Work Breakdown for CRM Laptop Project

1. Development of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for this project

As per the case, a UK-based company that has 12 employees is planning to provide the high quality laptops to all employees with new CRM software for managing the customer lead and relationship. This project would take near to 4 month and would be completed till May 2021. In the proposed project of laptop acquisition with CRM software, the project manager will follow below mentioned the Work Breakdown Structure:

SMART Objectives

To reduce the number of customer complaints with new CRM system by 10% within one years

To complete the laptop and CRM acquisition project within next 4 months

To improve the efficiency of employees associated with the customer relationship management by 20% within one year

To increase the revenue of the firm by 10% in next one year.

To achieve the laptop acquisition budget till the completion of project.

Planning: In the planning phase, the project manager evaluates the needs and requirements of employees along with contemporary trends in the technologies. In this context of present section, the project team determines the basic configuration of CRM software along with laptops. Moreover, the project manager also presents the budget for the acquisition of laptops and CRM software. In addition to that, the project terms and quality standard are also determined in this stage. These factors play a key role in the project planning (Devi and Reddy, 2012).

Execution and Closure: The third stage is associated with the project execution in which the project manager is going to take appropriate measures to execute the project plan. In this part, the project will manage the communication with suppliers and developers and would request to provide their proposals to meet distinct business requirements. After that, the project manager would accept the proposals from suppliers that would a variety of information such as product specification, pricing, cost of installation, warranty and maintenance, and others. By evaluating the proposals of different suppliers and developers, the project manager will consider the most appropriate supplier and will make the purchase or installation orders. In this section, the project manager also determines the payment and other terms conditions (Zecheru and Olaru, 2016). The project team will receive the order or laptop along with installation of CRM would be taken place. After that, the testing team will test the laptop and software with reference to predetermined standards. After analysing the test results, final approval of the payment will be made as per the schedule.

2. Usage of the artificial intelligence in businesses

a. Briefly explaining this business technology

In the context of contemporary business environment, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gained a significant popularity in different business application including automation of business operations, application of different measures of data analytics, and information process. It supports companies in streamlining business operations and improving the business efficiencies (Tkachenko, Kuzior and Kwilinski, 2019). AI refers to a systematic simulation of human intelligence in machines which are programmed to mimic the human actions. Moreover, it would provide a significant support in influencing the corporate learning and solving different business problems. In the regards, different companies use different AI technologies that are aligned to support the data management, fraud detection, increased safety of organizational systems and others. For example, Unilever Plc developed its own AI-based platform that would be focused to support different data and information management tasks in the form of big data analytics and others. The Unilever Plc gets the information from various internal and external sources so as AI-Based data analytics would support the Unilever Plc in management the data to carry out demand forecasting and to provide the easy access of the information (Davenport and Ronanki, 2018).

b. Key advantages of using this technology

AI-based business system would be found very effective to influence or boost the organizational efficiency through data modelling and analytics, information processing, increased communication, protection of computer-based system, and automation of organizational system.

AI-based system supports companies to achieve epic breakthroughs in which machine learning and AI has enabled organization for overcoming the blind spot.

AI-based chatbots are capable for providing a shorter response time along with better interaction quality that would provide an appropriate assistance to companies for increasing the customer loyalty and to attract new customers (Zeng and Duan, 2012).

AI-based system would enhance the capability of the business entity in order to influence automation of both service delivery and production operations.

c. Key disadvantages of using this technology

The application of AI-based system is being termed as expensive approach due to the high cost of installation and maintenance.

The increase in the business automation could enhance the company’s dependencies on the technologies that could reduce the potentials of staff members who are employed at different job positions (Brynjolfsson, Rock and Syverson, 2017).

The application of AI-system hampers the employment opportunity because some employees could find the loss of the job. However, it would create different types of highly-skilled jobs.

3. Explaining the difference between Top-down and Bottom-up project estimation with recommendation

In the context of project planning and estimation, different project managers consider different tactics of the project estimation to maximise the efficiency of the project plan. The Top-down estimation is initiated with some form of overall result that would be applied to consider a set of different tasks. In this context, if a project resembles the prior work then the estimator is going to consider different components through which the estimator can fill in the cost blanks (Heyden and et.al., 2017). On the other hand, the bottom-up estimates rely on a systematic aggregating of all types of individual costs of a project to determine the overall cost of the particular project plan. In the context of accuracy and time, the application of top-down approach would support the estimator in order to draw a well-documented project plan by taking different relevant examples from the company’s past projects so as the project manager could manage the quick estimation for determining the future business potentials. It has been considered as the quick approach. On the other hand, the application of bottom-up estimates can become a time-consuming process when a project remains in potential flux and many parameters are required to be achieved in which a project manager has to consider different details in an efficient manner. Moreover, the bottom-up estimation has found a more accurate approach in the project management because it relies on the real numbers that have been considered in different tactics of project planning and execution. However, the project estimator may find several holes and gaps in the completion of the project plan as per the predetermined schedule. In addition to that this approach is failed to consider to manage the rework (Colin and Vanhoucke, 2015). The top down approach seems less costly as compared to bottom-up equivalents because it works on the past data.

Therefore, a project manager should consider the bottom-up estimation because it would find more reliable and practical to apply in the contemporary project management practices. This approach provides a great support in estimation of project duration and cost in an accurate by evaluating the cost and time duration of each package or project operation so as the project manager can manage the better control over the project execution. It uses different parameters that could support the project manage in the cost planning and selection of an appropriate schedule of activities.

Reference

Brynjolfsson, E., Rock, D., and Syverson, C. (2017). Artificial intelligence and the modern productivity paradox: A clash of expectations and statistics (No. w24001). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Colin, J., and Vanhoucke, M. (2015). A comparison of the performance of various project control methods using earned value management systems. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(6), 3159-3175.

Heyden, M. L., Fourné, S. P., Koene, B. A., Werkman, R., and Ansari, S. (2017). Rethinking ‘top‐down’and ‘bottom‐up’roles of top and middle managers in organizational change: Implications for employee support. Journal of Management Studies, 54(7), 961-985.

Tkachenko, V., Kuzior, A., and Kwilinski, A. (2019). Introduction of artificial intelligence tools into the training methods of entrepreneurship activities. Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 22(6), 1-10.

Zecheru, V., and Olaru, B. G. (2016). Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in Project Management. Review of International Comparative Management/Revista de Management Comparat International, 17(1).

Zeng, L., Li, L., and Duan, L. (2012). Business intelligence in enterprise computing environment. Information Technology and Management, 13(4), 297-310.