H-A-R-N-S is an independent project. It focuses on creation and launch of a ‘Shopping Assistant App’ developed by the MS Project Management students of Bahria University Islamabad with the assistance of BUIC MarketingSkull Pvt ltd funding. For now, this application is designed to target Pakistan’s FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) retailers and will be expanded globally following its successful launch in Pakistan.
Vision: To make online shopping experience as convenient as possible.
Mission: Our IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) based software, and devices are designed to perform intelligently to deliver better user experience.
Objectives: Business and Technological
Business Objectives:
Freedom of doing grocery shopping smartly with full control.
Reach a larger audience for online shopping.
Create marketing intelligence for customized shopping experience.
Use the knowledge gained in improving business operations like resource optimization, supply chain planning, costs control and related.
Successfully create verticals within business around the concept.
Technological Objectives: Enhance customer experience by mitigating or transforming technical/technological errors.
Project Scope
This project includes development of a smart ecommerce based integrable application that will connect with all ecommerce shopping journey touch points. Development phases will include an MVP which will initially provide smaller customizations and machine learning. The same will be then updated by a version that learns to adapt, makes smart decisions, and provides larger decision-making insights to businesses. This project will be based on developing principles of data processing, variables analysis, real time decision making, and improvement over time. It will provide an interactive shopping experience to the consumers while learning from their shopping behaviors. It can help make smarter marketing decisions tailored to profiling and relevancy. It will provide intelligent insights to business owners to help plan procurement, warehousing, inventory, and logistics in an optimized manner. It should help reduce inventory redundancies by 80% provided we inject 10 years of recent data. It should help plan warehouse geological expansions most suited based on buying patterns and demand anticipations thus practically assuring success of an expansion plan. This system can also boost customer loyalty to a 90% mark improving constantly over time with the help of its customized shopping experience capabilities.
Scope ID in Phases
Scope
Comments
Budget Baseline
Schedule Baseline
S1
Platforms
Android, iPhone, API
200k
07/07/2022 – 09/09/2022
S2
Web & landing pages
Plugin, Extensions
100k
10/09/2022 – 25/09/2022
S3
Hosting
AWS (Amazon Web Services) Dedicated Servers
250k
26/09/2022 – 29/09/2022
S4
1-2 Intro Screens
How to use written and visual steps
10k
30/09/2022 – 04/10/2022
S5
Basic Analytics
GA4 (Google Analytics 4) & ACE (Adobe Cloud Experience) Integration and syncing system
30k
05/10/2022 – 18/10/2022
S6
Order Tracking
Transparent Auto-Visual Order tracking system
60k
19/10/2022 – 09/11/2022
S7
Third Party Integrations
Payments, Chats, Delivery, IoT devices
140k
10/11/2022 – 03/12/2022
S8
Cloud Backup
Auto AWS (Amazon Web Services) Backup
25k
07/07/2022 – 09/07/2022
S9
Load testing
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Speed, Auto data screening system
10k
07/07/2022 – 31/12/2022
S10
UI/UX Design
Easy to use infrastructure with minimal steps
80k
04/12/2022 – 31/12/2022
Total Project Duration:
5 months and 25 days (incl. holidays, weekends) with estimated initial investment of 1,407,500 and baseline cost of 90,5000
Business Case
Now 84% of project-oriented organizations have already adopted formal IoT project implementation practices. Businesses offering top-notch service gain customers’ loyalty 77% more. Rising costs of conventional methods, COVID, changes in customer shopping behavior and many other factors have shifted the dynamics of shopping. Emerging use of technologies, data sciences, IOT (Internet of Things), and smartphone apps have made it convenient for businesses to learn with the help of digital channels and use it to improve and tailor shopping experiences best suited to customer needs requirements.
To solve this problem for both businesses and consumers, we designed this product that integrates with smart warehouses, retail shops, smartphones, and information systems to provide a customized and interactive shopping experience to the consumers while building actionable data to lower costs and maximize profits for the businesses.
Project Implementation Plan
Project Management Approach (scrum and Agile Approach with MVP -Minimum Viable Product)
Project management approach we will take for development of this project will be based on the iterative and incremental model based on situations of different project phases (as it’s a hybrid organizational structure). We will establish an MVP for basic data storage and integration. Further to that the adaptive methodology approach will seek feedback to develop the principles that the system will be based on. These principles will include data processing, decision making, and improving over time. It will be tested based on different scenarios before rolling out is made. QA (Quality Assurance) and Testing will be an integral part of the feedback loop and update roll-out.
Resources
Milestones
Benefits & Measures
Project manager
two – four Weeks data collection from the market (RFI)
Direct sales
Business Analyst
Gather business requirements that need for a project. e.g., RFI (request for information), RFQ (request for quotation), RFP (request for proposal)
Reliance: Reduced customer service costs
Developer to develop the product
Four Weeks for data upload
Service and speed optimization
Quality engineer to ensure the product quality
One Week testing
Reduced travel costs: No crowded Lines or queues in stores to checkout
Financer/Accountant who manages and monitor the budget/cost need to develop the product
One to two Week changes insertion
Reduce the human efforts: Incremental sales resulting from enhanced promotional/salesperson effectiveness
Budget estimation 1,407,500
Two to three Weeks Deployment
Possibility to get overall information about all visitors and purchasers and use it for marketing
Development (e.g., third-party site design and development, Payment Integration, Delivery Integration)
170,000.00
Project management, and customer support Teams (e.g., Salaries, facilities)
600,000.00
Maintenance
80,000.00
Total Initial Investment
1,407,500
Key Stakeholders
Stakeholder Register
Role
Name
Influence
type
Classification
v Sponsor
BUIC
Direct – High
Primary Ext/Int
Keep satisfied & Informed
v Customers
FMCG Retailers
Primary – Internal
Keep satisfied
v UX/UI designers
Asmat Ullah
Direct – High
Primary – Internal
Monitor
v QA Engineers
IT Verticals, QorData etc.
Secondary – Internal
Monitor
v Developers
Hussam Zain
Direct – High
Primary – Internal
Monitor
v Business Analysts
Naila Shahid
Direct – High
Primary – Internal
Keep Informed
v Functional Manager
Raheel Ashraf Malik
Direct – High
Primary – Internal
Keep satisfied & Informed
v Project Managers
Asmat & Saba
Direct – High
Primary – Internal
Keep satisfied & Informed
v Project Team
HARNS Group MSPM-1C
Direct – High
Primary – Ext/Int
Monitor & Keep Informed
v End-Users
Pakistani Online Shoppers
Indirect – Low
Primary – External
Keep satisfied
v Government
Govt. of Pakistan
Indirect – High
Secondary – External
Keep satisfied & Informed
v Competitors
IoT, App, Web development companies and freelancers
Indirect – Medium
Secondary – External
Monitor
v Media
Dawn, ARY, SAMA etc.
Indirect – Low
Secondary – External
Keep Informed
v Consultants
Consultancy Agencies
Indirect – Low
Secondary – External
Keep Informed
v Other IT Employees
BUIC IT Department
Indirect – Medium
Secondary – Ext/Int
Keep Informed
Expected Risk and issues
Description
Likelihood
Impact
Mitigating Actions
Inability to recruit skilled resource
Low
Very High
Outsource project to a company with proven industry experience and appropriately skilled staff
Technology solution is unable to deliver required results
Medium
High
Complete a pilot project to prove the full technology solution
Additional capital expenditure may be required in addition to that approved
Medium
Medium
Maintain strict capital expenditure processes during the project
Project timeline may become longer post MVP
High
Very High
Feedback loop needs to be standardized to have a holistic modelling approach that will remove the possibilities of repeated feedback needs.
Privacy literacy and possible issues
Medium
Medium
Constant awareness pertaining to use of information and consumer consent will be a priority to overcome possible issues arising from it.
Data Protection & Security
High
High
Security protocols and encryption of data will be an integral add-on part of the product.
Evolving technology will require newer versions to be released
High
High
Frequent updates relating to evolving technologies will need to be kept in plan and rolled out after testing.
Issues
Description
Priority
Resolution Actions
Required capital expenditure funds have not been budgeted
High
Request funding approval as part of this proposal
Required computer software is only at ‘beta’ phase and has not yet been released live
Medium
Design solution based on current software version and adapted changes to solution once the final version of the software has been released
Project Assumptions & Constraints
Project Assumptions
Project Constraints
There will be no technological, legislative, business strategy or policy changes during this project
The financial budget allocated is fixed and does not allow for overspending
The product development team is technologically well-versed to carry out the exact required task.
Time for completion of the project is integral and delay may affect if technologies change.
Funds required for any possible delays in the timeline are easily available.
Additional resources requirement will affect the timeline as approvals will be required.
Prices of required services will not increase by a lot during the project
There are limited technical resources available for the project.
Additional human resources will be available from the business to support the project.
Smart technologies are a must for service providers to have to obtain maximum benefit.
Data laws will permit use of this product to improve customer experience and business resources and processes optimizations.
Integrations are successfully possible with the warehouse, logistics, ERP (Enterprise resource planning), customers, and transportation.
The technical solution must be implemented after-hours to minimize the operational impact on the business.
QA and testing will provide the required feedback to make sure App is free of errors and working as per user requirements , so to complete the development in a timely manner.
Authoriztions
Roles
Name
Signature
DATE
Project Sponsor
Project Review Group
Project Managers
Quality Manager
Communication Manager
Government
Project Closure
Closing Date: 31-12-2022
Project closure will be based on occurrence of following events.
Success Criteria:
All deliverables have been successfully met Product is created, integrations have been done, and 1 demo business has been successfully tested with it.
Partial Success:
Partial of the success criteria has been met Product is created but integrations have not been done or tested.
Contingency Plan:
In case the project comes to a halt or partial completion, the work done and work remaining will need to be transferred to a capable third party for completion.
Exit Strategy:
Exit strategy for incomplete project will include taking over the assets and clearing any dues as well as signing termination contracts.
