Homework: Project Guidelines
Length: 15–20 pages.
Overview
You will finalize the process of creating a business development plan for your selected organization or company (Amazon). This submission should incorporate instructor feedback provided throughout the process and should include targeted commentary on how your selected organization or company manages cross-functional environments to achieve operational and project management goals. You should also include an assessment of your organization's or company's (Amazon) business sustainability with respect to triple bottom line methods to mitigate corporate risks and ensure future market viability.
The project for this course is the creation of a business development plan. In this program, you have learned that every company or organization has an operations function, whether it is in the manufacture of goods or the delivery of services. Ultimately, the purpose of operations management is to identify ways to promote company values that strengthen organizational performance through cost-savings opportunities, customer service improvements, increased manufacturing efficiency and supply-chain logistics, continued competitiveness within the industry, and long-term sustainability efforts.
This project will demonstrate your ability to assess your selected organization's or company's operational processes, and to make meaningful recommendations that balance business sustainability with quality-driven, lean operations for competing in the global marketplace. You will identify opportunities for improving business operations and strengthening organizational performance. These opportunities could be related to internal capabilities development, divestiture, outsourcing, or a combination of the three. In addition, you will examine risk mitigation and the long-range viability of the selected organization or company.
The project is divided into threemilestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules 1, 2, and 3.
In this homework, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:
1) Assess internal organizational capabilities and limitations for determining business development and cost-savings opportunities
2) Recommend business best practices that consistently meet customer cost, quality, and satisfaction expectations through utilization of global benchmarks
3) Determine opportunities for reducing inventory and infrastructure costs while supporting current business operations
4) Evaluate current business operations for opportunities to utilize technology for reducing costs, increasing production, and delivering consistently superior products or services
5) Assess business sustainability with respect to profits, people, and the planet to mitigate risk and ensure corporate viability
Prompt
Select a company or organization that meets the following criteria:
A. Must be from the manufacturing, service, IT, or healthcare industries (other industries could be used with instructor approval) • Must be large enough to have multiple product/service lines to consider
B. Must be in a market that is highly competitive where production costs are always a key concern
C. Must have potential for and a vision of global expansion
Note: In the absence of a suitable real company, you may use a notional or conceptual company for this homework as long as it meets the above criteria. In either case, to avoid any proprietary data issues, the performance data for this homework should not be real data; however, real data could be used if it is publically available.
Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:
1) Aligning Resources to Market Opportunities
i. Assess your company's or organization's internal capabilities and limitations with respect to its current operations. In your assessment, include human, organizational, and infrastructure factors.
ii. Based on the company's or organization's internal capabilities and limitations, what expansion or business developmentopportunities can you identify? How will these opportunities align to the current domestic and global markets? Your response should consider the political, economic, social, and technical factors that affect the company.
iii. Based on the company's or organization's internal capabilities and limitations, what cost-savings opportunities can you identify? How will these opportunities align to the current domestic and global markets?Your response should consider the political, economic, social, and technical factors that affect the company.
iv. Describe the external threat factors in the domestic and global markets that the company or organization should consider when developing these business development and cost-savings opportunities. Your response should consider the political, economic, social, and technical factors that affect the company.
2) Managing the Quality Imperative for Global Competition
i. Based on your assessment of the company's or organization's internal capabilities and limitations and the opportunities you identified, select total quality management (TQM) means that the company or organization could employ to strengthen organizational performance. Justify your selection.
ii. Based on your assessment of the company's or organization's internal capabilities and limitations and the opportunities you identified, select an appropriate series from an ISO 9000 family of standards that the company or organization could employ to strengthen organizational performance. Justify your selection.
iii. Based on the TQM and ISO 9000 benchmarks that you selected, recommend global best practices that strengthen organizational performance by ensuring quality, cost containment, and customer satisfaction for the company or organization. Justify your recommendations.
3) Lean Practices in the Workplace and the Supply Chain
i. Determine opportunities for the company or organization to employ lean techniques to strengthen organizational performance while supporting current business operations. What is the potential outcome of using these lean techniques?
ii. Determine opportunities for the company or organization to use just-in-time (JIT) practices, such as safety stock, to reduce inventory costs while supporting current business operations. What is the potential outcome of using these JIT practices?
iii. Determine opportunities for the company or organization to use optimized production technology (OPT) and theory of constraints (TOC) principles to reduce costs and increase throughput while supporting current business operations. What is the potential outcome of using these OPT and TOC principles?
4) Technology for Competitive Differentiation
i. Evaluate current business operations in one segment of the enterprise to identify performance gaps relative to cost, production, and delivery of products or services.
ii. Based on the performance gaps you identified, describe specific opportunities that would benefit from technology enhancement or technical solutions. Ensure that your response focuses on using technology to reduce costs, increase production, and deliver consistently superior products or services.
iii. How can the technology you described be utilized to mitigate the performance gap? Ensure that your response focuses on using technology to reduce costs, increase production, and deliver consistently superior products or services.
5) Sustainability in the Value Chain
i. Assess the sustainability of your company or organization with respect to profits, people, and the planet. You might consider questions such as these in your response: What are the challenges to sustainability? What sustainable business practices does your company or organization already employ? Do you see any gaps between current business operations and sustainability?
ii. What alternative business practices could the company or organization employ to mitigate risks to business operations while enhancing sustainability?
iii. How can the company or organization implement the alternative business practices while ensuring long-term viability?
Milestones
Milestone 1: Case Analysis
In Module 1, you will begin the process of creating a business development plan by submitting a case analysis of your selected organization or company. In this submission, you will assess and describe your organization's or company's internal organization capabilities and recommend strategies for optimizing production based on a detailed analysis of existing processes, resources (facilities, human resources, equipment/machines, supply chain/inventory) and strategic business planning (SBP) goals.
Milestone 2: Lean Techniques and Forecasting Analysis
In Module 2, you will continue the process of creating a business development plan for your selected organization or company. To accomplish this, you must understand how lean practices, continuous improvement throughout the organization, and technological advancements create product differentiation resulting in a competitive advantage for the company.
Milestone 3: Business Operations Opportunities Analysis
In Module 3, you will evaluate current business operations for opportunities to utilize project management, technology, and project management tools along with other techniques to reduce costs, increase production, incorporate sustainability principles, and deliver consistently superior products and services using quantitative tools and techniques.
Submission: Business Development Plan
In Module Nine, you will submit your completed project. In the project, you will assess your organization's or company's sustainability efforts, focusing on how they mitigate risks and how their efforts promote long-term viability. It should be a complete, polished artifact of the three milestone pieces, containing all of the critical elements of the project. All instructor feedback gained throughout the course should be incorporated into the submission. Conclude your plan by applying the knowledge you have gained over the course of the project and sharing overall insights from your own professional experience as they relate to your company.
Format your homework according to the following formatting requirements:
(1) The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
(2) The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the homework, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
(3) Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.