READ THE CASE SCENARIO AND ANSWER QUESTIONS 1 - 5 THAT FOLLOW

GraceKennedy: Merger of Companies

GraceKennedy has announced that there will be a merger of several of the businesses within its Food Trading operations. Chairman & CEO Douglas Orane said the decision was part of GraceKennedys overall thrust to increase efficiencies and productivity across the Group.

The companies involved in the merger are World Brands Limited, Grace Food Processors (Canning) Ltd., National Processors Ltd and Hi-Lo Food Stores (Jamaica) Limited. The merger will be achieved by the transfer of all assets & liabilities of the other named companies to Hi-Lo Food Stores (Ja.) Ltd. which will be appropriately renamed when the merger is complete an expected total cost of JA$3,290,000,000. The merger activities are slated to take up to 26 months with a scheduled date for completion October 31, 2006.

Mr. Orane said that, since the beginning of the year, the Food Trading Division has been changing its structure to streamline its internal processes. This included a major project in which all the companies were moved onto a single software platform called SAP, one of the worlds most advanced enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

1. In your own words, define the term project.

2. Identify and explain using the case three (3) characteristics that qualify the GraceKennedy: Merger of Companies as a project.

3. Identify three (3) primary stakeholders of the projects and their specific interests in the project.

4. What determines a project being classified as quasi-project?

5. Clearly draw the generic phases of GraceKennedy: Merger of Companies Project Life Cycle, using cost & staffing level against time