CASE

ADVANTAGE

______________________________________
28/8-2018
ADVANTAGE
A balmy day in August, Maria Burström is feeling slightly
anxious and quite expectant when walking towards the
main building. She is there to meet her new employer.

Previous to the meeting she has dug up as much

information as possible on the company’s structure and
organization, number of employees, and much more, but
she still feels she has only just scratched the surface and
she is eager to know more about the project and how it is
set up. Maria is new to the official role of Project
Manager, but she does have a couple of years of work
experience within projects. She has previously worked as
project member and has had various coordinating roles
in more or less project mature organizations. This will be
her first time working as a PM. The new employment is
with AdVantage, a Scandinavian company with
headquarters in Malmö. It is a middle-sized company,
around 6 000 employees with offices in UK, Oslo, Malmö,
Copenhagen, Helsinki, Singapore and San Francisco.
About 400 people work in Malmö at the main office.

AdVantage delivers products for energy optimization and environmental protection, with
products within the following business areas:
• Power and grid solutions
• Heating and cooling solutions
• Automation and control
In the lobby of AdVantage, she is first received by Lena Ohlqvist. Besides handling the
reception and the switch board, Lena also helps the HR-team to organize internal
training activities.

Maria announces her arrival and very soon the manager of Human Resources, Jens-
Peder Rasmussen, comes down to greet her. They continue their talks in Jens’s office
over a cup of coffee. Jens has a Danish accent and Maria, who is from the north of
Sweden, has a problem following his conversation and she needs to ask him to repeat
himself quite often in the beginning. Jens plans on introducing Maria to some of the
people that are involved in the project, first and foremost to the person who has initiated
the project: Rut Karlqvist.

- Rut is true blue, says Jens. She’s good at her job and very much liked. She’s passionate
about marketing and she is the person that has the longest experience from it as the
head of the marketing team. She realized the advantages of expanding to the consumer
market at an early stage and has been a significant party in writing the business case
for the project. Besides, she has known our CEO, Anna Stam, since childhood.

- By the way, are you familiar with the way Anna Stam built up the company? It is a
pretty amazing story actually. The business has been profitable from year 1 and has 10-
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20% growth per year since 1998, except in the crisis year of 2008, when they only had
5%! From the start Anna has been deeply and personally involved in the marketing and
sales and when Rut came on board in the marketing team, things really took off and the
internal work got more structured and the result even more professional.

AdVantage is an expansive company with true entrepreneurial spirit, among employees

as well as within the management group. The company is market leading in the Nordic
countries, but we are getting more and more competition in our segment and the
management now wants to reinforce the marketing effort in order to face the threat.
The goal is to attain 65% of the Swedish market and 50% of the market in the other
Nordic countries by the end of next year. Pretty aggressive!

- The new project would enable the company to reach out to the segment of interested
but passive customers, which would be quite enough to reach the goals. Anyway, Rut
will describe your assignment in more detail. She is expecting us right now.
Upstairs, there is an open office environment, but also a few individual offices. Jens and
Maria walk across the large room and Jens knocks on a glass door. Maria is a bit
nervous and fingers the new tablet that she brought to take notes. Rut sits in her office,
intensely immersed in something on her screen, but she gets up immediately and
shakes Maria's hand vigorously.

- Welcome! You are Maria, I suppose? You are truly needed here! Rut looks Maria in the
eye while speaking very articulately, exuding willpower and energy.
Rut starts without preamble:

- We have a lot of work ahead of us! Your job is to help us modify existing products
within solar to reach the growing consumer market. I could take on the project myself,
but I don’t have the time since we are procuring several companies that require our full

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attention at the moment. The project is
being run by the marketing department,
as we believe we can reuse most of our
existing products but need to refocus to
the consumer market. Our solution does
lack quite a few of the necessities that is
essential for the private market, so both
software and hardware development will
have to be adapted to suit the needs of
the new market segment.

- Because we have subsidiaries in all the

Nordic countries, we also need to ensure
that the marketing campaign works in all
those markets, while we ensure that we
have a common way of working. This
project also requires a new organization to be built up, with sales, support and after-
sales in place. The available project resources are spread out in all offices, and cannot
be co-located for this project, so you will need to manage people in different time zones
and of different cultures virtually.

The plan is to reach out to the large passive segments that our marketing analysis has
identified with a combination of efforts from marketing and sales. This demands the
possibility to tailor communication to different markets and different segments of those
markets. We should also build upon our credibility and experience from the B2B market.
Personally, I am convinced that this is what will help us gain those market shares! Anna
and I had to fight hard at the board meetings to get this through because not all share
my confidence in this project - Rut turned to Maria – so it really is up to us to deliver
now, isn’t it Maria? Maria looked up from her notes and nodded.

Without breaking her stride, Rut went on:

-Well, anyway, I am sure you are curious to know the preconditions of your commitment,
right? You will work with the new vice president of the power and grid solutions, Jamini
Majumdar. He knows quite a lot about this kind of projects, having worked with the
consumer market at his previous workplace, so I am sure it will all turn out fine.

- Your task will be to inform all our offices about the project, train the marketing staff as
well as our external advertising agency. You should probably coordinate with Lena
Ohlqvist on this. As I mentioned before, to help you on the technical side there is Jamini.
He’ll be responsible for the adjustments of the existing solutions for the consumer
market. You will also be responsible for designated marketing and sales teams during
the project.

Ruts eyes narrowed slightly as she said:

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- Not everybody at AdVantage is quite convinced that
this is the right way to increase our market shares,
other suggestions have been made, but I am
completely sure that this will by far be the most cost-
efficient way of attaining our goals in time. So, of
course, I have the support of the CFO (Chief Financial
Officer), Olle Lund. But just to be absolutely clear, any
decision with an impact on the project’s budget needs
to go through me.

- It may be of interest for the project to know that head

of sales, Lars Berglund, is not at all supporting this
project. In fact, he had quite a different idea for the
project. Oh, well, he’ll see sense eventually, I am sure.
Our CEO, Anna Stam is also very enthusiastic about
this project, although she is normally very little
involved in this kind of activities simply due to lack of
time.

- There is also another, quite specific goal that we need to achieve in the project, which
is to start the marketing campaign, through press releases, advertising, newsletters and
a new web page, in alignment with the large campaign that the Sales team is launching
this autumn on November 15. I am sure you realize that this is a very important goal?
Rut had remained standing during the entire, intense monologue and Maria had been
taking notes so vigorously that her fingers felt numb. – Well, that’s it for today I think.
Welcome to AdVantage, Maria! You can always drop me an e-mail if you have any
questions. And with that she sat down again and immediately resumed her
concentrated stare at her screen.

Jens led the way downstairs to his office and Maria slowly exhaled. Rut was really very
energetic!

- If you feel up to more information, I think it would be best if I give you some more facts.
I believe your level of competence is very well suited to this project. It isn’t particularly
complex, and you will be well supported by your new colleagues here. We did consider
driving this project with an internal resource, Lena Ohlqvist, which she was very
enthusiastic about, but it was decided that it would be more advantageous to get
somebody from the outside to do it.

- You heard now that Rut is absolutely convinced that this project is what will gain us
more market shares. If that should fail, she’ll be blamed and who knows how far the
blame game will go… She’ll do everything to make sure that this project will be a
success.

- I should also tell you that the head of Sales, Lars Berglund, has a very powerful position
in AdVantage since he is behind some of the amazing success that the company has
had. It is unfortunate that he has not quite bought into this project. He came into the

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company at an early stage together with Lena
Ohlqvist. They worked at the same company,
so they have been colleagues before and I
think their families socialize outside of work.
Regarding the information part of the project I
would like you to think of the following:
All information that is to be sent out needs to
be approved by the Marketing team and the
CEO.

All of the material needs to be in the specific

language of the country you are mailing it to.
Maria knows that marketing is about
maintaining a relationship with a customer. It
is not recommended to use mail as first
contact with a customer. So, in this case Sales
would have to do all the groundwork, initiating
contact that then can be cultivated through marketing campaigns and series of letters
and/or surveys. It is quite worrying that head of Sales is not on board. Suddenly she is
struck by doubt and she feels that this project might well be complicated, no matter
what Jens says. But hey! she tells herself - This is her first assignment, right? She can’t
back down now!

When Maria leaves Jens’s office to have lunch in the cantina she bumps in to a guy with
her tray. Very few tables are available, and they end up sharing a small coffee table. This
guy is really charming, and Maria realizes she can’t stop smiling! His name is Kim and
he works as technical lead in the solar panel division. Maria tells him about her project
and Kim let’s her know that they are aware of the trends in the consumer market, and
that only minor adjustments will be required to adapt the existing products for end
consumers. Fortified by food and good company she arrives at Jamini Majumdar's
domains.

Jamini is speaking to some engineers as Maria arrives and he waives a hand

dismissively to indicate for her to wait where she is until he’s finished. When they’ve
shook hands Jamini says:

- I heard you would arrive this week. Then he falls quiet. There’s an awkward moment
when Maria waits for him to continue, but when nothing happens, she takes the
initiative:

- Yes, it’s my first day here, and I thought I’d talk to you about the project since we’ll be
working together quite a lot. There are as you know several parts: the marketing
campaigns, the adaptations of the solar panels, the internal information, training, etc.
Rut said you had a lot of experience from these kinds of projects. Can you tell me a bit
about it?

- I can’t, he says bluntly.

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Maria is momentarily taken aback by this odd and reluctant answer, but then tries
another approach:

- OK, but what are your views on the parts of the project that you will be responsible for?
Jamini takes a deep, exasperated breath and says in an overly explicit manner:

- The way I see it, it will not be a question of merely configuring the solar panels, but
possibly a complete renewal of our product line, as the installation procedures are so
different for companies and private customers.

- Then there’s the storage of electricity. The battery solutions are totally different. The
consumption patterns of electricity are entirely different in the consumer market. The
interfaces between various components are different for large scale solutions that are
tailored to each client and these off-the-shelf solutions that we will try to build. We
checked with our battery suppliers to find out if there are any simple solutions to some
of these issues, but they were not aware of any cost-efficient solutions.

Jamini falls quiet again but then continues unexpectedly and says in an upset tone:
- But everything has to be cheap here and they have really skimped on everything for
this project: inexperienced project manager, ‘cause it’s cheap! Off-the-shelf, ‘cause it’s
cheap! No new engineering resources, ‘cause they are too stingy to pay for them!
Suddenly Jamini realizes that perhaps he’s gone too far, and he stops abruptly, turning
red in the face. He should have kept quiet, like he promised himself! But Maria, who has
been on tinder hooks the last 4 hours, feels the tension let go of her in her surprise of
Jamini’s blustering speech and she starts to laugh.

- Hahaha, well, I am sure thrilled to be working with you anyway, Jamini. You’re honest,
and that’s good!

Finally, Jamini seems to relax. The conversation continues, and it turns out that Jamini
has put quite some thought into the coming project. Jamini is practical, if a little
pessimistic, and he has several suggested starting points for Maria.

- I believe in the goals of the project – I should! I used to be head engineer for a
consumer product before I started here – and it’s going to be interesting to implement a
service that I have only really seen from the inside so to speak. Uuhm, yes, in spite of
what I said before, I do know that it works.

- What I think you should do is contact the battery suppliers and get a list of the latest
requirements they have on the interfaces. That shouldn’t be a problem. Then do the
inventory. If you notice that any modifications are needed for the adaptation you need to
get that into your budget. Talk to Rut and Anna Stam about that, depending on how
much money you ask for, it may have to be approved by the board.

- Then there is the training. You could hire external resources as consultants to get
some new competencies into the project, but you might also want to educate our
existing engineers on the consumer market. That is no problem in Sweden but find out

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what the possibilities are in the other countries, both regarding training resources and a
place to be.

- The administrative issue of managing products for both B2B and B2C could cost us a
lot, so maybe see if it is possible to create more generic modules that could be served to
all markets?

- The information part is a bit tricky. It is really important that everybody in the company
gets the information at the same time, otherwise there will only be rumors and
discussions. Don’t forget that getting the material approved by Anna Stam could take
time because she travels a lot.

- And don’t forget the additional services that are expected, like customer support, in
case of downtime. I think that could almost be considered a project within the project.
Maria smiles and thanks him for the hands on start he’s given her and Jamini wishes
her good luck with her new assignment.

She returns to Jens’ office as planned. Jens looks up as she comes in and says in a
humorous voice:

- Finished already? Here’s some guidance that you could benefit from. It is our project
methodology. He hands her a description of their methodology:

PRE POST
PRE-STUDY PLANNING EXECUTION CLOSURE
PROJECT PROJECT

Initiate project,
Follow-up on
ORG. based on e.g. idea,
request or strategy
Authorize planned benefits
(if needed)

Authorize Milestones Authorize Milestones

SPONSOR
Authorize Authorize Authorize Authorize
Planning Execution Closing Closure

BUSINESS
CASE
PROJECT
MANAGER PROJECT PROJECT STATUS CHANGE FINALPROJECT
CHARTER PLAN REPORTS REQUESTS REPORT

▪ Set up Steering Group
▪ Learn from experience
▪ Develop project charter
▪ Plan the planning
▪ Tailor project
▪ Determine approaches,
e.g. risk, quality, stakeh.
▪ Plan the project
▪ Plan the next stage
▪ Report status
▪ Manage changes
For milestones (if needed):
▪ Plan next sub-stage
▪ Report sub stage
▪ Deliver the final result
▪ Hand over final result
▪ Perform lessons
learned
▪ Write final project report

- This is how we manage projects here. Why don’t you take the rest of the day to get
through that? I have already made an appointment for you in my calendar tomorrow
morning if you have questions.

And with that Maria embarks on her first project.