Part A : Four steps to help companies to swiftly get onto the road to service su

Question

Part A : Four steps to help companies to swiftly get onto the road to service supply chain excellence are

listed below:

1. Understand your service supply chain.

2. Determine the needs of your customers and convey those needs down the supply chain.

3. Obtain high quality suppliers.

4. Maintain a competitive advantage.

As Wal-Mart is expanding its online presence, how would you implement the above four steps in

order for Wal-Mart to become a leader in ecommerce marketplace and effectively compete with

such online retailers as Amazon? Explain each step with one paragraph.

Part B

Question:

One of the common difficulties in project management is to fulfill the triple constraint. Part A of

this homework is an analysis of Wal-Mart online expansion. If you were hired by Wal-Mart as

project manager to build and maintain its ecommerce marketplace, what challenges would you

be faced with in trying to fulfill the triple constraint while doing your job? State the challenges

and explain how you would address each of those challenges.

Explain please

Explanation / Answer

1. Understand your service supply chain.

2. Determine the needs of your customers and convey those needs down the supply chain.

3. Obtain high quality suppliers.

4. Maintain a competitive advantage.

upply Chain Management (SCM) is an essential element to operational efficiency. SCM can be applied to customer satisfaction and company success, as well as within societal settings, including medical missions; disaster relief operations and other kinds of emergencies; cultural evolution; and it can help improve quality of life. Because of the vital role SCM plays within organizations, employers seek employees with an abundance of SCM skills and knowledge. Supply chain management is critical to business operations and success for the following reasons: Wal-Mart’s overall methods of supply chain management differ little from the main components of most supply chains: purchasing, operations, distribution, and integration.

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world with over 10,000 stores globally and close to $500 billion in annual revenues. Yet, its online business is a very small part of the whole, accounting for less than 3% of its overall sales. Since Wal-Mart is nearing saturation in the U.S. on account of its expansive presence, it is prioritizing its e-commerce business to ensure steady revenue growth in the coming years.

The retailer has deployed several omni-channel initiatives over the past that are likely to drive significant web traffic and improve order conversion rates. Also, Wal-Mart is looking to augment its delivery efficiency to keep customers interested in its e-commerce channel. The company is planning to resurrect the online grocery business, which might pay off in the long run, if it can learn from Webvan’s failure and rectify its shortcomings.

Although we do not expect e-commerce to become a big business for Wal-Mart in the near term, these efforts are gradually pushing it in the right direction. Moreover, the optimistic outlook of the U.S. online retail industry somewhat ensures the retailer's e-commerce growth. Therefore, we understand that the online channel can become a valuable growth driver for the company in the long run.

Developing Omni-Channel Platform

Although Internet has changed many aspects of people’s lives, including the way they shop, it has been unable to change the entire landscape of the U.S. retail industry. Even after so many years, e-commerce hasn’t turned into a big business for a number of retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco. As a result, the U.S. retail industry is gradually shifting towards omni-channel retailing, which refers to providing a seamless shopping experience across channels. Retailers are now integrating their online and stores channel to leverage their vast customer reach and convenience of Internet shopping to boost their revenues.

Wal-Mart, which is the biggest retail chain in the U.S., is planning to utilize its vast physical presence across the country as an e-commerce fulfillment network. Through its ship-from-store service, the retailer uses the inventory of its nearest store to fulfill online orders. In addition, Wal-Mart offers the pay-with-cash facility wherein customers can order online from a wide range of merchandise and pay with cash at its stores. This allows the customers who do not own a credit or a debit card to buy online, thus boosting online traffic. Pay-with-cash is gaining significant acceptance among Wal-Mart customers and accounts for a still small, but growing portion of the retailer’s online sales. This service also increases the overall basket size since customers who visit stores to pick up their online orders often end up buying more. Going forward, we expect the company to come up with additional strategies aimed towards the development of its omni-channel platform.

Enhancing Delivery Efficiency

In addition to omni-channel efforts, Wal-Mart is working hard to refine its delivery process, which will help it improve its customer service. Wal-Mart initiated its same-day delivery program in the U.S. back in 2012. Although in test phase currently, it is expected to play a crucial role in the retailer’s online business in the future. According to aBoston Consulting Group survey, about 9% of U.S. consumers rated same-day delivery as the most important factor of their online shopping experience. Under the same-day delivery program, orders placed on Wal-Mart's website are directly shipped from its stores and delivered on the same day. More than 5,000 items qualify for same-day delivery and the retailer uses its own trucks to deliver these products.

Furthermore, Wal-Mart is looking to reduce delivery time for most of its online orders to at most two days. It is also exploring the possibilities for crowd sourcing, wherein store customers are asked to make online deliveries. Since millions of customers visit Wal-Mart stores every week, some of them can sign up to drop off online orders on their way back home. For this service, they will be offered an additional discount on their purchases. The company’s management believes that crowd sourcing can become a reality in the near future. Although this is likely to face a number of legal obligations due to possibilities of thefts and frauds, success of this service would not only reduce transportation costs but also enhance delivery efficiency.

Is Amazon A Threat For Wal-Mart?

Although Wal-Mart is a relatively new player in the online segment, its wide scale and reach puts it in good position to provide better online services than Amazon. The retailer can easily leverage its strong presence in the U.S. to develop an efficient supply chain for online orders.

Currently, Wal-Mart ships directly from about 50 of its stores in the U.S., which is somewhat similar to Amazon’s distribution warehouse count. However, we believe that the retail giant can increase this figure much faster than Amazon as it has about 4,000 stores in the U.S. that it can utilize as distribution centers. Moreover, being a pure play online retailer, Amazon cannot provide pay-with-cash service or take advantage of crowd sourcing, which gives Wal-Mart an edge over Amazon.

Time – This refers to the actual time required to produce a deliverable. Which in this case, would be the end result of the project. Naturally, the amount of time required to produce the deliverable will be directly related to the amount of requirements that are part of the end result (scope) along with the amount of resources allocated to the project (cost).

Cost – This is the estimation of the amount of money that will be required to complete the project. Cost itself encompasses various things, such as: resources, labor rates for contractors, risk estimates, bills of materials, et cetera. All aspects of the project that have a monetary component are made part of the overall cost structure.

Scope – These are the functional elements that, when completed, make up the end deliverable for the project. The scope itself is generally identified up front so as to give the project the best chance of success. (Although scope can potentially change during the project life-cycle, a concept known as ‘scope creep’) Note that the common success measure for the scope aspect of a project is its inherent quality upon delivery.

The major take-away from the Triple Constraint, being that it is a triangle, is that one cannot adjust or alter one side of it without in effect, altering the other sides. So for example, if there is a request for a scope change mid-way through the execution of the project, the other two attribues (cost and time) will be affected in some manner. How much or how little is dictated by the nature and complexity of the scope change. As an added example, if the schedule appears to be tight and the project manager determines that the scoped requirements cannot be accomplished within the allotted time, both cost AND time are affected.

Understand the Triple Constraint

For starters, the project manager MUST be fully cognizant of the fact that scope, time and cost are fully inter-related and that the triple constraint dictates any adjustment to any of those items MUST affect the other. In many cases, a project manager may be somewhat aloof about adding scope to a project or accepting a budget cut without taking the effort to determine what the consequences of that change will be. Denial of the potential repurcussions of adjustments to the scope, time or cost of a project are only going to lead to issues down the road and may also cause the project to fail.

Convey the Triple Constraint

Along with recognizing how the triple constraint functions, it is imperative that the project manager convey that information to the project stakeholders. Making sure everyone who is involved with the project recognizes the importance of the constraint will make discussions regarding the scope, time and cost far easier. In many cases, the stakeholders are likely to be the main reasons for scope creep or budget adjustments in a project. Having them aware up front of what the ramifications might be for any requested or mandated changes will make dialog easier in follow-up meetings and will also make them scrutinize their change requests more thoroughly rather than assuming that any change will have no issue on the project release cycle. Note that conveyance of the triple constraint to the stakeholders is best performed at the outset, likely during the formation of the initial project plan.

Monitor the Triple Constraint

As the project manager, making sure that you stay on top of all the key attributes of the triple constraint will make the likelihood of project success that much higher. So be cognizant of any fluctuations to the key attributes, whether they be unexpected or requested. Never assume that other attributes can be left un-changed if one attribute is known to be changing or fluctuating. As noted earlier, one cannot simply dismiss a change to one without being fully aware of the fact that it WILL affect the other two.

*Conclusion*

The Triple Constraint is one of the most well known and well respected mechanisms for signifying the interaction of the key attributes of a project. By being fully aware of its function and implications is an important aspect of the project manager’s role and responsibility. The triple constraint is meant to be a asset to the project manager’s arsenal and should not be viewed as a hinderance.

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