The Irish government and project failure

Briefly Research a public sector project. Describe the project and suggest why it failed with reference to the Lars Mieritz "Gartner Survey Shows Why Projects Fail" article. 

The project I have chosen to discuss is the new children’s hospital which is currently being built on the St. James hospital site. This project has yet to be completed but will already be deemed a failure on the following grounds.

·         Will finish over budget

·         Not completed in the projected time scale.

·         Not all amenities which where required will operate as planned.

Gartner describes the above as some of the main reason as to why projects fail. I will now demonstrate how each of the above apply to the project I have chosen.

 The plan for the new children's hospital began almost 33 years. Applying the time scale element to the project, it was first reported that the new hospital would be built in 2015, however in 2012 An Board Pleánala refused planning permission for the site at the Mater hospital. Since then the site has moved to St. Jameses hospital. Leo Varadkar announced that the hospital would open in 2020, however this has now been pushed back until August 2022.

In order for a project to be deemed successful it is also required that the budget comes in within the budget allocation. Yet again the Irish Government have displayed their poor project management of the hospital. Originally the project was set to cost €790 million, yet most recently the project now looks set to cost in the region of €1.4 billion.

As Gartner says “Many large projects fail because business conditions keep changing after the project scope has been set, leaving a significant disconnect between the agreed-on scope and budget versus what the business will require and pay for by the time the project is delivered”.  The Irish Government have done exactly this. Perhaps the case could be argued that the Government are perhaps not as careful as they would be if it was their own business.

If we look at some of the amenities that the hospital where to have, one of which was to have a Helicopter pad on site for emergencies. This will be located on the fourth floor but unfortunately the coast guards helicopter is too heavy and will have to land at least a mile away where an ambulance will finish the journey. This could have been avoided if the green field site at Connolly hospital had of been chosen.

If we look at what is known as the triple constraint two of the key elements of project management is time scale and cost, both of which the Irish government have failed to manage.

It would seem the Government have also lacked adequate planning for this project. Far better options where available and which would have eliminated the parking issue which will arise in the new children's hospital, ease of access, all which cause for needless stress at a time where calm is of the essence. Perhaps the government should look at outsourcing future projects and leave them in the hands of those who will look out for the interests of the entire country,

Going forward the government should as stated by Gartner

“ need to be aware of and address changes in the environment, and understand that cost, scope and schedule are not weighted equally. By maintaining close ties to sponsors and stakeholders, and being upfront regarding the trade-offs between functionality scope and schedule, expectations can be re-calibrated on an ongoing basis, thus improving success rates.”

supply chain

One of the first developments in the supply chain was that of EDI (electronic data interchange). EDI  is a computer to computer based exchange that works with documents that can help reduce cost, increase processing speed, reduced errors and improve relationships with business partners. This is simply system can help is easily explained with the below diagrams. Diagram one shows the traditional old style way of ordering buying/ordering stock and the paper work process that it follows..

(Diagram 1)

Having an EdI system can allow documents to flow straight through to the appropriate application on the receiver’s computer (the Order Management System) and processing can begin immediately while eliminating the humon error that may occur in the manual process.

(Diagram 2) 

More recently retails giant Marks and Spencer’s have implemented a Microsoft.net infrastructure that collects transnational data from the tills during the day. This information was then sent to the central data warehouse within 10 minutes of the sale being processed. This helped improve both sales forecasting and reporting. M&S also combine MUWS (multi-user warehouse system) with the .net infrastructure to allowing stores to view real time stock availability.  This will mean over time that M&S will be able to visibly see what stock is on what trailer and will have the possibility to re-routs stock to busier stores to meet the demand and ensure customer satisfaction is met at all times in all stores.. 

How to get customer insights?

If only we had the ability to think like our customers even better still, to be able to realise who our target audience really are and what demographic they are in. The truth is we have so much readily available data about or customers or potential customers that we can gather valuable information and use it to target them with a particular product or service. Think about it, not a day passes where the majority of people haven’t spent time on the internet leaving a trail of information behind them as they venture in the online world. This data should be gathered analysed and used to the benefit of an organisation. There are so many analytic tools at your disposal that you can take advantage off. I will now list some of the most valuable analytic tools that as a marketer you could use.

You tube analytics: To find out who your real audience is, click on the ‘demographics tab’, here you’ll find information about the location and age of the people who watch your videos. Once you know who your audience is, you will be able to produce more personalised content that caters to their needs and increases conversions. You can also gain some information as to at what stage to people turn your videos off. In this instance you can have a pop up that directs them to your website ten seconds or so before the estimated time of departures.

Google trends: Using google trends you can see if your assumptions about the interests of your customers are correct. Take for example the rise in the makeup industry. Your marketing team could use Google analytics to see what makeup videos are trending. Google trends will also show you the most popular searched topics in your niche. Once you have decided on what areas or topics your customers wants to know more information on you can create and target them with the appropriate video or advertisement. Google trends can provide essential customer insights if used correctly. 

Google analytics: Google analytics is one of the most popular analytics tools on the market. It has the possibility to track the traffic of your website along with the performance of various web pages. One of the best benefits of Google analytics is the Goal funnel option. This is really important for those involved in E-commerce. Goal funnel provides all the URL links that the customer clicks through when making a purchase. This provides you with the information of how many people are actual going through the process. More importantly it will show you the stages that people are abandoning the purchase which can provide you with the data needed to improve the stages and steps needed to make a purchase.

Social Mention: Social mention is a free real time tool that allows you to monitor your performance on social media. It monitors and gathers all the social media mentions of your brand into a single stream which include hashtags. It gives an in-depth analysis of data and measures influence in four categories: sentiment, strength, passion, and reach.

The above mentioned are just some of the ways in which marketers can increase the information through gathered data to provide a better service for the customer, create new innovative ideas and to endure they are targeting their product or service at the correct demographic.

Digital for retention and new customers?

Organisations in today’s world focus heavily on attracting new customers as this forms the basis to grow and expand. Equally customer retention should have just as much time and energy focused on to ensure we maintain our loyal customers. Attracting new customers to your business can cost up to 7 times more than the cost of customer retention. The digital era in which we live in today can help with both of these aspects of growth. Take customer retention as an example. The term social media is fast becoming the gateway for organisation to continue to market their goods or services. However one simple solution of involving customers in in your social media can massively increase their loyalty. Soda Stream does a great job of regularly putting their fans in the limelight through their Facebook page and on their blog. Not only are they regularly engaging their fans with contests, they are making sure everyone knows who won, and creating a lot of buzz while they’re at it. This is also another form of marketing as these customers will spread the positive news to friends, family and most importantly on all social media platforms.

 Personalisation is another key aspect that most business over look, if we take the time to learn about our customers and present them with relevant products based on their preferences and buying purchases they will feel more valued and involved with the company. Ensuring repeat customers who buy online can have a simple purchase process take Amazons one click payments process as an example. Having a strong customer service presence online is more efficient then making customers contact and wait in line on call centre calls. These are just some of the simple but effective ways in which can ensure we retain our current customer base.

In order to attract new customers as a business you must be easily accesses, then of course you must offer value to the customer. If we look at Pinterest as an example of how using a unique sign up process was a strong form of customer acquisition.  Every step in the process, from requesting an invitation to the social signup, is designed to create a sense of belonging and wonderment, thereby building an emotional connection to the user. Having a demonstration video around the benefits of becoming one oy your consumers will increase conversations around your brand. Small offerings can increase someone to buy or use your product like an initial discount for first time buyers/ users. This can also be used to retain loyal customers. When potential customers are visiting your digital page for the first time we need to ensure it is now that we convert them as According to Infinite Conversions, “Over 80% of abandoning visitors never return.” Therefore, your focus should be on converting visitors the first time they visit.

Digital experience

Children's Hospital Los Angeles

In 2011 a leading paediatric Children’s Hospital located in down town Los Angeles(Childrens Hospital Los Angeles) moved into their new Children’s Hospital.  This was a 480,000 square foot with an estimated 317 beds. This new hospital cost $500 million and was to be a digitally enabled facility. While planning the new Hospital they decided to build digital density into the facility. Their primary goal was to “Improve patient outcomes” by trying to reduce the communication errors that contribute to 70% of patient harm. To solve this problem CHLA digitised their clinic by tying all patients’ records to an individual child’s patient record. Patients have a screening of their face done through facial recognition software. Once a patient is scheduled for any form of test everything is logged and tracked on their individual digital file. The IT team prioritised digital communications to make test results and diagnostic images the highest priority so that when the results are ready they are immediately available in the patient’s record, and nurses and doctors receive an alert. This digitisation as resulted in the common phrase “Are  the results back yet” you would be used to hearing from medial Television programmes almost derelict.  CHLA successfully achieved their goal of reducing communication errors that can harm patient. Additionally they also managed to save 66,000 nursing hours. If we look at a hospital that only wanted to reduce staff costs they would have cut nourishing hours or staff numbers. When in fact this may not be the only way to achieve a cost saving measure. 

Children's Hospital Los Angeles

Artificial Intelligence

For the past number of years we as customers have experienced numerous changes in how we buy things from clothes to flights. The biggest change in my opinion is how we go through the process of booking a flight.  It is fair to say that airline companies such as Ryanair and Aer Lingus have replaced staff with computers and intelligence systems. From the time you pick and book your flight to the time you board the plane the first point of contact with staff is while going through the boarding process at the gate. This for use speeds up the process and save costs for the organisations, however this process has replaced roles and people within the organisation. Combining our curious minds with our continuous drive to uncover and develop artificial intelligence we are continuing increase the risk of making our human species redundant in the work place.

Take even Mc Donald’s for example, They have introduced new touch screen pads in the majority of their stores which allows you to both order and pay for your food without as much as a smile from a staff member? Is this the world we have created with are increasing demands for new technologies?  Are we creating and encouraging a world where more time is spent interacting with robots during the retail sales process? All the above roles replaced by robots are fine in an ideal world where nothing goes wrong, however when we come into difficulties we demand to only want it resolved be a fellow human and demand to speak to one. We are only in the early stages of robots and A.I taking over. So what other industries and rolls run the risk of being made redundant?  

In my opinion I can see couriers in the long term being replaced by drones. So far I have only mentioned yet again basic roles and services being replaced. So let’s take a look at a more specialised role like accounting and book keeping. There is plenty of software packages available like QuickBooks, FreshBooks, and Microsoft Office that does the bookkeeping for you. This much more affordable than a person's salary, so it's no surprise this job has such a high probability in my opinion of being made redundant.

Considering we live in a world now where cars can park themselves with the touch of a button. The only roles in my opinion which are further from being replaced are the roles which require large amount of emotional intelligence. Human Resource management would fall under this bracket. 

Please click the below link for a video on A.I

Artificial Intelligence      

Spotify

what is Spotify

Spotify are a global on line music streaming provider from Sweden. Spotify provides the following services for its users, music streaming, podcasts, videos and more. Spotify was one of the first companies to offer free free music to subscribers. As we all know nothing in life is free and the price you paid was, after every song you would be subject to watching and listening to some advertising. However you could pay a monthly subscription and cut out the advertising. Spotify realised there was a gap in the market as they launched at a time where ITunes forced users to buy albums or songs.

Spotify was launched in Europe in 2008. Spotify’s aim was to help eliminate illegal streaming and downloading of music. Spotify operate by paying record labels and individual musicians their royalty fees in exchange to make their music widely available all over the world. They do this through offering various level of usage at a different costs. Spotify also allows its subscribers to create and share playlists which is a unique offering. They also have existing playlists created based on the humour and the mood you are in. They also offer a Discover weekly playlist which allows you to listen to new music. Spotify also have a feature available which allows fans to listen to the song writers behind their favourite pop songs. Spotify offers several options. You can listen to Spotify for free and you will be subject to listening to advertising after each song is played. You can use their premium offer which is only €9.99 a month and recently they offer student discount which would see the premium level fall to a mere €4.99. Alternatively you can also go for the Spotify family option which allows you to offer up to six people who reside in your house the premium option and the feel will only be €14.99 each month. Additionally Spotify collaborated with Facebook which provide a unique feature which allows friends to see what one another are listening to. In 2014 they launched a partnership with Uber which allowed premium users the chance to listen to Spotify as they travelled. Spotify can also detect the pace you are running at and will choose your next song combining your running tempo with a songs tempo.

All in all Spotify offered a unique experience like no other in the market that was up until Apple music was launched in 2005. Apple will undoubtedly challenge Spotify in the current market and may have more funding available in order to offer musicians and record labels more money in order to use Apple music. Apple currently have a greater music library available then Spotify but is Spotify’s unique additional playlist and family offerings that give them the edge over Apple music. Combine that with the fact that the interface of Spotify is easier to use over Apple music. This alone going forward will not last long and Spotify will need to provide its users with additional features to prevent them from jumping ship.