Introduction - Project Management Challenges and Opportunities
Project management is necessary to manage the functioning of the project and run it smoothly. The completion of a project has to go through different challenges and it faces different crises. Thus, it is necessary to adopt effective project management tactics. The adoption of efficient techniques to manage the project helps to strengthen the project. It also supports to use of strengths to lessen the influence of weaknesses and utilize opportunities effectively. Along with project management, continuity management is another factor, which is needed to be managed effectively. Every organization across the world adopts effective management tactics to maintain the quality of the project and run it smoothly. In Capgemini, Egypt, and other countries, the adoption of effective project management tactics and methods is observed. The integration between project management and continuity management is necessary for meeting crises and maintaining the smoothness of the project. All these support to manage the project effectively and face the distaste and risks.
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Relationship between project management and business continuity management of Capgemini
Capgemini's newest and growing global delivery center brings together strategic business services and technology to solve complex problems as well as deliver end-to-end solutions. The strategic business services leverage deep sector knowledge, technical specialists, and consulting expertise. Egypt and the MENA region offer huge potential for organizations seeking to expand beyond mature and developed markets of the northern hemisphere (Alves et al. 2021). The total population of the region is around 100 million and it is the third-largest economy after Saudi Arabia. The GDP rate of the country reached 3.6% in 2020 and the rate increased to 5% in the year 2022. Business continuity management is one type of risk management that is mainly designed to understand threats related to disruption. Project management is basically the application of processes as well as objectives that help to detect the proper criteria of the project. Capgemini Consulting has developed a business continuity plan with the integration of project management to improve its productivity rate.
The company follows Maslow's hierarchy theory to understand the social conditions and demands of consumers. The needs of the hierarchy are often applied in the workplace to motivate employees and help to improve the productivity rate of the company. Capgemini generated revenues of€10,688 million in the year 2022. The theory helps to maintain daily operations related to a project and detect the risks to the business. The potential of risks, preparation for actual occurrence, and providing mitigation measures are part of BCP or business continuity planning.
Challenges in project management and continuity management
The company faced challenges related to a hybrid workforce and 97% of employees want to do remote work after the pandemic situation. The different time zone is another challenge for the company and employees are faced with huge pressure from the different zone of time. Proper team management is another biggest problem because the manager has to handle the work process of remote employees. Resources issues and high complexities face by the company due to the huge pandemic situation (Marnada et al. 2021). The company used various theories as well as business tools to improve the condition of the organization. The company applied the BCP approach and jointly set up a customized tool to understand the risk during the time of the integration process. The company makes proper business strategies with three collaborative workshops and the consulting industry of Capgemini is part of the plan.
The company applied 10P's theory to resolve the risk factors and product, planning, procurement, people, procedures, prevention, and protection are the important factors of the theory. The company understands the risk factors with the help of risk catalogs made by the experts of the company from previous experiences (Van Tam et al. 2021). The second workshop helped to evaluate the risks and suggested allocating relevant resources to remove the risks. The company used the BCP tool and monitoring process to improve the productivity rate.
Role of management of the company due to crisis in Egypt or the MENA region
Capgemini's intelligent automation platform is IT and business operation delivery services that provide intelligent automation to reap maximum value across entire operations. The platform contains 600 clients globally and it supports 30000 automation professionals as well as experts with an automation-first mindset. The company faced resources as well as team management-related crises in the Egypt region. The company contains approximately 358400 employees in the whole world and the global rank is 524. The company applied innovative business tools as well; such as a digital communication tool to remove the problem related to communication (Azadegan et al. 2022). Gmail, Skype, as well as Google Meet, are the few communication tools that help to manage communication crises. The managers are provided a fixed time for meetings and meetings through digital tools to help to understand the actual strategies of the company.
Cognitive behavioral theory is applied by the manager of the company to understand the behavior of each employee. Proper communication helps to improve relationships between managers as well as employees. The significance of communication is well understood by the manager with the help of cognitive behavioral theory (Rumman, 2022). The theory helps to detect the actual demand of employees with the help of their behavior. Various business tools help to remove resource-related problems. Communication can improve the relationship with suppliers and resource-related problems are easily solved with the help of these powerful strategies.
Theory for better management practices
Proper understanding and application of the best practices from workplace management theories can help to make an effective team in the organization. The theories helped to improve the productivity rate and the decision-making process became simpler with the help of the theories. Collaboration power can be increased with the help of the management-related theory. Objectivity and business goals are properly maintained with the help of effective management theory. Capgemini basically follows scientific management theory to increase the productivity rate in the company. The theory helps to rebuild the goal of leaders and clear the vision of the company (Alharthi and Khalifa, 2019). According to the theory proper skill, as well as the abilities of a leader, help to improve the productivity rate of the company. The theory helps to achieve an efficient workplace with optimal procedures.
The individual tasks of employees are properly divided with the help of this theory. Multinational companies contain various projects and managers have to divide the task as per the capability of employees. Proper understanding of the special skills of employees is a big responsibility of the manager (P?unescu and Argatu, 2020). Scientific management theory helps to identify special skills of employees and divide tasks as per the condition of the project. The decision-making process is another big responsibility of managers and the theory helps to improve the critical thinking process of managers.
Failure and opportunities of the project management of Capgemini
The project management faces different issues, which lead to the deterioration of the quality of the project and affect it. On the other hand, it gets diverse opportunities, which are supportive to lead the project toward success. The failure of the project is dependent upon different factors. Those factors lead deterioration of the quality of the project and cause delays, which results in the failure of the project. Many external and internal factors lead to new opportunities, which support strengthening the quality of the project and making it more innovative and attractive. The factors that bring opportunities for project management are the effective utilization of resources, support from the stakeholders, technical innovation, and many others. All these help to manage the project effectively and get adequate results (capgemini.com, 2023). On the other hand, crises and risks in a project lead to the failure of the project. The project management at Capgemini got different opportunities, but there were some factors which laid a negative impact on this. Hence, it is necessary to analyze the factors and adopt effective strategies to mitigate those issues and complete the project successfully.
Failure of Data-Driven Projects
Ermakova et al. (2021), in a study, revealed that data science has failed to deliver business values in a significant way despite substantial investments. Specific challenges of data-driven projects result in the failure of the project. The literature suggests that a lack of understanding of the context of the business and the needs of the user created this issue. The quality of data also affected the project management strategies along with the problem of accessing data. Lack of confidence in the executives influences the failure of the data-driven project of the company (capgemini.com, 2023). It also affected the decision-making process of the company, which directly affected the project management system. Apart from that, inappropriate data, lack of support from management, communication gaps among the team members, changes in a management function, and lack of determination of goals gave rise to the failure of the data-driven projects (Hyers, 2020). Capgemini focuses more on tools, not the process, which is another influencing factor in the failure of project management.
Product failure for high technology manufacturer
Capgemini analyzes the reasons for failure in product outcomes to offer a better solution to maintain its reputation. The clients of the company wanted to understand the end-of-life product failure rate and timing for several key products. The revenue challenge is another important issue for the company (González Muñoz, 2022). The clients wanted to build a campaign for marketing that would concern the replacement of equipment. It was predicted in the near term the failure of the end-of-life of the products. The collaboration of the client and the company to analyze product failure systems offers precision timing and network synchronization services and products. Capgemini analyzes the data of the clients to understand the customer preferences towards purchase. It also paid attention by using equipment failure data to perform in-depth analysis. The project management of the company built a predictive model based on existing data and statistical techniques to examine data patterns (Sakka et al. 2023). It helped the company's management to suggest proper recommendations with the help of statistical results. It suggested the value of key products and customers that should be the focus of marketing initiatives.
The project management of Capgemini, UK practices different ways to increase the functional impact on the business. The management concerns project tracking, program governance, program communication, project integration, resource management, financial management, quality management, knowledge management, and so on. Digitization created a positive impact on project management and provides the opportunity to gather and analyze the data with the help of advanced tools and technologies (Rowland and Porter, 2021). Independent programs under skilled leadership influence the capacity of the management of Capgemini. Different business strategies offer strength to the company and influence value-driven projects, programs, and portfolio management.
Scientific Management Theory
Scientific management theory deals with the improvement of the workforce's efficiency and effectiveness. Capgemini might gain advantages with the help of this theory. This theory helps the company to identify the internal issues that affect the operational performance of the company (Nica, 2019). This would help the project management system resolve the issues to satisfy the client's expectations. The theory reflects the principles of Tylor which includes "science, not rule of thumb", "harmony, not discord", and "cooperation, not individualism". Scientific management helps to apply scientific techniques in the functioning of Capgemini to gain a competitive advantage. Cooperation among the members of the teams helps to reduce the internal issues that might cause the risks of projects (Merkle, 2022). It provides opportunities by providing different scientific techniques to increase the operational efficiencies and effectiveness of project management.
Human Relation Theory
The company has a history of working with clients to identify different issues of project failure. It might help the company to identify the client's perspectives and feedback to remove the weakness of Capgemini and its project management system. This theory focuses on employee and stakeholder satisfaction to increase productivity. In the case of Capgemini, project management concerns the knowledge, skills, and creativity of employers to reduce failure and increase the opportunity to run a successful project management system (Marchi, 2022). The hierarchy of project management continuously encourages and motivates the teams to increase the effectiveness of the project. These strategies help the company to reduce the rate of project failure or other data-related issues. The employee performance and support of the clients help the company to gain opportunities and remove threats from the project management system that influence the business development of the company.
Recommendation
Recommendation 1: Communication development with clients
It can be recommended that Capgemini improve its relationship with its clients along with its employees to reduce the chance of failure of project management. Improving relationships offers an opportunity for the company to run an effective and efficient management system.
Recommendation: Use of strategic management plans
It can be recommended that with the help of strategic plans, the company can be able to increase the primary sales opportunities. Strategic management plans and their implications influence to increase the opportunities to gain success in projects by reducing the risks of failure.
Recommendation: Use of advanced technologies
It can be recommended that the use of advanced tools and technologies with new logical ideas can help the management of Capgemini to analyze the project management failure issues and opportunities. It helps the management to resolve the identified issues in the future to achieve better results for the projects (Kiseleva et al. 2020). The statistical analysis evaluates the different reasons for the failure of project management. Thus, by increasing the knowledge and practices of the statistical tools Capgemini might eliminate the risks of project management.
Recommendation: Authentication of data
It can be recommended that Capgemini appoint specialists to collect and analyze the authentic data to avoid project failure. The data should be collected from authentic sources to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the project management of the company.
Problems faced by the region
Social unrest, economic turmoil, and natural disasters are some of the issues that have been faced by the region of MENA in recent years. The success of any project is significantly doubtful in these crises, especially in organizations that are project-oriented (Abylova and Salykova, 2019). Effective project management can help in mitigating the crisis that is being faced by the region. There is an opportunity for integrating the practices of project management with business continuity management (BCM) in effectively approaching the management of the crisis (capgemini.com, 2023). The region is prone to extreme levels of political instability, which is a threat to the company "Capgemini" to install their project management practices. The focus of this essay will be to understand the critical success factors of the integration of project management practices with the BCM (Shamim, 2022). The essay will understand the new areas where theories related to success factors can be implemented to prevent the project from failure and enhance the outcomes of the project.
Key success factors in project management
The critical success factors need to be looked at through a paradigm that starts with the component of deliverables. This is followed by tracking the key performance indicators (KPIs) and managing all the elements through a proper design (Iriarte and Bayona, 2020). These critical factors are important to recognize as they help the project managers of the company to facilitate proper communication among the various stakeholders. It also helps in monitoring the changes and scope for any related threats. It helps in identifying and prioritizing tasks and goals. Allocation of resources can also be identified by following the critical success factors. The last and most important is the removal of all the bottlenecks in the sharing of knowledge and information (Jitpaiboon et al. 2019). All these factors effectively help in determining the success of the project and opportunities for implementation in such crisis areas.
The company is analyzing all the deliverables and responsibilities that need to be followed to reach the ultimate solution of the project plan. The region is quite unstable and hence the company needs to follow a certain project management strategy to deal with this crisis and underline the important areas that have the opportunity for successive development (Oh and Choi, 2020). There is a need to accurately define the project goals and communicate with all the other stakeholders. This will; help in making the project goals more relevant and time-bound. The next best strategy is to understand the scope of the project and create a work breakdown structure (WBS). This will effectively create task independence and set a proper priority goal.
Communication is the key to the success of the project
The company may face various problems during the initial progress of the project. This is due to the instability of the region and years of constant political and social stress that the region has faced in recent decades (Pacagnella et al. 2019). Communication is the only key to facing the dynamic situation of the market and understanding the need for applying specific tools in the region. This will help in managing the risks and building a profound relationship with the other team members. The company is thinking of expanding its base in the region and for that, it needs to build an enhanced communication base with the local business market and understand the skills of the people. This will help the company in mapping the key issues that the company may face in the initial phase of the establishment (Unterhitzenberger and Bryde, 2019). It will also help in understanding the root cause of the problem and adopting proper management solutions like Project Central to integrate all the factors in one centralized tool.
Proper communication will help in the identification of the key stakeholders and establishing the responsibilities of each one of them. The company will need to outline the communication methods that are relevant to the region and convey them to the top management (Nunes and Abreu, 2020). The integration of the project management system and the BCP can only be possible with the establishment of an effective communication channel. This one basic crucial factor has the potential to create numerous responsibilities and threats for the initial phase of any project management plan.
Integration of project management system for better result
The integration of the management system helps streamline the communication process and maintain a balance between the internal systems of the organization. It helps accelerate the flow of information within the various levels of the organization and reduces the overall cost of operation (Jitpaiboon et al. 2019). Thus it will prove to be very beneficial when considered for such regions where there has been instability for decades. The demands of the stakeholders are balanced and the expectations of the clients are fulfilled by following a proper management system. It coordinates the information among all the elements of the project and helps in delivering the project on time. An integrated system will help the company reduce the overall documentation process and create consistent objectives across multiple systems (Pacagnella et al. 2019). It creates competitive and strategic goals for the company and helps them to face any crisis.
The implementation of the management system helps in improving the availability and accessibility of the data and eliminates any changes o duplication. This creates a unique data system that is synced across multiple systems and boosts the level of efficiency of the production process (Iriarte and Bayona, 2020). Implementation is very important for improving the performance of the business and that too when applied in crisis areas. The embedding of safe and sustainable practices can only be done by following an integrated project management system. It determines the success of the project beforehand and helps in transforming the strategic plans into real actions. This will help the company maintain agility and better engagement with the customer (Nunes and Abreu, 2020). The company needs to identify the real threats and opportunities before implementing any project management theories.
Motivate the project team and encourage teamwork for successful project management
The success of a project is also dependent upon the team members. It is necessary for a manager to adopt effective techniques to motivate the team members. The motivated team members lead to give better performance and keep themselves engaged with that project. It also leads them to give their complete effort for the success of the project (Ali et al. 2021). Employee motivation is possible by giving compliments, gifts, opportunities, and career development options. This leads the team members to work efficiently and bring innovative ideas, which supports the success of the project. It also leads to completing the project within time and improves the working environment in the organization (Alvarenga et al. 2019). Along with that, it is also necessary to encourage the employee to develop teamwork and bring collaboration into the workplace. It leads to bringing innovation in the workplace and encourages to bring creative work.
Management of project risk
The development of a project goes through different risks due to external and internal factors. The development of the project needs to identify the risks and mitigate those risks effectively. It needs to assess the risks and implement effective strategies. The project risks include issues with finance, supply chain, resources, and employees (George, 2020). The adoption of effective strategies and proper planning support to face this crisis. Along with that, it also requires preparing a budget and project plan for the success of the project. Hence, it is necessary to manage the project successfully and gain a better result.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the adoption of effective strategies and the implantation of innovative techniques lead to the success of a project. It is also necessary to have an efficient project management technique and skills to complete a project successfully. It is found that the relationship between project management and business continuity management is necessary for the development of the business. The project management in Capgemini faced different challenges while maintaining effective relationships between these. An effective management style is necessary for every business organization across the world. The adoption of effective management tactics supported the organizations in the MENA region and Egypt to meet the crisis. Along with that, the adoption of effective theory is supported to enhance management practices. It faced different issues and challenges, but the adoption of proper strategies supported its success. It also supported mitigating the risks and facing the issues to make the project successful and get better outcomes. Despite that, it has recommended some strategic implementation to improve the management of the project.
References
Book
Merkle, J.A., 2022. Management and Ideology: The legacy of the international scientific management movement. Univ of California Press.
Journals
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