Introduction
Liberty Travel is a renowned travel and vacation service retailer with over 2,000 employees operating across several strategic positions in the United States. The company’s loyal customer base has entered new markets in unexplored locations, making it a well-known trade and leisure services provider (Kerzner, 2022). Liberty Travel plans a North American delivery service to expand its reach and boost returns. Success requires careful planning. This essay emphasizes the importance of considering market research data when conducting make-or-buy analysis during procurement, using various tools and techniques to ensure task execution’s success, and recognizing international factors—such as cultural differences or linguistic barriers—as part of relevantan’s risk reduction measures. In order to achieve long-term success with the Liberty Travel Project, it is crucial to carefully consider the many small details that make up the overall plan.
Statement of Work (SOW)
Liberty Travel aims to be a top parcel courier. The $33 million initiative will help the corporation expand across North America. The organization plans fast and affordable domestic and international courier services. More operational clients indicate project success. The firm will lease and utilize existing facilities. As the project proceeds, more individuals will be hired to join the project team. Customers want faster parcel and courier services, which have grown in popularity. Liberty Travel will debut the service in the U.S. before expanding to Canada and adjacent countries. While there are projected expenses and threats, the advantages of launching the service will reinforce Liberty Travel’s competitiveness. The company will need to venture into interrelated business sectors to widen its scope of services.
Stakeholder Analysis
The courier service project involves both internal and external stakeholders, with the internal stakeholders being the business owners and service team, while the external stakeholders include customers, courier service personnel, and officials who oversee policies and laws. The project’s success depends on the involvement of all stakeholders, with varying levels of interest depending on their authority. Managing workers while ensuring customers remain satisfied to achieve project success is crucial.
Procurement Documents
Procurement management is an essential component of project management, involving planning, executing, and supervising the acquisition of necessary goods and services. Liberty Travel may use market research and source selection documents to identify possible suppliers, evaluate their capabilities, and determine competitive pricing (Munyimi, 2019). A make-or-buy analysis determines whether a project should produce its required goods or services or instead buy them. Compliance with established principles is crucial to secure fairness in execution and maximal investment returns. Procurement management is an essential component of project management, involving planning, executing, and supervising the acquisition of necessary goods and services. Liberty Travel may use market research and source selection documents to identify possible suppliers, evaluate their capabilities, and determine competitive pricing. A make-or-buy analysis determines whether a project should produce its required goods or services or instead buy them (Munyimi, 2019). The procurement process for Liberty Travel’s parcel courier service will require three mandatory documents: Request for Proposal (RFP), Request for Quotation (RFQ), and Request for Information (RFI). The RFP will communicate the company’s needs to prospective suppliers, while the RFQ will be used to request supplier quotes. The RFI will be used to gather more information about the suppliers for shortlisting and bidding purposes. Other documents that will be used include requests for bids, purchase order documents, contracts, and trader proposals.
Traceability Matrix
The Traceability Matrix for Liberty Travel will adopt bi-directional traceability throughout the project’s lifecycle by utilizing forward and backward matrices to manage the project effectively. The matrix will ensure that all necessities are catered for, and every step undertaken can be easily traced, containing accurate and authentic details regarding the project’s accomplishment. The company will need to trace the program for validating and tracking orders, designing login details specific to workers, and creating a tracking system to communicate with delivery vehicles and airlines transporting the parcels. I.T. project managers ensure software updates, while workers and project managers can access the software and tracing programs (Kerzner, 2022). Workers can use the tracking software for parcel conveyance.
Project Management Plan
The project team will work collaboratively to ensure that all cities in selected zones have accessible parcel stores. The project will last two years and cost $33 million, headed by three project managers overseeing different zones of the U.S. and neighboring nations. Liberty Travel will use emails, online conferences, and instant messaging to ensure traceability and communication. A risk management team will detect and handle risk factors throughout the project. The WBS involves constructing stores, placing orders for package transportation, setting up communication systems, recruiting skilled workers, and designing a collaborative website (Eby, 2018). The project team estimates that completing all project deliverables will cost $33 million. The team will ensure that expenses for each project deliverable are within budget and that materials are procured from vendors who offer expedient bids and can supply materials without disrupting the project timeline. The project team will eliminate defects to reduce quality expenses, plan effectively, train workers, and frequently review project quality. The total project budget is $33 million, with a 10% management reserve of $3 million and a 3% contingency reserve of $900,000. Expenses will primarily include capital resources.
Control Procurements
The control procurements process involves overseeing procurement relationships, ensuring contract fulfillment, and implementing necessary changes to achieve project objectives (Munyimi, 2019). For Liberty Travel, this includes regulating contract alterations, managing payment systems, and administering claims. The payment system should track modifications made to agreements while adjusting compensation suitably, while the administration of claims should guarantee prompt and fair resolution. Maintaining positive relationships with suppliers and conducting regular audits to ensure compliance is also essential. Effective monitoring and compliance can be achieved through payment modes, claims, regulation policies, and contract adaptation provisions (Munyimi, 2019).
Risk Management Strategies
Effective communication with online meetings and constant access to project details is crucial. Risk management involves identifying, evaluating, and reacting to threats, using approaches such as brainstorming, sensitivity evaluation, probability analysis, and the Delphi technique. An RBS is created to classify risks, factors, and issues. Business, managerial, technical, and project management are the risk categories, with related elements that can affect project success. Competitors are an example of business risk that could adversely affect the project (Zhou & Wang, 2022). Liberty Travel will use a risk register to identify and manage potential threats impacting the project’s objectives. The project team will evaluate different choices using a decision-making tree to assess risks and determine the likelihood of success. Positive threats will be exploited to their full potential, while harmful threats will be mitigated or avoided altogether. The risk management team may share or bypass risks with third parties to ensure the project’s success and safeguard against potential impacts.
International Project Considerations
The international project considerations for Liberty Travel are many and varied. There are language barriers, cultural differences, legal regulations, and risk management practices to consider. When executing projects outside the United States, the company must also consider differences in time zones, work hours, and local holidays (Müller et al., 2019). Visa, tax, and employment rules also affect procurement management. Liberty Travel must create a clear human resources and international strategy to handle these concerns. This plan should cover information transmission, cultural diversity education, legal compliance, and risk avoidance. Finally, Liberty Travel should investigate worldwide benchmarks and best practices to ensure consistent and effective project execution.
References
Eby, K. (2018, October 12). All About Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) | Smartsheet. Smartsheet. https://www.smartsheet.com/getting-started-work-breakdown-structures-wbs
Kerzner, H. (2022). Innovation Project Management: Methods, Case Studies, and Tools for Managing Innovation Projects | Wiley. Wiley.com. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Innovation+Project+Management%3A+Methods%2C+Case+Studies%2C+and+Tools+for+Managing+Innovation+Projects-p-9781119587293
Müller, R., Drouin, N., & Sankaran, S. (2019). Modeling Organizational Project Management. Project Management Journal, 50(4), 499–513. https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972819847876
Munyimi, T. F. (2019). The role of procurement quality controls in procurement performance in the energy sector in Zimbabwe. Cogent Engineering, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311916.2019.1631563
Project Management Institute. (2022). Amazon.com: A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Seventh Edition and The Standard for Project Management (ENGLISH): 9781628256642: Project Management Institute: Books. Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Project-Management-Knowledge-PMBOK%C2%AE/dp/1628256648
Zhou, Z., & Wang, X. (2022). Discussions on Project Management and Its Success: A Comprehensive Theoretical Review. Scientific and Social Research, 4(2), 30–35. https://doi.org/10.26689/ssr.v4i2.3638
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