Microsoft Project- The New Manager

Microsoft Project is a unique program that allows for easy and efficient project portfolio management. It gives companies the opportunity to prioritize, manage and collaborate on projects. Teams work together in one location, one program and  can work from any where on any device. Managers have visibility and insight on their team’s project with a single view of all their work. They are able to make decisions on projects and prioritize. Microsoft Project also allows the team to create and customize reports. So would this program be beneficial to my company and my managers? Absolutely! And for one main reason-

I work in the Registration Department with a handful of other Registration Specialists where we work on different accounts, building registration websites and handling the registration process. Our Registration Manager oversees our department by managing our work with each client. At times we can be working on three or four events. Each event consists of different deadlines, such as launch dates, rooming lists due date, attrition cut offs, name badge shipping dates, reminders, IPO follow ups, final confirmations, etc.  Microsoft Project would allow each of us, Registration Specialists to track our progress on every event and deadline while giving our manager the opportunity to supervise all our work in one area. Currently, we have weekly huddle up meetings and one-on-ones with our manager to address the events we are working on. Both meetings are effective and we constantly communicate with our manager on a daily basis to follow up with requests or updates for our programs. We create timelines for ourselves to ensure our work is completed in a timely manner. However, Microsoft Project would give our department a great advantage, we would be able to track our work and ensure we are at the right point in our events by meeting our targets. Our manager can see what needs to be done, prioritize the events that need to be completed and rank the deadlines of all our programs. Microsoft Project would allow our manager to see the overall picture of everyone’s programs, the status of each event and ensure all items are completed. We would fulfill all obligations for every event and would be sure to accommodate all expected deadlines. This would guarantee that we would not lose a client due to an important element being overlooked. Instead, it would help in gaining more revenue for our company as we would always have successful events that would generate our clients to assign more programs to us. 

Reflecting on Pandora

Capgemini Consulting presented Pandora with a number of opportunities for the immediate future and long term prospects. The consultants clearly stated that Pandora:

• Is not effectively monetizing their user base
• Banner advertising is not able to cover the company’s run-rate costs for employee salaries and licensing fees
• High royalties are causing more financial issues
• And if Pandora continues down the same path they will exhaust their cash within the next two years

Capgemini Consulting suggest the following alternatives that would allow Pandora to prosper in the future:

• Change in advertisement structure
• Develop mobile application for iPhone
• Battle royalty fees
• Hire executives for business strategy
• Open Mic
• Rebrand the company
• Globalization

Changing in advertisement structure and battling high royalty fees are immediate actions Pandora can use to aid their company in obtaining a positive cash flow. Although battling Congress in lowering high royalties would certainly solve the majority of the financial problems Pandora is facing, it will also create a burden on the company as legal and court fees are just as high as an expense. However, restructuring Pandora’s advertising strategy is a great idea and would assist in generating more revenue. As the consultants mentioned Pandora is playing the least amount of advertisements on the radio than their competitors. Increasing the current one per an hour advertisements will definitely make a difference and consumers may not even notice a change if it is kept minimal. Some consumers even enjoy advertisements as demonstrated in the Absolut study where listeners enjoyed listing to a fun “going out mix” while Absolut advertised their new Pear-flavored vodka. Also, dveloping a mobile application for the iPhone is also another immediate action and excellent suggestion as mentioned in the first analysis. This would give Pandora a competitive advantage and allow them to give listeners what they want while growing in a technology based society.

Hiring executives to create business strategies and the Open Mic notion are good for short term goals but the right decisions need to be made in order for both to be successful. For example, the right executives need to be hired; experienced and knowledgeable directors need to be found in order for them to plan the right approach for Pandora’s future. Also, the idea of Open Mic could create valuable revenue, increase Pandora’s song base and attract more artist and listeners but this proposal needs to be kept up with, monitored and set up correctly in order to be successful.

Finally, rebranding the company and globalization are long term opportunities that will allow Pandora sustainable growth. Rebranding the company through sharing will definitely have a large impact on the company as social media and online communications are leaving a large impression in the digital world. Pandora does have potential for venturing into international expansion but as mentioned that will need to be a future outlook for the company as it will take time to build their brand, secure licensing, research different countries, incorporate ethnic music and gain the audience of foreign listeners. All of this will take up a lot of time through research and development and will cost Pandora a great deal of financial investment that they do not have at the moment.

Opening Pandora’s Box…for the Future

Tim Westergren, chief strategist and founder of Pandora.com is faced with challenges for the future of his company. Although by December 2007, the company grew to 8 million and online hours grew to 50% year on year the company was still not yet cash-flow positive. However, Pandora is truly becoming a success as it continues to grow, attracts new customers, developed the Music Gnome Project and reaches new levels in the internet radio industry. Westergren is now struggling to keep the dreams of his business in sight while balancing the interest of his various venture capitalists (VC). He is left with a few alternatives but is open to more. The first alternative he contemplated is pulling back on the growth levers like search engine marketing and general marketing expenses, cut back on expanding employment and raise minimal amount of new investment (possibly through acquisition). The second was taking a complete opposite approach, top out the search engine marketing, hire aggressively and take advantage of the first- mover advantage. This second alternative would count on raising a very large round of finance and set its sights much higher.

Pandora faces challenges like a threat on the licensing costs, high royalties, a large number of employee salaries, marketing and advertising expenses and competition from others in the industry (i.e. AM/FM radio, satellite radio, CD sales, digital music like iTunes, etc.). So how is Westergren supposed to allow Pandora to grow and what is the right decision to watch in prosper rather than fail?

Pandora continues down the line of success as it increases their user base. However, its greatest financial challenge, increasing royalties still creates the largest threat to Pandora. What options can the company take to help balance those high royalties? The first option, which actually created some buzz in government were the 1.3 million letters the U.S. Congress received from Pandora users about the increasing royalties. This is not enough to help the company increase revenues to offset the high royalties. Pandora needs to develop a dominant market share to keep the capital rising. Other options Westergren considered were increased spending on marketing, pushing development of a mobile platform and powering viral growth.

Now Westergren is faced with the question- will the investment firms stick with him as Pandora enters a cash-consuming rapid growth period? He needs to ensure his potential new bankers feel the same way as he does about the company growing even with the high expenses and investments that need to be made.

Westergren has a lot on his plate but taking it step by step will ensure he moves the company forward and allows Pandora to continue to succeed. Battling Congress to lower royalties will be much more of a financial burden than actually paying the high prices. His main concern should be increasing revenues to cover the royalties and bring in more to allow the company a positive cash flow. Although, increasing advertising and marketing will bring in more users and more clients to advertise on Pandora it may not bring enough revenue in. Especially, seeing as the increase in advertisement for the company will probably balance out any revenue they bring in from clients that advertise on Pandora. Hiring more staff will only increase expenses and cutting back on staff will only jeopardize the company. Westergren has found an alternative that could certainly change the future of Pandora. Pushing development of a mobile platform will cost the company during research and development but seeing as this is what customers are looking for and want, it will give Pandora that competitive advantage and attract users to stay with them while attracting new users.  

Reflecting on Bombardier

Dynamic Consultants did an excellent job while presenting Bombardier’s best practices for a third attempt to implement an ERP system. They presented best practices and areas of improvements for four key areas, executive management, project management, knowledge transfer and adoption, which were reflected from Bombardier’s second attempt in implementing ERP. They rated each best practice on a red, yellow or green scale in which the yellow best practices demonstrated in the second attempt need a little work and the red rated practices from the second attempt certainly need improvement. With that said the following were best practices that the consultants rated in yellow and red, coincidentally some of these items that were also noted as needing attention in the first analysis (blog) of Bombardier’s ERP Implementation.

Yellow:

• Executive Management should remain actively involved throughout the implementation.
• Create a project organization structure to provide planning and quick response for decision making, issues management as well as aggressive project management processes.
• Ensure proper management that distinguishes best-in-class ERP implementation. Have a dedicated project manager who is involved in both planning and ongoing management.
• Define, understand, map and prioritize key business requirements and processes.
• Create a Prerequisite End User Skills Education Plan to develop end users.
• Use of consultants limited to facilitation.

Red:

• The project team composition should represent all functional areas where the software will be implemented. Each functional area should be adequately resourced to ensure that ‘backfills’ are in place to release key team participants.
• Develop your own success criteria and expectations.
• Create Training Staffing Plan to customize facilitation of ERP systems.
• Create a Training Delivery Plan to develop proper content and training logistics.
• A Curriculum Matrix will provide a visual snapshot of end user progress.
• A separate Training Budget is vital to ensure support throughout implementation.
• Conduct a phased-rollout of the new ERP system.
• Change of administrative processes to fit the software.

After hearing the thoughts from the Dynamic Consultants on each best practice it is clear that their suggestions are accurate and should be followed. The items listed above in bold were overlooked in the first analysis (blog) of Bombardier and should definitely be considered during the third implementation. The consultants covered those best practices and provided the company with feedback that should and need to be reflected during the third attempt at implementing the ERP system for Bombardier. Two very significant areas of concern that were identified in the first analysis (blog) of Bombardier’s implementation of an ERP system and rated red as needing major improvements by Dynamic Consultants were the going live phase and training for the implementation. The consultants shared valuable best practices that will have a great impact during the third implementation if followed.