SBM1204 Case Study: Analyzing Myer's IT Project Failure and Recovery

This assignment analyzes the failure of a major IT project undertaken by Myer, a large Australian departmental store chain. The project involved upgrading the company's website to implement an omnichannel sales strategy. The case study explores the key issues that led to the project's failure, including communication breakdowns, lack of a disaster recovery plan, and governance problems. The analysis delves into factors such as over-optimistic expectations, schedule delays, and the chosen delivery method. The assignment highlights the shift in delivery methods and the introduction of a digital engagement platform. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of a disaster recovery plan and an effective omnichannel retail strategy. The assignment provides recommendations from the perspective of a project manager, offering insights into the complexities of project delivery systems. The analysis also touches upon the financial and reputational losses suffered by Myer due to the website crash.

Running head: PROJECT ANALYSIS
Project analysis

1PROJECT ANALYSIS
Executive Summary
There are numerous motives behind the failure of a project in terms of the poorly defined
scope, inadequate risk management procedures, failing to identify the key assumptions and
constraints of the project, capability of the project manager of the project and ineffective
communication skill of the team members. However, most of the failed project analysis
misses the concept of governance failures. This assignment shall be focussing on a failed IT
project and evaluate all the reasons behind its failure. The significance of a disaster recovery
plan and Omnichannel retail strategy in the retail organization shall be discussed in the
recommendation segment of this paper briefly.

2PROJECT ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Main issue associated to the project...........................................................................................3
Failures of the early enactment of this project...........................................................................4
Cost overrun and schedule delay................................................................................................4
Early delivery method................................................................................................................5
Changes in the recent delivery method......................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation........................................................................................................................7
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

3PROJECT ANALYSIS
Introduction
The notable determination of this assignment is to focus on a major failed project in
Australia, all the issues related to this IT project and the reason behind the fiasco of the
project shall be analysed in this assignment from different perspectives. The concluding
section of this assignment shall be focussing on a list of recommendations which will be
provided from the perspective of a project manager.
Project background: Established in the year 1900, Myer is one of the biggest
departmental store chain which is located all over Australia. In the year 2013, the website of
this organization crashed during Boxing Day when the traffic of this website was very much
on the higher side (Tay 2020). More than 7000 online customers of this business was affected
by this IT disaster (techAU 2020). The notable issues related to this project shall be presented
in the ensuing section of this assignment.
Main concern related to the project
The prime issue which was faced in this project is the huge amount of traffic in the
business, as a result, their portal was crashed. Most of the consumers who were affected by
the collapse left their opinion about this organization on their social media platforms. As a
result of the crashing of the website, this business suffered both financial as well as
reputational loss. There was a communication breakdown among the stakeholders of this
business for three days in a row. Lack of any disaster recovery plan was one of the prime
reason behind this failed project (Kendrick 2015). The fiasco of the early enactment of the
project shall be elaborated in the next section of this assignment.

4PROJECT ANALYSIS
Failures of the early enactment of this project
The over-optimistic expectations of the prime stakeholders of the business can be one
reason behind this failed IT project. The portal up gradation procedure of this business must
have been done in the lean seasons when the traffic of the website is low, unlike the Boxing
Day where the demands of the products are very much high. There are several other failures
associated with the early enactment of the portal after being upgraded as well (Gao and Su
2017). The testing of the traffic was not conducted by the software engineers prior to the start
of the festive season. Thus, it can be understood that this project failed mainly due to
governance problems and not due to the lack of resources involved in the project. The factors
which contributed to the failure of this project shall be discussed in the succeeding section of
this assignment.
Cost overrun and schedule delay
The entire communication of the website of this business was interrupted with the
organizational server due to a programming glitch (Bell, Gallino and Moreno 2014). Most of
the customers of this business were unable to complete their transaction as there were issues
in the payments gateways which were deployed on their organizational portal. There are no
issues such as cost overrun in this project as the investors of the business funded millions for
the up-gradation of their organizational portal. However, it can be said that there were
challenges in terms of the schedule of the project. The testing phase of this project must have
been completed months before the start of the festive time, however there was a delay in the
testing phase and due to this reason this IT disaster occurred in this business (Budge and
Burness 2018). The IT staff of this business along with IBM who was given the contract of
upgrading their organizational website were responsible foe this IT disaster. Thus it can be

5PROJECT ANALYSIS
stated that the delay in the schedule of the project has led to governance problems and
ultimately resulting in huge business and financial loss for this organization.
Early delivery method
The investors of this project had funded millions of dollars for the enactment of an
Omni channel sales strategy (Khalid et al. 2020). This strategy was supposed to combine the
online sales of this business with the products which are sold in the physical stores. The
entire organizational portal was built on IBM WebSphere software.
The organization wanted to make the most on the festive season by enacting the Omni
sales strategy; thus they completed the up-gradation procedure on a rush. IBM completed
their project and the upgraded portal was handed over to the IT staff of Myers prior to the
start of the festive season.
However, based on the discussion of Mansor et al. (2016), it can be said that there are
numerous challenges related to the use of Omnichannel sales strategy as well, such as the
huge technological investment required from the investors, selection of the appropriate
Omnichannel strategy, creation of a detailed change management plan and business conflicts
among the Omni channels.
On the other hand, as described by Nuwangi and Sedera (2018), inventory
management, stock allocation to the Omni channels, managing the channel specific returns
and compatibility issues with the IT technologies which are used in the business environment
of most of the global organizations.
The delivery method, which was selected by IBM for this project is the design and
build delivery method (Hussain and Mkpojiogu 2016). All the changes required in the
existing website was proposed to the prime stakeholders of the business as well as to the IT

6PROJECT ANALYSIS
team and based on their approval, changes were made in the existing website. This delivery
method is one of the most popular delivery methods for most of Information Technology
projects.
However, it can be determined that the early delivery method was not very much
useful in this project as this delivery method resulted in governance issue in this project. The
changes in the recent delivery method of this IT project shall be highlighted in the ensuing
section of this project.
Changes in the recent delivery method
All the business operations of this organization resumed from the 5th of January, and
the strategic planners of this business introduced numerous changes in terms of their
Omnichannel strategies. The IT team of this organization accepted the fault or incompetency
of their IT team, however they also said that the huge network traffic has nothing to do with
this failed project. However, it was seen that there was a technical glitch on one side of the
website and all the other interlinked options of the websites were affected due to it.
The failure of IT equipment resulted in a technical glitch in the organizational portal
of this business. The software error has resulted in a huge loss for the organization. Thus,
strategic planners of this business revised their existing delivery method by creating a digital
engagement platform (Garousi, Eskandar and Herkiloğlu 2017). The platform was shared
among every stakeholder of the business so that they can optimise all the essential business
practices of this organization. The introduction of the new delivery method was very much
useful in this organization as it helped in addressing the governance problems which was
being faced in this business for a longer period of time. The interaction procedure of the
business enhanced after the delivery method changed.

7PROJECT ANALYSIS
According to Mirsch, Lehrer and Jung (2016), there are drawbacks as well as
advantages relayed to the deployment of the online digital platform. The connectivity
between the social media platforms and the organizational portal can get improved due to the
use of this platform. Customer experience of the business can be enhanced using this
platform as well as mentioned by the scholars of this data source (Deng, Fang and Lim 2019).
On the other hand, there are few limitations related to this platform as well, such as the loss
of data due to the data exposure issues (Kim and Chun 2018). The expense of operating this
platform can be a source of concern for the investors of a business. Apart from these
limitations, human errors on digital engagement platforms can also have a devastating effect
on the business as well.
Conclusion
Myers online shopping disaster is one of the major failed IT projects in Australia
which occurred in the year 2013 when their organizational portal was crashed. The primary
stakeholders of this business wanted to enact an Omni sales channel which can bring together
the online sales of the business to the products which are sold in the physical stores. From the
organizational perspective, it can be concluded that the portal crashed due to technical
glitches; however, the discussion and the analysis of this assignments can be very much
useful for the readers of this assignment to conclude that there were governance errors in this
project. Considering the delivery method of this project, it can be concluded that this project
had an issue in its schedule as well, the testing phase of the project should have been
completed months before to the start of the festive season. It can be concluded that digital
engagement platform is the central aspect of the current delivery method of this business.

8PROJECT ANALYSIS
Recommendation
The list of recommendations for this project from the perspective of a project manager
are as followings:
 Creation and enactment of a disaster recovery plan is highly recommended in this
project as it could help the IT staffs this business to have control over any adverse
situation such as network downtime.
 Creation and enactment of an Omni channel retail strategy so that there are no
complications while integrating the online sales of the business with the good which
are sold in the physical stores.

9PROJECT ANALYSIS
Reference
Bell, D.R., Gallino, S. and Moreno, A., 2014. How to win in an omnichannel world. MIT
Sloan Management Review, 56(1), p.45.
Budge, K. and Burness, A., 2018. Museum objects and Instagram: agency and
communication in digital engagement. Continuum, 32(2), pp.137-150.
Deng, Q., Fang, X. and Lim, Y.F., 2019. Is An Omni-channel Strategy Always Good for
Retailing? A Perspective of Product Descriptions and Consumer Reviews. A Perspective of
Product Descriptions and Consumer Reviews (December 4, 2019).
Gao, F. and Su, X., 2017. Omnichannel retail operations with buy-online-and-pick-up-in-
store. Management Science, 63(8), pp.2478-2492.
Garousi, V., Eskandar, M.M. and Herkiloğlu, K., 2017. Industry–academia collaborations in
software testing: experience and success stories from canada and turkey. Software Quality
Journal, 25(4), pp.1091-1143.
Hussain, A. and Mkpojiogu, E.O., 2016, August. Requirements: Towards an understanding
on why software projects fail. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1761, No. 1, p. 020046).
AIP Publishing LLC.
Kendrick, T., 2015. Identifying and managing project risk: essential tools for failure-
proofing your project. Amacom.
Khalid, A., Butt, S.A., Jamal, T. and Gochhait, S., 2020. Agile Scrum Issues at Large-Scale
Distributed Projects: Scrum Project Development At Large. International Journal of
Software Innovation (IJSI), 8(2), pp.85-94.

10PROJECT ANALYSIS
Kim, J.C. and Chun, S.H., 2018. Cannibalization and competition effects on a manufacturer's
retail channel strategies: Implications on an omni-channel business model. Decision Support
Systems, 109, pp.5-14.
Mansor, Z., Razali, R., Yahaya, J., Yahya, S. and Arshad, N.H., 2016. Issues and challenges
of cost management in agile software development projects. Advanced Science Letters, 22(8),
pp.1981-1984.
Mirsch, T., Lehrer, C. and Jung, R., 2016. Channel integration towards omnichannel
management: a literature review.
Nuwangi, S.M. and Sedera, D., 2018. Too Tight-Too Loose: Controlling Lessons from a
Failed IS Development Project. In Australasian Conference on Information Systems (pp. 1-
10).
Tay, L., 2020. Myer's Stocktake Fail: Online Shopping Closed 'Until Further Notice'. [online]
Business Insider Australia. Available at: <https://www.businessinsider.com.au/myers-
stocktake-fail-online-shopping-closed-until-further-notice-2013-12> [Accessed 8 April
2020].
techAU. 2020. Myer Website Failure Costing Millions In Lost Sales - Techau. [online]
Available at: <https://techau.com.au/myer-website-failure-costing-millions-in-lost-sales/>
[Accessed 8 April 2020].