Analysis of Woolworths Group Expansion Project for MBA Students

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Woolworths Group's expansion project, focusing on the expansion of its manufacturing unit in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. The report begins with an introduction to project management, defining its key components and importance within an org...Read More

MBA Interim

Table of Contents
The project background and purpose...............................................................................................4
The project's stakeholders analysis .................................................................................................4
Project scope definition....................................................................................................................6
Project priorities...............................................................................................................................8
The project's organisation structure ..............................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

The project background and purpose
A project is defined as an activity to accomplish specific task in order to reach a particular
outcome. It is a set of inputs as well as outputs that are required to fulfil a particular form of goal.
In this process project vision, work, scope are included in order to stay allied towards project
activities in order to accomplish project target (Haag and Sandberg, 2020). It is formal and
documented version of planning which is being undertaken by an organisation to control and
execute project in a well defined manner. In order to accomplish project goals project
management is undertaken with the application of competencies of personals, skill set and
knowledge base.
Present report has been conducted on Woolworths, company operate their functioning in
retail industrial sector and is a leading Supermarket chain of organisation conducting their
functioning across the peripheries of Australia and New Zealand (Wetherell, 2020). It been
identified that company develop a project plan in which they are looking forward to expand their
manufacturing Woolworths Group in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. In this project plan
formative discussion has been made on contextual information in which importance of project
along with key stakeholders and their expectations are included (Hall, P., Marshall, S. and Lowe,
M., 2001). In addition to this project include project scope, project priorities and work
breakdown structure in an effective manner.
The project's stakeholders analysis
It has been identified that Woolworths Group conducts their functioning as a leading
Supermarket group in Australia. Organisation marked themselves among top companies in
Australian retail market, together with Coles and effectively maintains a duopolistic system.
Company offers wide range of product and services to customers with high quality and in
affordable price range. This has been evaluated that as to effectively facilitate organisational
growth as development Woolworths Group set a plan that have purpose of expansion of its
expansion of its manufacturing unit within Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. However it has
been evaluated that during the time period of expansion of manufacturing unit of the organisation
into Banbury, a major project setback occurred (Walters and Helman, 2020). This was
recognized to be “a sudden spike in raw material costs” in Banbury.
4

In this with the help of continuous assessment as well as examination into their
operational process company can effectively able to accomplish their project purpose of
development and growth of business. It has been underlined that most important purpose of
respective organisation is to expand their business, this facilitate entity to have access of more
sales as well as profitability (Mortimer, 2016). It has been evaluated that company is facing
threat from ALDI and IGA. Organisation is required to ensure alignment with appropriate project
management techniques and tools along with maintaining formative and effective
communication with stakeholders (Sennewald and Baillie, 2020). It has been identified that
stakeholder list of company include suppliers, local government bodies, members of board of
directors, project manager, project sponsors, members of project team and consumers. In order to
effectively conduct projects expansion activities it is essential for Woolworths Group to consider
cost benefit analysis. Along with this company is required to make sure that method which is
chosen to execute project have efficient capacity accomplish quality of business activities. This
will aid in ensuring effective accomplishment of project goals with desirable outcomes. Along
with by undertaking proper organisational policy and all the defined aspects into consideration
project manager can effectively execute, monitor and control process of project and can
successful assure accomplishment of their project in time effective manner along with optimum
utilisation of resources (Walters and Helman, 2020). As project is mainly based upon
manufacturing unit expansion of Woolworths Group, certain activities that are executed with
project execution are design in order to accomplish desirable outcomes.
Formative review of operations of business is done in order to effectively evaluate
opportunities that are prevailing in marketplace through which Woolworths Group can
effectively facilitate its development and growth. After the evaluation, with the help of effective
market research has been finalized by Woolworths Group that company by expanding their
manufacturing unit can ensure maximum benefit and revenue generation capability. Thus, in
order to structurally and systematically conduct expansion process cost benefit analysis is being
undertaken by entity in order to set budget, monitoring, and accountability, control and risk
aspects (Chalak, Abou-Daher and Abiad, 2018). All these measures are effectively taken into
account as to propose a project plan for expansion. All these elements is been effectively
considered by organisation as to ensure success of project in stipulated period of time.
5

Project scope definition
Present project is having wide scope as Woolworths Group is planning to expand their
organisational services that will enhance their overall growth and sales. In addition to this, it has
been evaluated that main purpose of project is to expand company manufacturing unit as to serve
large base of customers (Musyimi, 2016). While if it is talked about project objectives then it
states Woolworths Group manufacturing unit expansion for higher sales and profitability. Further
it has been evaluated that project deliverables will be presented among stakeholders and client in
order to effectively measure performance against expectations. It has been evaluated that
Woolworths Group project deliverable status will be highly-customizable in which stakeholders
can select wide variety of data sets and columns and can access project information.
Further, this has been evaluated that there are different type of factors of project success
criteria that facilitate project towards high success. In terms with Woolworths Group, most
important success criteria is portfolio management (Jones, Shahid and Neal, 2018). In this
project manager effectively undertakes project decisions to effectively meet project guidelines.
Along with this, there are also many other success criteria which is being mentioned below in
terms with expansion plan of Woolworths Group
6

Project objectives
Communication:
It is one of the most important project priorities of Woolworths Group in which constant
interaction are subjected to facilitate between different parties of company those who are
connected with project in direct or indirect manner like stakeholders, project team directors and
project manager (Jackson, 2020).
Constant monitoring and controlling:
As to effectively ensure least variance, Woolworths Group project manager effectively
assure evaluation as well as determination of daily basis activities of project in order to
accomplish project objectives in stipulated budget framework (Galli, 2020).
Meetings:
Meetings are considered to be the essential priorities for project in which project manager
decides to conduct meetings at regular interval of time in order to effectively supervise the
activities that are carried out by different personals (Pastrana-Jaramillo and Osorio-Gómez,
2020). In addition to this it has been identified that periodical meetings all subjected take place in
order to determine future strategies through which project objectives can be effectively achieved.
7

Total Quality Management:
It is one of the most important aspects for priority of Woolworths Group project plan this
methodology has been undertaken into account by project manager as to effectively ensure
accomplishments of project according to the compliance and set standards in perfect framework
of time (Mathews and Russell, 2020).
Greater return on investment (ROI):
In order to generate effective return on investment project manager of Woolworths Group
aligned business activities with the project objectives in order to be ensure more value to
organisation. This is an essential priority of project through which entity can ensure efficient
growth and development.
Resource Allocation:
Resource allocation is defined as an essential and crucial priority of project and it’s allow
accomplishment of project targets in a well defined and efficient manner in order to achieve
overall success (Dixit and Tiwari, 2020). Project manager of Woolworths Group sure that all the
resources or effectively allocated and are further distributed to all the departments engage in the
project as to get maximum success.
Project priorities
Project priority is mainly defined as a structured approach of working that include different
set of items into an order according to importance. In this activities of project get ranges
according to the criteria of importance (Little, 2017). In terms with Woolworths Group most
important element of project include Cost-Time-Scope. With the help of this matrix respective
company effectively prioritize their complex as well as unclear issues.
8

Work break down structure:
Work break down structure is most important and key essential aspect of a project in which
all the activities of project are divided into small parts as to assure more prominent results. It has
been identified that Woolworths Group is taking advantage of work break down structure in
order to effective defined and organize all the activities of project expansion in a well defined
and effective manner (Nguyen, 2020). Along with this, this structure is taken into account by
respective entity project manager to identify potential risk in initial stage and overcome them
with effective strategies in order to assure maximum growth.
Work breakdown structure
9

Project manager of Woolworths Group is suggested to undertake effective project
management structure in which they are required to include certain aspects like daily basis
monitoring, controlling and appraising the project activities, which is one of the most essential
element for which team members can perform their activities with great effectiveness:
 Project manager is required to keep regular check up on daily basis activities of project in
order to ensure that all the activities are executing as per according to set standards and in
proper time frame. In this Woolworths Group project manager is also suggested to set
criteria of daily work with the assistance of documentation which will further assist them
during the process of inspection.
 Project managers of Woolworths Group are suggested to conduct constant meetings with
lower level employees, subordinates supervisor and lower division individual of project
members in order to identify issues and problems that prevail in lower level in order to
further undertake efficient corrective measures on simultaneous basis. It effectively aids
them to complete project with great efficiency. In addition to this project manager also
suggested to provide proper training session to their subordinates in order to eliminate
any kind of risk (Nguyen, Y., 2020).
 Appraisals and rewards are considered as most important and essential aspect which
project team member’s performance can be effectively enhanced. In this Woolworths
Group project manager is require to appraise and reward team members with different
benefits in order to accomplish their project objective of expansion in best effective
manner.
The project's organisation structure
10

CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report it has been concluded that project is underline by an
organisation in order to accomplish set goals and targets with an aim to achieve future growth as
well as development. In order to ensure success of project, project management play key
essential role in which all the activities are being allied with a well device plan along with
particular course of time. With the help of this project manager can effectively align towards
project goals and can effectively monitor and control activities to gain significant end outcomes
and benefits.
11

REFERENCES
Books and journals:
Haag, L. and Sandberg, E., 2020. Exploring key logistics characteristics supporting
embeddedness in retailers’ geographical expansion. The International Review of Retail,
Distribution and Consumer Research, 30(1), pp.1-26.
Pastrana-Jaramillo, C.A. and Osorio-Gómez, J.C., 2020. Operational Risk Management in a
Retail Company. In Techniques, Tools and Methodologies Applied to Global Supply
Chain Ecosystems (pp. 91-107). Springer, Cham.
Mathews, S. and Russell, P., 2020. Risk analytics for innovation projects.
Walters, D. and Helman, D., 2020. Performance Management: Value Drivers and Strategic
Value Builders. In Strategic Capability Response Analysis (pp. 75-98). Springer, Cham.
Nguyen, Y., 2020. Talent Management in Hospitality Operations: Case Company X.
Petro, Y., Ojiako, U., Williams, T. and Marshall, A., 2020. Organizational ambidexterity: using
project portfolio management to support project-level ambidexterity. Production
Planning & Control, 31(4), pp.287-307.
Sennewald, C.A. and Baillie, C., 2020. Effective security management. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Jackson, B.J., 2020. Construction management JumpStart: the best first step toward a career in
construction management. John Wiley & Sons.
Haskins and at. al., 2020. Coles and Woolworths have installed public access defibrillators in all
their stores: It is time other Australian businesses followed their lead. Emergency
Medicine Australasia, 32(1), pp.166-168.
Galli, B.J., 2020. The Application of Systems Engineering to Project Management: A Review of
Their Relationship. International Journal of System Dynamics Applications
(IJSDA), 9(1), pp.81-106.
Dixit, V. and Tiwari, M.K., 2020. Project portfolio selection and scheduling optimization based
on risk measure: a conditional value at risk approach. Annals of Operations
Research, 285(1-2), pp.9-33.
Wetherell, S., 2020. Foundations: How the Built Environment Made Twentieth-Century Britain.
Princeton University Press.
Chalak, A., Abou-Daher, C. and Abiad, M.G., 2018. Generation of food waste in the hospitality
and food retail and wholesale sectors: Lessons from developed economies. Food
Security, 10(5), pp.1279-1290.
Little, B., 2017. Banbury: A History. The History Press.
Musyimi, A.K., 2016. The influence of marketing capabilities on firm performance in fashion
retailing in Nairobi County(Doctoral dissertation, Strathmore University).
Jones, A., Shahid, M. and Neal, B., 2018. Uptake of Australia’s health star rating
system. Nutrients, 10(8), p.997.
Mortimer, G., 2016. ALDI gives suppliers, as well as shoppers, greater choice: Retail
expert. Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia, 23(2), p.39.
12