The growing competitive dynamics in the markets engage firms working with diversified business projects to drive high performance and gain competitive advantage in the market. Managing multiple business projects breeds uncertainty in project operations, causes failures, and damages the corporate credibility. The conventional project management no longer guarantees the success of complex business projects, such as technology-driven new products. As companies contemplate sustained growth in the global marketplace, it is essential to manage their business projects efficiently by minimizing the risk and maximizing the project output. In an effort to design, develop, and manage client-led business projects, companies working as original equipment manufacturers should learn managing projects with lean techniques to avoid the cost and time overrun, lowering the performance of the project output toward productivity, competence, market competitiveness, and profitability.
The business projects require balanced management of both the technical and behavioral issues. This book addresses the project management tools and techniques in reference to innovation management, public equity management, new product development and its launch management, and managing production and marketing projects in the broad range of industries where project management principles can be applied. It focuses on how project management can be integrated to the organizational performance as a whole. In the marketplace today, speed of strategy implementation is important to gain the first-mover advantage, but at the same time, only the companies that are able to make right strategic choice are found fit to do business in the international destinations. In order to achieve these attributes, companies need to develop right business projects, engage in the stage-gate process meticulously, and deliver the project outcome. Successful companies invest enormous resources on developing sustainable business projects, considering competitive gains within the company, market, or industry.
This book examines and emphasizes the project design and operations process across the business cultures, the requirements to carry business projects successfully, and implement the project plans carefully. One of the core arguments this book presents is that the right decisions support planning and implementation of business projects, accelerate business innovations process, and lower the risk with the measurable results in the rapidly growing international marketplace. In the growing market competition in the 21st century, corporate success depends on breaking through the innovation-oriented business projects and analyzing the right information for building marketplace strategies. However, it is evident from the failures of several corporate initiatives that most companies are unable to manage business projects efficiently. This book presents new insights on developing competitive business project designs and break-throughs in managing them, considering time, territory, target, and tasks management, assuring business gains and market competitiveness.
Well-managed companies meticulously develop innovative business projects by carrying out comprehensive analysis of market information, resources, organizational competencies and capabilities, and market attributes. The innovative business projects help companies in developing manufacturing and operations dexterity, managing economies of scale, distribution, pricing, and promotion management. Any new enterprise in the global marketplace needs strong management skills for business projects to develop innovation, competitiveness, and application of technology for sustainable growth. A fundamental challenge in managing innovative business projects, particularly in large diversified global companies, is choosing the right research design, using right data analysis techniques, managing resources, and drawing desired outcomes.
This volume of the book is divided into five chapters, illustrated with the figures and examples that help readers to easily get the concept and approach of innovative business projects. Chapter 1 discusses the contemporary trend of managing innovation projects and converging local-global enterprises by thinking out-of-the-box to gain win-win advantages through the project deliverables in the market. This chapter discusses competitive differentiation, global innovation trends, lessons learned by the large companies involving start-up enterprises in managing innovative business projects, critical success factors in managing innovation projects, and the outgrowth of patterns of innovations in emerging markets at the low-end markets. Chapter 2 analyzes the business scenario and discusses the ways to explore innovative business projects that have the potential to commercialize and sustain the market competition. This chapter addresses various perspectives of managing innovation projects right from the ways of defining and managing projects to understanding consumers for innovation adaptation, and examines the macro-and microeconomic factors as a part of business scenario of the innovation projects. The systematic discussion on establishing new innovative business projects is presented in Chapter 3, which addresses the concepts of innovation entrepreneurship and illustrates entrepreneurial attributes. This chapter also ponders over the perspectives of resource and cost management and work breakdown structure in managing the innovation projects. The market development for innovative projects, lean thinking in innovation projects, and constituting project teams have also been addressed in this chapter. The project environment is different from the business scenario in managing a project. This important topic has been argued with contemporary knowledge explaining the external and internal fit, transfer of innovation and technology, project matrix, project lifecycle, and managing competitiveness in the innovation projects, in a broad leaning setup of Chapter 4. The most imperative topic on administering business projects is discussed in Chapter 5, which critically examines the development of project scope, documenting project charter, analyzing innovation lifecycle, and determining the use of critical path analysis required for effective administration of business projects. Besides other factors of project administration, this chapter also addresses the application of the stage-gate process in the project administration and discusses categorically cognitive factors in entrepreneurial performance.
The thought process in evolving this book originated from the course on Innovation, Technology and National Economic Development, which I have been teaching at Boston University since 2013. Consequent to teaching this course, I have authored the book “Architecting Enterprise: Managing Innovation, Technology, and Global Competitiveness,” and over a short span, another book “The Butterfly Effect in Competitive Markets: Driving Small Changes for Larger Differences” was authored by me in 2015. This book “Innovative Business Projects: Breaking Complexities, Building Performance” in two volumes is an outgrowth of all the preceding reading, writings, deliveries, and learning. This book reviews categorically the project management theories, concepts, and previous researches, and discusses the applied tools and techniques for business projects. The book discusses contemporary project management approaches for the companies to grow competitive along with the market players and consumers. This book significantly contributes to the existing literature and serves as a learning post and a think tank for students, researchers, and business managers.
Rajagopal
June 01, 2016
Mexico City