The term project management stands for the assumption that a project has to be successful. There are managers who think if they use the technique of project management, they have a guarantee for success. It is obvious that every structural work which is done by the use of experience and knowledge is even better than a work which is done by the caprice decisions of one person. A project will fail without project management, but the converse assumption is neither correct. Read more…
Myths in Project Management
2. Myths
2.1 Time planning
Almost every project at the end of its term is running out of time. It does not matter if it is a First-timer or a project that already has been realized many times. This is true even for projects with identical tasks, but different time periods for the fulfilment of these tasks: Whether five weeks or five months, at the end time is short. The reasons for this phenomenon are complex and varied but often not really clear. Sometimes the project was incorrectly planned, for instance with too little or too short time. In other cases there was too much time wasted at the beginning of the project because of the horror vacui effect. This raises the question of whether it is considerable bad in a project to have time even before the deadline is finished. In the last few days of the planning phase there is lot more stress than in the rest of the project. But why is it so? Read more…
Myths in Project Management
3. How to avoid a myth?
A project manager always has to work under pressure of the time-quality-cost-triangle. The quality is fixed, so it is only possible to adjust the time and cost objectives. The common mistakes that managers make are that they want to optimize time and cost with the aid of one of the above-named myths. A myth comes into being because of generalised statements without scientific evidence. This could be because of the fact that a project has worked a few times although the management made mistakes. Not every mistake results in failure, but it is only due to causality that the project does not fail (Kerzner, 2009, p.60-61). Read more…
Myths in Project Management
4. Conclusion
Considering all these myths and facts one can say that a recipe which guarantees the success of a project does not exist. But there are many ways to identify myths and risks which cause failures. Even the most perfect project planner cannot give a 100 percent guarantee that the project is successful because of unexpected events like natural disasters which could destroy the whole infrastructure of a company and could make the execution of the project impossible. Read more…
Google’s main brands in a McKinsey / GE Matrix
1. Introduction
According to the list FT Global 500 from the Financial Times, Google is worldwide on position 39 from the companies listed in the stock exchange (Financial Times, 2009). Google was founded in 1998 by the software engineers Larry Page and Sergei Brin. Nowadays, only 12 years later, it has grown to one of the greatest international companies which has a huge influence on the daily life in industrial nations. Furthermore with 66 billion US-Dollars Google is the most valuable brand in the world. They started with a search engine which has pushed the former competition like AltaVista out of business. Read more…
Google’s main brands in a McKinsey / GE Matrix
2. Google’s main brand / McKinsey GE Matrix
2.1 Search Engine
The heart of Google is still the search engine. It started in 1998 and nowadays it has a market share of almost 90% in Europe and about 60% in the USA. The main competitions of this search engine are Yahoo and Microsoft Bing. Yahoo has 21% of market share in the USA and 3% in Europe. Bing has 10% in the USA and 3% in Europe as well. There are many other small search engines which either use the database of one of the three market leaders or have a market share of less than 1%. Read more…
Google’s main brands in a McKinsey / GE Matrix
3. Portfolio analysis via matrices in the 21st century
3.1 Why portfolio analysis?
Tools like the McKinsey model or the Boston Consulting Group model are created to make things easier. Managers use them to structure the brands of a company in order to make decisions about whether it is worth investing in those products or if it is better to withdraw them. But they always do this carefully with an analytical mind. One can say that these models are only the starting point for further research. It is useful to compare all brands within the business with each other to see the strengths and weaknesses of the company. A problem within portfolio models is that the results are never objective and can be manipulated. Who defines for example whether a market is attractive? Different managers might have different opinions whether a brand is still a “cash cow” or already a “dog”. The results are very vague and always need many other analytics (Doyle and Stern, 2006, p.107-113). Read more…
Google’s main brands in a McKinsey / GE Matrix
4. Conclusion
McKinsey matrix was created for further specifications of the BCG matrix. There are fewer limitations, so the overview of the brand portfolio is better. But nevertheless there are still limitations which you can only avoid by more specifications. But this is exactly the contradiction. Portfolio analysis is developed to make things easier, with the result that the analysis is inexact and needs more research (Doyle and Stern, 2006, p.110). Read more…
Porters’s five forces
1. Introduction
The turnover of e-commerce is still growing. German economic analysts expect a growth of another 10 percent for 2010 (Statista, 2009). Companies need to sell their products online in order to stay competitive. But in today´s online environment it is not only enough to offer their products on the internet, but also a well structured online shop which can be found in search engines. To realize this, companies need web designers and online marketers. There is still a lot of money involved but is it really worth going into this market? (Tedeschi, 2007) Read more…
Porters’s five forces
2. Porter’s five forces
2.1 Intensity of rivalry
In November 2009 there were more than 13 million .de-domains registered in Germany. In addition to that Germans also use .com- and .net-domains for their web pages. (Denic, 2009) All of these web pages are created by web designers who often have private intentions to put a profile of them in the internet but the majority have commercial intentions. There is an uncountable amount of agencies, self-employed or part-time web designers who all offer the same product for privates, small companies or whole enterprises just in Germany. There is still a growth of about 10 percent each year, so there is a constant entry of new competition into the market to cover the high demand of web pages. (Statista, 2009) Read more…