akoke is a relatively new company who create and market stylish environmentally-friendly products aimed at combining fashion; style and  environmental conscience.

Case Study

Background

Yakoke is a relatively new company who create and market stylish environmentally-friendly products aimed at combining fashion; style and  environmental conscience.  Yakoke was founded by two entrepreneurs: Chiamaka Eze and Olek Nowak.  Chiamaka graduated with a fashion design degree and met Olek at university. After university, Chiamaka worked for a large fast fashion brand for 4 years and Olek worked as a supply chain manager for a large consumer brand.  Chiamaka’s time working in fast fashion inspired her to want to create more sustainable clothing and she discussed the idea with Olek.  Olek had all the know-how and expertise to set up the outsourced production and logistics to get the product to market.  Together, they formed Yakoke and developed the hugely successful Ecowear range.  Sales soared due to their social media strategy and the fact that customers loved the stylish look and the feel-good factor of purchasing environmentally conscious products.   Their product range can be summarised:

·       Yakoke Ecowear - Organic cotton and hemp clothing line

·       Yakoke Ecofeet - Vegan leather, barefoot design shoes

·       Yakoke Eyes - Stylish blue light filter glasses (now discontinued)

·       Yakoke Health - Stylish SMART watch for health

They have been largely very successful in launching new products (except Yakoke Eyes) and have grown to having a net profit of £25 million in 2023.  Yakoke seem to have tapped into the fashionable, eco-conscious market segment effectively.  Their customers are mainly in the UK and they sell their products directly through their social media and through online retailers.

Yakoke Eyes was a flop as they developed the product too late, by which time, smart phones had already implemented built-in blue light filters and the product did not sell.  This meant that there was no return on investment from the product development costs. However, the success of Yakoke Ecowear and Ecofeet meant that they still had significant funds to develop their latest new product line, Yakoke Health. 

Yakoke Health and Yakoke Health Watch

Yakoke Health was more challenging as it moved away from apparel and accessories into SMART technology.  It came about as Olek was keen to diversify their product range further to develop products to fit the eco-conscious and health market segment.  Olek had the idea to develop a health-focused smart watch which also had a stylish element to it.  Yakoke Health Watch is a communications tool and track health statistics, including: monitoring of steps, heart rate, exposure to light, etc.  However, the Yakoke Health Watch is uniquely styled as customers can change and configure the look of the watch, from sporty to smart jewellery by popping out the smart module into a different wristband (see Figure 1).  Yakoke Health Watch has a stylish look, aligning with Yakoke’s other products, but also combines healthy living.  The project was risky, with the venture into SMART technology.  Chiamaka and Olek recruited new engineers; designers and health experts into Yakoke.  Ahana Badu led the development of the Yakoke Health app and working with the advice of the health professionals harnessed artificial intelligence (AI) to advise the watch wearer how to incorporate more health benefits into their life.  Customers were impressed with the insightful health analysis and the watch quickly went viral across social media.  Chiamaka and Olek rewarded Ahana’s talent by promoting her from Engineer to Technology Director.

Yakoke 5.0 – the next idea

The overwhelming success of Yakoke Health revealed to Yakoke that there was a huge market for health-related products.  Ahana had an idea to use the AI technology and sports science to develop Yakoke Health with smart clothing.  The clothing would include sensor technologies to track muscle movement and development (see Figure 2).  Thus, they could build a personal trainer function into Yakoke Health app, creating Yakoke 5.0.  The sensors in the clothing would track progress and the workout could be tailored to each customer, using AI to optimise the results the customer desired (muscle mass, cardio vascular health, flexibility, etc.)

 The idea was discussed at Yakoke’s Board Meeting in January, 2024.  The Board have agreed to tentatively fund a new product development called: Yakoke 5.0.  Chiamaka raised some concerns about Yakoke 5.0.

Ahana, as Engineering Director was delighted that Yakoke 5.0 would be funded and addressed Chiamaka’s concerns, but, had some concerns of her own about expertise:

Olek, the co-founder and Supply Chain Director was very much in agreement with Ahana that more people are needed at Yakoke, but was also keen for international expansion, so a preliminary research into this was also agreed in the Board meeting.  Olek’s view was:

The Need for Better Planning at Yakoke

The Marketing Director, Shane Watson reflected on their recent success with Yakoke Health…

Chiamaka was also concerned with the reliance on luck….

“We were lucky with Yakoke Health….  But, Yakoke Eyes, in comparison, was a disaster.  We were to slow to market and hit hard by the development of technology by the giants…. I feel like we are not capturing the learning from our projects, we’re too haphazard and not sharing the experience across the business.  We need a more organised approach and to stay true to our brand.”

The Finance and HR Directors were a bit more sceptical about more new projects at Yakoke.  Yakoke’s  Finance Director, Gloria Garcia agreed, but more strongly stated…

It was discussed at length at the January Board meeting how to improve the success of any new projects at Yakoke.  There was a lot of debate about remaining flexible and not becoming too bureaucratic.  Their Human Resources (HR) Director voiced another perspective…

“We are putting our staff under intense pressure to keep innovating and take on so much work.  I fear for the sustainability of staff well-being in the longer term.  Our team is so motivated and dynamic, they are not complaining about this…  But the hours some people are working are insane.  We need to be taking better care of how much people are taking on.  There are duplications of work and we need to be more efficient about who is doing what to relieve the excessive work loads some staff members are taking on.”

The consensus of the Board was that they did need to work on how their projects are planned and organised.  There was a distinct need to better manage workload, improve effectiveness, improve awareness of stakeholder influence and reduce risks, particularly of financial losses.  The decision was made to hire a Project Implementation Officer responsible for project planning methods for all projects at Yakoke

Your role: Project Implementation Officer

You were hired as this new Project Implementation Officer, reporting directly to the CEO, the Finance Director and the HR Director.  You are tasked to deploy a new project planning approach that can lead to more effective resource management, better organisation, better cost planning, improved project performance and sharing of learning.

The implementation of the Yakoke’s Project Planning Approach

Timescale and Activities

The implementation of the new Project Planning approach is time critical to be completed ready to be presented at the 2^nd September, 2024 Yakoke Board meeting.

The project start date to be assumed in your plan is Monday 29^th April, 2024. All days quoted are actual working days and do not include weekends (5 days = 1 week, 8 hours per day). Similarly a week implies 5 working days. Please check for UK public holidays during the project duration.

Please discuss the following issues:

The first activity is to get your team organised and on task for the project with a Team meet and organise workshop (2 days).  This is followed by the review summary task, which includes three activities in total. 1) Review current processes for project planning and costing (15 days) which needs to be discussed with project managers and the Finance Director and 2)  Review workload and resource planning (20 days) which needs to be discussed with project managers and the HR Director. These two activities, can be conducted at the same time and should include information about current projects, measures to control cost, how work is allocated and current project planning techniques. 

After the previous 2 activities, the final task in the review stage is 3) Effectiveness of project planning review (8 days).  After the Effectiveness of project planning review, the tasks: Meetings with the Directors (3 days) and Project planning strategy (10 days) can run at the same time and roughly in parallel,

As soon as these activities are completed, you can start Project planning metrics dashboard (7 days), followed by Project app selection (15 days).  There is a project milestone of Project app purchased that follows Project app selection.

Then, the following activities will follow in order:

* Report writing and documentation of new project processes

* Discussion of report with CEO and Supply Chain Director

* Final report writing and presentation preparation [Durations of these three activities with asterisk (*) have not be fixed, as the Project Implementation Officer, you are expected to decide the duration of each of these three activities. Your decision should be made based on overall duration of the project; costs of resources sign up with each activity and the total project budget.]

 Finally, Board presentation and discussion will take 1 day; followed by Project completion as the final milestone.

Costings

A total project budget of £240,000 is considered appropriate and sufficient by the Finance Director. This sum is intended to cover all costs to finish your report including personnel allocated for your study (two project administrator, two consultants and yourself), all travel costs for the meetings with Directors and Project Managers across Yakoke, and the new Project app.  Travel costs are estimated at £10,000 and the budget for the project app is £50,000.

The only costs this budget would not cover would be the salaries of any project or product managers at Yakoke who are seconded full or part-time to support you. They would draw their salaries exactly as usual from their unit which does not impact on your budget.

Staffing

Personnel allocated for your study are: yourself as Project Implementation Officer (PIO) with a salary at £5,650 p.c.m. (per calendar month), two project administrators with a salary at £2,700 p.c.m. per person, and two project analysts at £1,600 per day per person.

 When asked about who works on what tasks the following information was handed over to you (the letters in brackets stand for: PA1 and PA2 = Project Administrators, Ana1 and Ana2 = Project Analyst).

Please note that durations of those three activities with asterisk (*) have not be fixed, as the Project Implementation Officer, you are expected to decide the duration of each of these three activities. Your decision should be made based on overall duration of the project; costs of resources sign up with each activity and the total project budget.

Team meet and organise workshop (2 days) [PIO, PA1, PA2, Ana1 and Ana2]

Review current processes for project planning and costing (15 days) [PIO, PA1, and Ana1]

Review workload and resource planning (20 days) [PIO, PA2 and Ana2]

Effectiveness of project planning review (8 days) [PIO, PA1, PA2, Ana1 and Ana2]

Meetings with the Directors (3 days) [PIO, Ana1 and PA1]

Project planning strategy (10 days) [PIO, Ana2 and PA2]

Project planning metrics dashboard (7 days) [PIO, Ana1 and PA2]

Project app selection (15 days) [PIO, Ana1 and Ana2 and PA1]

Project app purchased (milestone)

Report writing and documentation of new project processes (*days) [PIO, Ana1 and Ana2 and PA1]

Discussion of report with CEO and Supply Chain Director (*days) [PIO, Ana1 and Ana2]

Final report writing and presentation preparation (*days) [PIO, PA1]

Board presentation and discussion (1 day) [PIO]

Project completion (milestone)