Managing a Successful Business Project: Sports Direct Analysis

This project examines the impact of gender and racial inequality on the workforce of Sports Direct, a major British retail organization. The project begins with an introduction outlining the topic, background, company overview, and project objectives, which aim to analyze the effects of inequality and propose strategies for mitigation. A detailed project management plan is presented, encompassing cost, scope, time, quality, communication, risk, and resource management, along with a Gantt chart for task scheduling. The research methodology employs a quantitative approach, including a discussion of research philosophy, approach, data collection methods (primary data through surveys), sampling techniques, and data analysis. The analysis and discussion section presents findings from employee surveys regarding recruitment processes and perceptions of inequality, with data interpretation. The project concludes with recommendations for Sports Direct to reduce inequality and improve workforce performance, alongside a reflection on the project's challenges and learnings. References and appendices support the findings and methodologies.

MANAGING A
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
PROJECT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Topic............................................................................................................................................1
Background..................................................................................................................................1
Overview of the company............................................................................................................1
Project Aim and Objectives.........................................................................................................1
PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN...............................................................................................2
Cost..............................................................................................................................................2
Scope............................................................................................................................................2
Time.............................................................................................................................................3
Quality.........................................................................................................................................3
Communication............................................................................................................................3
Risk..............................................................................................................................................3
Resources.....................................................................................................................................3
Gantt Chart.......................................................................................................................................3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................5
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION...................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................17
RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................18
REFLECTION...............................................................................................................................19
REREFENCES..............................................................................................................................21
Appendix........................................................................................................................................22

INTRODUCTION
Topic
Topic of this project is “Ways in which Gender and racial inequality can impact
workforce of an organization.”
Background
Gender and racial inequality are one of the most common issue which is mostly found
within an organization in one way or the other not only impact overall morale and motivational
level of workforce but can also impact their overall performance (Davis, 2016). Focusing upon
reducing or eliminating these issues within an organization will help an organization to enhance
their workforce performance, morale, motivation and satisfaction level. Not only this reduction
of these issues within a firm can also help them to enhance their overall organizational culture
and environment and will also help them in gaining competitive advantage. There are different
kinds of strategies that can be adopted by organizations to reduce gender and racial inequality
issues within an organization which will further help them in reducing their employee turnover
rate, increase retention rate and improve their ability to recruit and select highly talented, skilled
and knowledgeable candidates.
Overview of the company
Sports direct is a British retail organization that was established in 1982, whose
headquarter is in Wirral, England. This organization was established by Mike Ashley in United
Kingdom and is one of the largest sports goods’ retailers in UK. They sell products such as
sporting goods, fashion clothing, accessories, shoes and boots, cosmetics, homeware and many
more. It is a public limited company which is listed on London Stock Exchange and is also
known as Frasers Group plc.
Project Aim and Objectives
Aim
Aim of this project is “To analyse ways in which Gender and racial inequality can impact
workforce of an organization. A case study of Sports Direct.”
Objectives
Main objectives of this project are as follows:
 To analyse ways in which gender and racial inequality issues impact an organization
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 To analyse relationship between gender and racial inequality, and overall workforce
performance
 To determine different kinds of strategies though which gender and racial inequality within
an organization can be reduced or eliminated.
Research Questions
Main research questions of this project are as follows:
 How gender and racial inequality issues can impact an organization?
 What is the relationship between gender and racial inequality, and overall workforce
performance?
 What are different kinds of strategies though which gender and racial inequality within an
organization can be reduced or eliminated.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN
Project management plan is a kind of subsidiary and baseline collection that includes
project scope, cost, schedule, resources, quality, time, risk, communication and many more
(Heagney, 2016). PMP plan helps a company to understand ways in which a project is
monitored, controlled, and executed as it is one of the most important part of a project. Project
management plan of this project has been explained below.
Cost
Cost is important aspect of the project management in which financial resources that incur in
management of project are involved (Radujković and Sjekavica, 2017). Cost availability plays a
vital role in success and failure of the company. in order to successfully complete this project
Sports Direct will require £1200.
Scope
Scope of this project extends to all the areas and hierarchies of the organisation. But its direct
impact will be experienced by HR department. This is because the project is based on
recruitment practice and managing equality in recruitment in order to ensure that Sports Direct
has a balance of all kind of workforce. This workforce will ensure fair practices of the company
and along with that it will also allow competitive advantage for the company.
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Time
Time includes time required for implementing and completing the project within Sports Direct
(Rowe, 2020). This project from its starting in form of developing aims and objectives to its
implementation and final results will take around 10 weeks time.
Quality
Maintaining and managing quality of the project is extremely important. In order to ensure
quality feedback will be asked from colleagues and senior management at Sport Direct along
with continuous monitoring of the project implementation according to the plan.
Communication
In order to ensure that communication is effective in context of the project free communication
will be adopted (Smit and et.al., 2017). Along with this for all the participants of the project one
of the direct and specific communication platform will also be designed that will be dedicated to
project communication.
Risk
Risk involved in the project is external factors and availability of the data on the basis of which
the project will be based. Risk involved in this project is involvement of all the people affecting
the success of the project and before that their participation in research.
Resources
Resources are those elements that support and facilitate research and project management. There
are several kinds of resources required for successful completion of the project. These resources
are financial resources, information resources and Human resources. Sport Direct will require all
these resources in order to ensure success of the project (Dociu, 2018). In order to complete this
employees are key resource because research is based on employees and later the project will
also address employees equality in Sport Direct.
Gantt Chart
Gantt Chart is a chart which is used to plan the projects in which all the task and activities
are involved and they are divided on the basis of time on which they will be carried out. This
chart help in ensuring a proper division of the activities and also determine timelines for
completion of different activities. the contents that are included in Gantt Chart are-
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 Start Date of the Project
 What are the task in the project
 Starting and finishing of the task
 How long will it take for completing all tasks
 Grouping of the task
 Finishing date of the project
The Gantt Chart for completing this project is as follows-
Activity 1st week 2nd
week
3rd
week
4th
week
5th
week
6th
week
7th
week
8th
week
9th
week
10th
week
Introduction
Aim and
objectives
Project
management
plan
Research
methodology
Data
Collection
Data Analysis
Conclusion
and
Recommendat
ions
Submission
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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Type
Research can be defined as a process of searching for new and useful information
concerned with a particular topic. The research is carried out in two ways which are known as
quantitative Research and qualitative research. Quantitative research is research which is based
on numerical data and in order to identify and include the research and its result statistical and
mathematical rules are applied (Abutabenjeh and Jaradat, 2018). Quantitative research is a
research in which research and information is presented in data and numerical form through table
and graphs. Qualitative research on the other hand is research in which data and information is
non numerical and descriptive. Qualitative research is descriptive and is used to gain detailed
understanding of a problem and reasons causing the problem. Qualitative research enables
researcher to understand motivation and opinion. Type of research for this project is quantitative
research because it enables research to uncover the pattern and gain understanding of the
research topic.
Research Philosophy
Research philosophy is something that deals with source and nature of development of
knowledge. It can also be said that research philosophy is a belief about data and how should it
be collected analysed and used. There are different types of research philosophy in which
positivism and interpretivism are common types of research philosophy. Positivism research
philosophy in words a highly structured research and data collection in which large samples are
included and measurements are quantitative but can be used qualitatively (Winit‐Watjana, 2016).
Interpretivism includes small samples and research is carried out in depth in this type of research
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investigations are carried out and research is qualitative. The research philosophy of this research
is interpretivism in which samples are limited.
Research Approach
Research approach are of three types that are deductive, Inductive and abductive.
Inductive approach is based on priest of hypothesis and the research is is carried out in such a
way that the result can prove whether the hypothesis is confirmed or rejected. Inductive approach
of research is based on observation and taste and through which petals are identified and on the
basis of the identified patterns theories are developed (Attia and Edge, 2017). Abductive
approach is is concerned with explanation of fact and observations that are incomplete when
study was started. This research is based on inductive research as there is no hypothesis and
research will study about patterns.
Data Collection
Data connection is concerned with collecting information that is relevant to topic of
research. There are several ways in which information and data can be collected for the purpose
of research. The methods of data collection are mainly divided in to type that are primary data
collection and secondary data collection. Primary Data Collection includes Collection of data
from the sources where the data has been originated these are also known as first hand sources.
Methods that are used for collection of of data from primary sources are survey interview and
observation and experiment (Patel and Patel, 2019). Secondary data collection refers to
Collection of data from published and unpublished paper and research papers. Usually a research
begins with secondary data in which researcher identify and understand the topic that has Bin
selected for research and later primary data sources are adopted and implemented for Collection
of data. For the purpose of this project primary data collection method will be applied. For the
purpose of this question your has been developed and they are aimed at collecting information
from the samples related to topic of research.
Sampling
Sampling is a process of selecting people from a large population who will be
participating in research. This means that from large population selected group of people
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participate in research for the purpose of Collection of data through observation or other methods
(Scott-Parker and Senserrick, 2017). Sampling is an important types of research because it is not
possible to include them complete population in research and people selected as sample represent
overall population. Sampling can be done in several types and methods selected for sampling in
this research is simple random sampling full stop the reason behind this is that chances
ofbiasness are least in this.
Data Analysis
This means analysing the data that has been collected and for the purpose of collection of
data there are two methods. One is known as thematic analysis and other one is known as
statistical analysis (Attia, and Edge, 2017). Thematic analysis is done in case of qualitative
research and data collection. Statistical data analysis is done when research is quantitative and
numerical data collection is analysed. For the purpose of this research statistical data analysis has
been applied because nature of data is numerical.
Ethical Consideration
Ethical consideration is important while carrying out the research and ethical
consideration in this research is ensuring and maintaining complete privacy of respondents
(Ngozwana, 2018). Neither of the question was offensive and something that is related to
personal nature of job of the respondents.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Theme 1: Process of Recruitment at Sports Direct
What do you think about
recruitment process of Sports
Direct?
Responses
 It is good 15 50%
 It is best 5 16.67%
 It is not good 3 10%
 It is as it should be 7 23.33%
Total 30 100%
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Interpretation: Above figure and data is related to recruitment which is most important and first
phase in which equality is practices in Sports Direct. The data suggests that 50% people consider
and believe that recruitment is good at Sports Direct and around 16.6% believe that it is best.
This means majority of the employees are in favour of the recruitment process.
Theme 2:
Do you think there is any change
and improvement in recruitment
practices is required?
Responses
 It is good as needed 18 60%
 It is good but it can be
improved
7 23.33%
 It is not enough and should
be improved
3 10%
 This is not at all good and
require major changes and
improvement
2 6.67%
Total 30 100%
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Interpretation: This is about needed changes and improvements in recruitment process and 60%
people believe that it is good whereas 23.3 3% people have answered that it is good but can be
improved. With this that majority of people are in in favour of existing recruitment practices.
Theme 3:
Is recruitment process of Sports
Direct give adequate and fair
chance to all candidates?
Responses
 Yes 18 60%
 No 3 10%
 Not Sure 9 30%
Total 30 100%
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Interpretation: This is concerned with equality in recruitment at sports direct and responsive
says that 60% of people believe that organization provider equal opportunities to all candidates
in recruitment. This is also an answer from majority.
Theme 4:
Do all employees get fair chance to
participate in decision making?
Responses
 Yes 20 66.66%
 No 2 6.67%
 Not Sure 8 26.67%
Total 30 100%
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