Strategic Project Management Report: DeGrandis Sports Footwear

This report analyzes the strategic project management of DeGrandis Sports, a footwear and sporting goods company. The report examines three projects: the successful launch of a new shoe design with innovative cushioning technology, the sponsorship of the Australian Olympic Team which was marred by a bribery scandal, and a partnership with Ladybird Sporting Apparel, which failed due to poor product quality and lack of testing. The report discusses the company's strategic goals, including market penetration, technological innovation, diversification, and market expansion. It also addresses ethical standards, highlighting violations related to child labor and bribery. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of ethical conduct and strategic planning for business success, followed by recommendations for the company to avoid unethical practices and adhere to its code of conduct. The report also provides a balance scorecard and references to support the analysis.

Running head: Strategic Project Management
Strategic Project Management
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Project A
DeGrandis Sport products are known as one of the best suppliers in sports and fitness
Gear provided to best athletes and sports stars. The company produces very best equipment,
which aids to increase the performance into higher level. In this case study, we are going to
analyze on how company developed brand new design of shoes with delivering new technology.
The project team of the company decided to launch a unique design while bearing the demand
involved in the market. The shoe was designed by developing new sole cushioning technology,
which gives the customer much superior feel than they used to get earlier. This entrenched the
customer to become loyal on the product developed for them. The demand suddenly went high
for this brand of shoes and the company started to outplay the international rival brands smoothly
(Slack and Brandon-Jones. 2018). Sales of the company started to rise higher than estimated
percentage. Total sales of the company assisted to increase revenue of the organization, total
revenue of the company summed up to $5 million. The brand even achieved five star ratings
from different article and editor firms.
Project B
DeGrandis sporting goods bagged to become the official sponsor to supply sporting kits
to Australian Olympic Team. However, the project duration time was successfully met by the
manufacturing unit and quality of the kits were declared the best available. This partnership
helped the company to register another milestone where the net sales increased by more than $3
million. During the later stage, it was found a member of senior executive team paid bribe to a
higher-ranking official of Australian Olympic Committee in order to accept the deal between two
parties (Schuster et al. 2019). As this news spread within management of the company, they

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canceled the agreement spontaneously because the scandal damaged the code of conduct of the
company.
Project C
This project highlight on environmental friendly company termed as Ladybird, which is a
sporting brand who manufacture clothing accessories and was selected as clothing segment
partner of De Grandis. However, meeting fundamental requirements of the company they did not
performed any testing prior to the launch of product (Gleason et al. 2018). This scandal increased
customer complaints and ended up by losing customers regularly.
Strategic goals of the company
Strategic plans help to grow revenue of companies and it assists to reach their clients
effectively. The scope of the firm improves by implementing strategic goals through production,
expansion, branding and designing strategies. The sort of intension applied to contest against
reputed companies who are already holding a strong customer base in the market. DeGrandis
Sports Footwear Company decided to implement market penetration strategy where they lowered
the prices of the products. Lowering the costs lead to attract most of the consumers in market
place (Brochet et al. 2018). The other strategic goal of company is focused to make innovative
technology for inspiring customers who are inclined to athletics. The company is focused to
develop newer models to sustain in future market. Reducing the degree of risk by growing the
various product lines involved in the company. Segregation of products while including
travelling accessories, sports shirts and others accessories by diversifying the portfolio
effectively (Quist. 2018). Expanding the scopes in marketplace is the focus of organization. It is
due to several instances where markets grown in different nations often copied through e-

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commerce application. These are relevant to fraudulence through internet marketing as well.
Expanding the market will result to develop new customers and help to explore beyond a
particular region (Syahdan, Munawaroh and Akbar. 2018). Whenever the company is
segregating their prospect into particular region, it is required to adopt their traditional culture
and implementing the needful on immediate effect. The particular strategy is imposed so that the
company will not fall in certain economic turmoil or continuous changing in trends. The
certainty of risk is lowered by spreading the streams of the business. Maintaining consistency in
product quality is considered high of the company (Dammert et al. 2019). The organization is
focused on maintain loyal customer base where it is ensured quality of the shoes are meeting the
expectation of customers easily. They are maintaining the quality to satisfy the expectation of
customers so that they do not turn down quickly.
Production rates of the company are striving to maintain comparable with its competitors
(Briggs et al. 2018). Appropriate usage of raw materials and labor quality in order to meet the
goals in order to production rates. Operation needs in accordance to meet the machinery and
equipment without high failures. Employees are focused to train them appropriately according to
needs in the market. The employees emphasize the daily and weekly target production rates in
order to meet the objectives. Manufacturing costs of the organization is kept lower but quality is
maintained appropriately. Maintaining the quality leads to increase in gross income of the
organization (Eastman. 2018). The organization is focused reduce the amount of idle time in
machineries and workers which somewhat reduces the overall cost. Training the employees and
maintaining machines in perfect working order is a focus of them to perform efficiently. Timely
distribution and meeting the suppliers demand is better for business. DeGrandis is Sporting shoes
are habituated in reducing the delayed orders in order to curb losses which might affect business.

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Obtaining feedback from customers is profitable for the business. Customer satisfaction
is considered as a part of achieving goals, knowing the types of products that incur more sales in
the business. Segregating the preference of shoes and understanding the type of products helps
the manufacturer to rethink on future operation of the business (Yu et al. 2018).
Ethical standards
The board of directors was unhappy with the mishap where project team of the company
approached the Chinese organization for manufacturing purpose and supply of shoes. The
directors would not have approached the organization. The organization broke ethical code of
conduct where the manufacturing team is very much relied on child labor. DeGrandis is
completely against this concept (Bloom et al. 2018). The project regarding Australian Committee
emerged as the most successful project where they sponsored Australian national team
participated in the Olympics. However, a senior executive member of the company bribed an
AOC employee for strengthening the relationship between them. In the last project, Ladybird
Sporting Apparel, which is a sports apparel company, appeared to DeGrandis Sporting Products.
They did not properly do clothing test, quality of the clothing section were inferior and
customers launched numerous complaints.

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Balance Scorecard

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that the company is focused to generate best performance out of
them; they estimate a budget upon which helps to analyze the amount of return coming into the
firm. The advantages of preparing strategic goals of the company are to incur better revenue and
helping the entity to reach their clients much effectively. Production, expansion, designing
strategies of the firm leads to increases the scope to becoming more successful. It helps to
reducing the degree of risk and lowers the amount of production cost. The advantage of
understanding ethical standards help the firm to analyze all the mishap, thus it will get chances to
change for betterment.

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Recommendations
The company shall avoid on indulging children in the business. It is an illegal act which
might affect the firm severely. It is recommended that employees must follow the code of
conducts of a particular firm very strictly. Understanding the code of conduct is very important
to everyone as it directly implement the ethics in organization. It is the particular principle which
is required to follow. Code of conduct in project A describes that the firm did not informed the
board of director’s about the Chinese Organization whom they selected as the business unit. The
management team did not follow the code of conduct as supposed to practice in the firm.
Specific laws are meant to be obeyed in the firm which are significant to follow as it is important
for the career of employees. The code of conduct determines which behavior is not permitted in
the organization and it might even terminate the employee. It is beneficial when combining with
some other special attributes which usually helps the company to resolve certain scandals. Code
of conduct helps to maintain a healthy working environment within the organization. Referring
to project B, DeGrandis became the sports equipment sponsor of Australian Olympic Team.
Later it was observed that a high-ranking official of the company offered bribe to a member of
Olympic committee team. The code of conduct prohibits the cause of paying bribes in the
company. In project C, it has been highlighted where a company without conducting a prior
testing of the selected product. However, the firm broke the code of conduct, as they did not
maintain the appropriate quality of the product. Hence, it is recommended that employees of an
organization must follow code of conduct intensively so that it would help to promote the
business perfectly.

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