PROJECT

PROGRAMME Postgraduate Diploma in Project Management

MODULE Project Resource and Procurement Management

YEAR ONE $(1)$

INTAKE January $2024$

MARKS $100$

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT $2[100$ MARKS$]$

Read the scenario below and answer all the questions that follow

Examining Mr Price Group$$s search to modernize

As Chief Information Officer $($CIO$)$ of South African fashion$-$value retailer Mr Price Group, Kim Sim has to keep up with

emerging tools and technologies so a decades$-$old business can modernize operations.

For modern CIOs, it$$s essential to have a healthy balance between innovation and mainstream tech, says Kim Sim, Mr

Price Group CIO. So she needs to keep tabs on the spectacular rise of artificial intelligence $($AI$)$ and its use cases, while

also monitoring developments across topics that have been around for years, like big data, Radio Frequency

Identification $($FRID$)$ and cybersecurity.

This ability to maintain perspective of two different worlds is critical for Sim, who inherited a highly complex legacy

environment and is currently in the process of modernizing these systems.

$$It$$s the basic, non$-$sexy $$just has to happen$$ kind of stuff,$$ she says. $$Even though this is keeping me busy, I can$$t afford

to not deliver when it comes to innovation and delivering on what the business$$ wants and needs are.$$ So she$$s trying to

not create unwieldy technical debt while also testing out and launching new offerings.

She admits it$$s often about finding symmetry between what the business wants, and what she and her team need to do

to provide business architecture that$$s sustainable, secure$,$ and flexible now and into the future.

$$If$,$ in theory, we decide to expand into a different category tomorrow, we want to create an environment where we$$re

able to easily cater for this,$$ she says. $$Sometimes this means putting energy and work into things that the business

hasn$$t necessarily asked for or that they don$$t understand.$$

Of e$-$commerce and chatbots

Two very different types of initiatives have kept Sim particularly busy in recent years. The first isn$$t about emerging tech,

but modernizing the business and knowing the customer.

During the pandemic, Sim and her team launched an e$-$commerce platform for one of their retail brands, a women$$s

clothing store called Miladys. The brand didn$$t have any e$-$commerce presence before, which meant they couldn$$t

operate when the world went into lockdown.

$$We know that the Miladys customer is more conservative, so even when restrictions eased, they were hesitant to head

back into the store,$$ she says. So the problem they were trying to solve was finding a way to boost sales in a way that

made their customers feel safe and comfortable.

Acknowledging they had to bring something to market quite quickly, the online offering had to remain $$vanilla$.$

$$The solution we have running for the rest of the business is far more complicated but for this project, we just wanted to

give them a ticket to the game,$$ she says. This isn$$t to say the execution process was simple, however. According to

Sim, building an ecommerce offering from scratch meant doing things like capturing imagery and writing product

descriptions for every product, choosing a suitable approach to order fulfilment, and training in$-$store staff to do things

they$$d never done before.

$$It was such a nice project in that we landed something in a very short space of time,$$ she says. $$We were incredibly

agile, made decisions quickly, had support from the top, and everybody bought into what we were trying to achieve. It

was incredibly successful. Even with the cost to set this up$,$ they were profitable in a very short space of time.$$ And the

brand managed to maintain their customer service standards even though they were changing their ways of working.

$$Even today, if you visit the Miladys website and add items to your basket but don$$t check out, you$$ll get a phone call

asking if you need any assistance with the checkout process,$$ Sim adds.

The second project leverages natural language processing $($NLP$)$ enabled chatbots to digitize customer experience

around some of their financial services products. Freshbots, a chatbot platform developed by customer engagement

software company, Freshworks, was deployed to help the group understand and interpret customer queries, provide

support, and automate routine tasks. In action, these chatbots make it simpler for customers to apply for credit, submit

insurance claims, update personal and account details, and request the necessary authorization number required for a

replacement card, all without ever having to speak to someone. This project was intended to reduce the workload on

their customer service teams. $$When customers no longer have to visit physical branches or complete lengthy

paperwork, we up the efficiency of our teams and increase customer satisfaction, which is a win$-$win for everyone,$$ she

says.

Back to basics

As part of this modernization journey, Si