Management 3: Reflection
This week’s reading was on chapter 13 about the research and development projects. The course reading was worth my time effort because it shed light on comparing research and development planning and strategic planning. The readings also give light on the projects’ funding processes and the relationship between probability of the success of projects and the funding. The topic also gives an insight into the processes and stages of research and development projects in a business setting. This shows how the week’s reading was essential and beneficial.
From the reading, I feel the most important aspect of the chapter was funding the projects, how to go about it, and how to allocate parallel funding problems. This chapter is essential in the society and business setting in that there are many projects, either community based or business projects that need financing. The knowledge of the financing process and the calculation of the probabilities of success at certain funding levels helps one come with the best way to fund parallel projects and come up with the optimal benefit (Shtub & Rosenwein, 2016). One important lesson is the technological lapses in planning in the automobile industry that made Japan gain a competitive advantage in the local market.
Question 1 reflection
The automobile industry in the U.S. is a significant contributor to the U.S economy. It has, in the recent past, had competition from the Japanese automobile industries. This is the industry that is experiencing massive technological advancement each day passing. In this industry, there was technological advancement, and innovation aimed to give the high-class vehicles affordable prices. One of the lapses the American automobile industry did was in the 1980s when General Motors, an American automobile farm, undertook a $5 billion program to introduce robotics and computer-integrated manufacturing techniques into many of its assembly plants (Shtub & Rosenwein, 2016). However, this project was not well planned, where they did not factor all the factors that would play in the project. The result came to be a big disappointment with enormous technological hitches.
This made the local automobiles lose in the consumer preferences as people opted for the cheaper Japanese cars which were efficient and had no much technological hitches. This also made the Locally made vehicles have higher market prices than Japanese vehicles, which were much cheaper. The Japanese industry was gaining in the world markets, thus expanding and becoming known far and wide. This gave them a competitive advantage against the locally made automobiles (Finkelstein, 2003). This was a mistake that could only be blamed on the project managers who failed to research and develop a concrete plan and funding process.
Question 2 reflection
The project failed to automate General Motors in the U.S, which led to the company’s poor performance. General Motors made a mistake in their response to trying to compete with the Japanese method of Lean Start-up (Finkelstein, 2003). However, what went wrong is the General Motors project managers failed to use the R&D strategic plan method. They did not conclusively try to identify the potential threats, strengths, key concerns, and opportunities that would be brought by the mega-project they were about to role out. Toyota’s lean start-up idea was rolled out to provide adjustment to avoid hitches and problems something GM didn’t have. The project was a good idea but had poor strategic planning.
References
Finkelstein, S. (2003). undefined. Business Strategy Review, 14(3), 18-24. doi:10.1111/1467-8616.00268
Shtub, A., & Rosenwein, M. (2016). Project management: Processes, methodologies, and economics. Pearson.