Operations And Project Management

As per present case, Unilever wants to launch new products and services by determining needs and demand of customer. Respective company mangers design products and services according to demand and needs. For production process they use new innovate techniques which reduce wastage and improve quality of products. For example, Unilever develops strategies to manufacture organic beauty products in which they use natural and organic raw material which reduces or minimise wastage and it is not harmful for nature as well as consumers. For this respective organisation conduct Production life cycle analysis which is mentioned below:-

Product life cycle (PLC)

It refers to the time period which is required to develop an item, bring it to market and eventually exit from marketplace. The major goal behind designing PLC are to improve quality, reduce time to market, identify appropriate sales opportunity, reduce environmental impact, understand competitors and market and so on (Subramanian and Ramanathan, 2012). PLC is divide into four stages- introduction, growth, maturity and decline. These stages help Unilever to get complete information of activities which are done in marketing plan. Description of these stages are given below:-

Introduction Stage

It refers to the period when new products and service is launched in a marketplace. It requires lot of resources, finances and promotional activities. In this stage, company grow slowly because audiences or customers does not know much about the company and its products. At this stage, Unilever launch products and services by using new innovative technology through which they are able to attract more customers or audiences. When respective company launches organic beauty products they have to do more efforts at this stage. At this stage, they use attractive promotional strategies to attract more and more audiences and customers. Pricing strategy of respective company is keeping price of product at low and provide unique product which attract more audiences.

Growth Stage

It refers to the stage at which products starts to sell at much quicker rate and company start earning profit. At this stage, peoples get aware about products and services and word of mouth promotion get started (Gunasekaran and Ngai,2012). In respective stage company is able to invest more money on promotional activities to maximize its potential growth. At this stage, organic beauty product start selling quickly and company able to start earning profitability. At this stage Unilever didn't required to do much promotional activities but they have to make planning to retain their customers so that they do word of mouth promotion which is more effective. When customers aware about product and like the products, then at this stage respective company can increase price of products.

Maturity Stage

It is a stage when sales of products and services is at peak and demand is high. At this stage company's products starts competing with new alternative products which is begin launched into marketplace (Fleming and Koppelman, 2016). At this stage demand of organic beauty product of Unilever is in high demand. They start gaining high profit and consumers attraction. At this stage respective company required to conduct less or no promotional activities. Here respective company organic beauty product begin competing with alternative products which is newly launched in market. The managers of Unilever develop plan and strategies to attract and sustain customers. At this stage price of the product is high and respective company try to introduce more innovative products.

Decline Stage

It refers to the situation when product reach to its saturation point. At this stage selling of products get reduce due to increase in price. In this situation manager has to decide whether they have to continue production of same product with some changes and innovation or they move to another products line altogether. At this stage manager of Unilever conduct market analysis to identify need and demand of their organic beauty products. At this respective company decide whether they have to continue with the organic beauty products line with some innovation or they have to introduce or launch new product line which is currently in demand. It is responsibility of management of Unilever to take appropriate decision so that they sustain in marketplace in effective manner. At this stage price of the products get low and company try to survive in market by launching and introducing new unique products. They try to do innovative promotional activities which attract more customers.

As per to earn profitability from new product company has to develop different different strategy according to each process or stage. By this company able to earn profit at every stage and also able to ignore exist situation from market. Such as at introduction stage managers of company design strategies to attract customers and market. At this stage their mainly focus is on promotional activities which help them in increasing their profit and market share. In next stage demand of products is increasing at high speed so at growth stage they focus on their production process and little bit on promotional activities. At maturity stage they reach to the high profitability stage, now they focus on their production and try to introduce new innovation in products which help them in attracting customers. In last at the stage of decline company must make strategies and plan according to situation which help them in sustaining at marketplace for a long time.

Gantt chat

It is a horizontal bar chart which describe graphical description of strategy which help in planning, coordinating and tracking specific task in a particular project (Ramasesh and Browning, 2014). Unilever use Gantt chat to conduct all activities and functions in appropriate manner. In Gantt chat they able to determine time required for completion of each process and functions in effective manner:-

P2 Effectiveness of PLC in application of project

When a company launches a new product or do innovation in a present product, they face various problems and barriers. Whole procedures of launching a new venture take long time, resources, funding, labour and many other things to conduct process in effective manner. Operational managers of an organisation plays important role in conducting whole process (Pemsel and Wiewiora, 2013). The process include various activities such as survey of marketplace, identification of needs and demand of consumers as well as determining their purchasing power, identify appropriate tools and technologies for conducting process and many more. By evaluating all this a manager of an organisation design proper plans and strategies to achieve their goal and fulfil demand of consumers in effective and efficient manner.

To conduct whole task in appropriate manner Unilever use Product Life Cycle analysis, Gantt Chat, Work structure breakdown structure and so on. By using these tools respective company accomplish their goal and objective in effective manner by completing entire activities. By conducting PLC methodologies respective company able to determine time period which is required to launch a product, bring it to market, design promotional activities and time to exit from marketplace. By understanding and analysing all factors managers of respective company design strategies and plans accordingly which enhance their profitability (Beringer, Jonas and Kock, 2013). PLC analysis help respective company to make effective decisions such as Unilever conduct market analysis. By which they able to know requirement of customers, after which they design organic beauty product that attract customers on large basis. The organic beauty product is eco friendly and harmless for users. It also produce less or minimum wastage during its production process. Through PLC analysis this company able to forecast their sales and ratio of succession of their new product in target marketplace, which help them in taking accurate decision regarding product. By this Unilever able to identify its competitive advantage which help them in design products and services in effective manner by using new unique technology. The respective company also design Gantt chat by which they able to determine time period which is required to complete particular task or activity in effective and efficient manner.

References

• Turner, J. R., 2014.Handbook of project-based management(Vol. 92). New York, NY: McGraw-hill.
• Subramanian, N. and Ramanathan, R., 2012. A review of applications of Analytic Hierarchy Process in operations management.International Journal of Production Economics.138(2). pp.215-241.
• Gunasekaran, A. and Ngai, E. W., 2012. The future of operations management: an outlook and analysis.International Journal of Production Economics.135(2). pp.687-701.
• Fleming, Q. W. and Koppelman, J. M., 2016, December. Earned value project management. Project Management Institute.
• Ramasesh, R. V. and Browning, T. R., 2014. A conceptual framework for tackling knowable unknown unknowns in project management.Journal of Operations Management.32(4). pp.190-204.
• Pemsel, S. and Wiewiora, A., 2013. Project management office a knowledge broker in project-based organisations.International Journal of Project Management.31(1). pp.31-42.
• Beringer, C., Jonas, D. and Kock, A., 2013. Behavior of internal stakeholders in project portfolio management and its impact on success.International Journal of Project Management.31(6). pp.830-846.

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