Ops and Project Management—Spring 2023 A large corporate client on the brink of failure has hired a consultant (you) to solve their problem. You are tasked with organizing a plan to solve your client’s issue and “present” your plan to their Board of Directors. You must organize a plan to keep your client in business by following The Project Scope Checklist located in the textbook in Section 4.1— Defining the Project Scope. You must identify the following in your project: • Your corporate client (Name of the company that’s hired you. I.e. Sears) • Your client’s issue (Example: declining sales due to too many competitors offering the similar product) • How you plan on solving the problem using the six steps on the Project Scope Checklist: 1) Project Objective, 2) Deliverables, 3) Milestones, 4) Technical Requirements, 5) Limits and Exclusions, and 6) Reviews with Customer. Your “presentation” to the Board must be in following format: • 5 page paper, minimum. Times New Roman, 12-pt font, 1-inch margins; no funny business with the formatting. • Feel free to include charts, visuals, etc. However, make sure a majority of the paper is pure writing. Do not give me 4 pages worth of charts and graphs and 1 page of writing. • Write in full sentences. Do not use fragments, bullet points, lists, etc. ➢ Your paper must be submitted via Blackboard by the EOD Sunday March 5th, 2023. ➢ You can select a company that is current in risk of failing (i.e. JCPenney) or one that’s already failed (i.e. Blockbuster). If you are choosing one that’s already been dissolved, please pretend that they are still open and you are trying to prevent their failure. ➢ Clearly explain what the company’s issue is that’s bringing them close to failure. ➢ Clearly explain what your plan wishes to accomplish. ➢ Clearly describe the risks involved if your plan fails.
Midterm MGMT- 251 Operations and Project Mgmt. Spring 2021 Professor Bilotta March 21, 2021 New Jersey City University School of business Valerie Suga-Morales Radio Shack Introduction RadioShack was once a prominent electronics store that boasted the latest technologies of its time. They were well known for their computer parts, monitors, small electronic appliances for everyday home use, and much more. It was revolutionary at the time as it made finding specific electronics no less than a drive away, but as time went on and the advent of the internet emerged, new competitors sprouted and would eventually dethrone this electronics giant. There are several factors that led to its demise and eventual bankruptcy. This is a plan that I have created to save this company. We need to address the lack of an online presence, poor management, financial issues, and loss of company vision for the future. Project Objective The objective of this project first needs to analyze their target margins and how we can go about selling their products. Adapting to an online environment has proven successful from time to time. According to graph 1, Charm et al. provides a detailed breakdown on how consumers go about purchasing their products. There is no doubt most consumers would opt for an online purchase rather than in-person. Another issue that RadioShack faced was poor management as the management team was making harmful choices for the company. For example, they signed long leasing contracts, not providing prepaid phone options to consumers at the height of its popularity and had multiple turnovers on the executive level management (Moore, 2017). RadioShack lost their vision, while electronic stores such as Apple, Best Buy and GameStop continue to acquire new customers and serving their loyal consumer’s needs. Deliverables The next step would be to hire a web designer who can create a website that is consumer friendly and that even the least tech-savvy person can navigate, companies such as Sears and Kmart had to file for bankruptcy, because they failed to adapt to a new environment. McKinnon states “Sears catalog business was losing up to $1 million per day. The main culprit, something every retailer can relate to, high delivery costs. Distributing a catalogue with as many as 1,500 pages was expensive especially since Sears sold low margin items.” (McKinnon,2020) In the last 15 years Sears and Kmart had to shut down more than 3,500 stores and laid off 250,000 employees (Kristensen,2020). We must learn from their mistakes; we can avoid bankruptcy by immediately switching over to e-commerce and providing our consumers a website and possibly a Radio Shack app. Having an online option for our customers would increase sales and reduce the number of RadioShack stores to create positive gains.Graph 1. Consumers switching to online purchases, before and after COVID-19. To continue, I noticed that there has been a high turnover rate in the management department, according to Zippia “In 2004, RadioShack was the target of a class-action lawsuit in which more than 3,300 current or former RadioShack managers alleged the company required them to work long hours without overtime pay.” We need to restructure on how we treat our staff. It is unacceptable as a company to allow dedicated managers to be unpaid for their hard work they had done, and if we do not have enough money in our budget to pay overtime then it is our responsibility to allocate funds towards that or hold mangers accountable by notifying them there will be no overtime pay during certain weeks. Farfan from Retail Industry mentioned the RadioShack mission statement says, "With its convenient and comfortable convenience stores, qualified sales staff help customers get the most from your technology products."(Farfan, 2015) Our staff are dedicated to work with customers, making sure they are well taken care of with any electronical needs, without the support of our staff, we cannot run this company.Figure 1. A RadioShack employee displeased with the working condition In addition, RadioShack has financial issues and there are ways to fix the problem. RadioShack has an excessive number of stores located near each other. Blokhin from Investopedia states “there were 25 stores near Sacramento, California, located within a 25-mile radius, and seven stores within five miles around Brooklawn, New Jersey.” We need to collect data and information on which stores have the highest sells and the lowest sells, the population in the area and statistics on how far customers are willing to travel. According to Access, The National Consumer Study Summery mentioned “93.2% of consumers patronize local merchants within 20 minutes/miles from home, consumers will typically travel no more than 10 minutes from home for frequent purchases made once or more per week. Consumers are willing to travel further away from home for regular, yet less frequent purchases, but typically not greater than 20 minutes/miles from home.” Figure 2 shows a study on how far an average consumer is willing to travel for each good (Access, 2017). While we are collecting the data, the web designer would create a website and app, this would allow the company to invest less money on signing into long lease and create a profit from online purchase and RadioShack that have a high foot traffic. RadioShack has fallen behind on each newest trend, besides moving the company to e-commerce, they were also late when prepaid phone was booming. Moore said, RadioShack was behind the Prepaid phone trend, companies such as Walmart and Target easily sold prepaid phones to consumers who had low credit scores. “Commission on Prepaid are one fifth or worse than what a postpaid activation pays and below the profit margins Shack needed to maintain in their stores. Prepaid had been between 10% and 20% of the wireless channel prior to 2006.” Prepaid phones were sold the most when the economy collapse from 2006 to 2008 and it continued to increase in 2010. Radio Shack could not meet the same margins as Walmart and Target. (Moore, 2017)Figure 2. Consumers are willing to travel for goods. Milestones As mentioned earlier, RadioShack has an excessive number of stores, to solve this issue we would need to collect sales data, foot trafficking, and the rent amount on each location. Then we need to research the population around the location, who is the demographic? Are there other competitors close by? Where is the nearest neighborhood? Is the location in a mall or shopping plaza? After collecting the data, the company must compare each store from the greatest number of sales to the least, which location has the most population near them, the cost on rent in each location. From the information that we had gathered, we can decide which locations can stay and which ones we can close, this way the company can save some money. During the removal processes, the web designer should be working with the advertisement team on developing a website and an app for consumers to use and shop. We can take the sales data before and after the launch of the new digital system and compare them making sure we are hitting our target margins. To improve the management problem, RadioShack should make all employees and management meet up with district management to discuss and evaluate, the team’s concerns, interest, issues, skill levels, etc. The district manager should have report on all the staff including managers then have a district meeting to discuss the information that has been gathered. The company should send out a new updated availability sheet to the team every six months, this would allow employees to change their availability if needed and lets the corporate and district managers be constantly informed, making sure the employees do not reach overtime and if overtime has been reached, ensuring we have enough money in our budget when our employees and management work overtime. RadioShack should stop selling prepaid phone and focus on providing customers with a cheaper contract alternative phone service. These phone services are getting expensive, according to Money Saving Pro states “Americans aged 25-64, paid $114 a month on average for cell phone service in 2018.That's a staggering annual cost of $1,368 per person!” (Money Saving Pro, 2021) Chart 1. Shows a list all the phone providers including the cost of the data plan. RadioShack can gain new clients while keeping the loyal ones. Chart 1. Phone providers with their prices and plans Risk Factor With every plan there is a risk factor. This risk includes not hiring a web designer in an appropriate time, unsatisfied employees and managers with the new changes that are implemented, breaking lease with landlord leading to pay more in rent, website and app crashing due to a malfunction, finally falling behind on the leading trends. Technical Requirements To begin, RadioShack should release job opportunity for web/app desiners by holding a hiring event and post listing on to websites such as, Indeed, Glassdoor, Google jobs, and ect. Then the hiring manger should hold interviews, making sure the person is well knowledgable, and experienced, the questions should be: what one project you are most proud of? Tell me about a time you received harsh criticism from a client. How did you handle it? What steps do you take during your design process and how much do you involve clients? How do you incorporate current design trends into your projects? And ect. After quetioning, the hiring manger should ask the applictant for a portfolio of their work and a copy of their resume. Once we hire a web designer, we need to work closely with the designer. The app and the website should include a reward system, curbside pickup option, discounts and coupons, scan and pay, scheduling option for repairs, instore pick up, rates and reviwes. After the app and website is completed, we need find a lunch date to celebrate the completion of the app to help promote it, we can advertise it throughout social media, and layout flyers in the RadioShack store locations.Figure 4. Smartphone with apps Figure 3. Resumes Limits and Exclusions Furthermore, we have discussed our project objective, which includes the lack of an online presence, poor management, financial issues, and loss of company vision for the future. We also discussed how to fix these issues with the plan I had laid out. There are some aspects of RadioShack that we should not include to our plans, keeping the name RadioShack is best because many people are familiar with it brand, store layout is another topic that can be discussed after we make the major changes that are listed, and finally keeping other services that RadioShack offers such as customer support allows consumers to connect with employees and according to Comparably, “The company's knowledgeable sales associates and brand position, ". ""You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers,"" (Comparably, 2021) Reviews with Customer After we execute the Project Objective Plan for RadioShack, it is important to pay attention to Customer reviews. RadioShack needs to collect data from customers before and after the changes that were made, they can collect reviews from Google and Yelp. Adding a review section on the RadioShack website will help to reach out to unsatisfied customers, Figures 5 shows two negative reviews that was posted on Trustpilot. Figure 5. two negative review posted on Trustpilot Conclusion With the plan I have created, I have no doubt RadioShack can rebound in terms of sales and customer satisfaction. By addressing the issues of the lack of an online presence, poor management, financial issues, and loss of company vision for the future, we to remind ourselves about our duty to the community which was “With its convenient and comfortable convenience stores, qualified sales staff help customers get the most from your