Swinburne INF70005: Woolworths Mobile App Project Implementation Plan

This report presents a project implementation plan for a self-checkout mobile application designed for Woolworths Australia. The project aims to address the issue of long customer queues and slow processing speeds in stores by allowing customers to scan product barcodes, create a virtual basket, and make online payments. The report includes an executive summary, project introduction, and detailed justification for the project, highlighting the benefits of streamlined processes, reduced staff costs, and improved customer experience. It also acknowledges potential constraints such as development costs and the need for smartphone ownership among customers. The report references relevant literature and concludes that the project is justified, considering the advantages for both the company and its customers. This project was created as part of the INF70005 Strategic Project Management course at Swinburne University.

Running Head: STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Strategic Project Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Executive Summary
Based on the surge in the implementation of technology in the retail industry, Woolworths
Australia has planned to develop a new self check in mobile application through which the
customers will be able to check in to the store, add the products in their baskets and walk out of
the store without making any payment. Since Woolworths is a very popular company in
Australia, the stores are always over-packed with customers. As a result, there are frequent
complaints from the customers that the processing speed is very slow at the stores. The
customers have to stand in long queues for payment and the billing staff at the counter has to
check in each item from the basket one by one in order to generate bill and accept payment.
Woolworths’ proposed mobile application has the potential to solve this problem and allow the
customers to simply walk in the store and walk out with the products they want without standing
in queues or make manual payments. It is a very new technology that has not been previously
developed by any other company. The mobile application will automatically create a virtual
basket with the details of the products taken by the customer when the customer scans the bar
codes of the product with the app. Viewing the digital invoice, the customer will have to make
online payment directly to Woolworths.

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Project Introduction
This project is based on the development of a mobile application for Woolworths
Australia for self check out service to the customers. This mobile application requires the
customers to simply check in through the gates of the store and when taking a product the
customer needs to scan the barcode of the product using the mobile application (Polacco and
Backes 2018). Once the customer takes the required amount of products from the store and walk
out, the application will check out the customer at the gate and will also automatically update the
virtual basket and generate digital invoice for the customers. Based on this invoice, the
customers have to pay the bill through online payment system. As a result, this system will
decrease a significant amount of time for processing as there will no need for standing in long
lines and wait for payment against the products bought from the store.
In this project, before proceeding with the development of the application, the feasibility
of the project will be analysed along with justifying the investment that will be made for this
particular project.
Justification
In current day, technology is evolving at a very rapid pace and at the same time, various
industries are also rapidly evolving and growing. Similarly, the retail industry has also evolved
massively in the last few years with the introduction of technology. Even a few years ago, retail
industry meant physical retail stores where people have to visit, ask the storekeepers for
particular products, pay bill and then receive the products (Orel and Kara 2014). With the
development of the internet, a significant portion of the retail industry shifted to online business

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as the ecommerce industry developed. At this time, various ecommerce giants like Alibaba,
Amazon and others grew up and spread around the world. However, the retail stores are still very
much relevant but they have increased in size and the type of products they sell has also
increased. Instead of specialty stores like stationary, cosmetics and others, departmental stores
have grown up where wide ranges of products are available.
Woolworths is such a company that has departmental stores spread all over the country
and serve a huge number of people. Owing to the popularity of the company, the stores are
always over-packed with customers. As a result, there are frequent complaints from the
customers that the processing speed is very slow at the stores – they have to stand in long queues
for payment and the billing staff at the counter has to check in each item from the basket one by
one in order to generate bill and accept payment.
Woolworths’ proposed mobile application has the potential to solve this problem and
allow the customers to simply walk in the store and walk out with the products they want without
standing in queues or make manual payments (Fisher and Raman 2018). The only thing that the
customer needs to do is to scan the bar codes of the products taken with the mobile application
and it will automatically create an online basket for the customer. When the customer walks out,
the application will check out the customer from the store and will generate the invoice.
However, the development of the application has a large number of potential constraints
and issues that may arise throughout the development of the application. The first major
constrain for the project is the cost of development process as it requires advanced AI technology
that is not only extremely expensive but also extremely hard to develop with the currently
available resources for Woolworths (Fulgoni 2018). The overall system requires up to date and

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high level technical specifications that must be developed over the course of the project. As of
now, the project budget is set at up to AUD $1 million. Another constraint of the project is that it
requires the customers to own a smartphone whereas a large percentage of population do not
own them.
In spite of the AUD $1 million budget for the project, Woolworths can earn significant
cost benefit from the project. When this project is implemented, the company will be able to cut
down various costs including staff costs (billing staff will no more be required, number of store
maintenance staff will be reduced as well), low system maintenance costs, lesser needs for
technical equipments like bar code reader, accounting systems and others.
In spite of the constraints, the project has a massive potential that cannot be ignored. If
the mobile application along with the technical support can be developed as per the plan, not
only Woolworths will be able to gain more popularity but also will be able to cut expenses due to
less workforce required and reduced technical and non-technical maintenances required
(Fernandes and Pedroso 2017). However, at the same time, there are also several ethical issues
associated with the development of this technology that are not discussed here due to out of
scope topic.
Finally, it can be said that the proposed project is justified considering the benefits from
the company’s as well as the customers’ points of view. With no need for standing in queues and
waiting to make manual payments for the products purchased, the entire process will be
streamlined with much more effectiveness and efficiency at the stores.

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References
Fisher, M. and Raman, A., 2018. Using data and big data in retailing. Production and Operations
Management, 27(9), pp.1665-1669.
Fulgoni, G.M., 2018. Will Digital Commerce and Analytics Be the Death of Traditional
Brands?. Journal of Advertising Research, 58(2), pp.146-150.
Orel, F.D. and Kara, A., 2014. Supermarket self-checkout service quality, customer satisfaction,
and loyalty: Empirical evidence from an emerging market. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 21(2), pp.118-129.
Fernandes, T. and Pedroso, R., 2017. The effect of self-checkout quality on customer satisfaction
and repatronage in a retail context. Service Business, 11(1), pp.69-92.