayasarathy, L.R. and Roberts, N., 2019. Managing Software Development
Projects for Success: Aligning Plan-and Agility-Based Approaches to Project Complexity
and Project Dynamism. Project Management Journal, p.8756972819848251.
Demirkesen, S. and Ozorhon, B., 2017. Impact of integration management on construction
project management performance. International Journal of Project Management, 35(8),
pp.1639-1654.
Giri, C., Harale, N., Thomassey, S. and Zeng, X., 2018. Analysis of consumer emotions about
fashion brands: An exploratory study. In Proc. Data Sci. Knowl. Eng. Sens. Decis.
Support (pp. 1567-1574).
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Kusters, J.F., 2016. The value and necessity of the project management plan: the pre-award
phase of BVP projects from the vendor’s perspective.

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Michael, A.T., Austine, I.E. and Abdulahi, S., 2018. Appraisal of project scheduling in Nigeria
construction industry: A case study of Ibadan, Nigeria. International Journal of
Research, 5(19), pp.851-860.
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Routledge.
Papke-Shields, K.E. and Boyer-Wright, K.M., 2017. Strategic planning characteristics applied to
project management. International Journal of Project Management, 35(2), pp.169-179.
Ruiz, C.D. and Holmlund, M., 2017. Actionable marketing knowledge: A close reading of
representation, knowledge and action in market research. Industrial Marketing
Management, 66, pp.172-180.
Warren, J., 2017. Joseph de Levis and Company. Renaissance Bronze Founders in Verona. The
Sculpture Journal, 26(3), pp.393-401.