Technical Analysis: Meaning of Technical Analysis, Use of Various Informational Tools for Analysing, Advancement in the Era of E- Commerce in Project Management

Technical aspects relate to the production or generation of the project output in the form of goods and services from the projects inputs. Technical analysis represents study of the project to evaluate technical and engineering aspects when a project is being examined and formulated. It is a continuous process in the project appraisal system which determines the prerequisites for meaningful commissioning of the project.

Purpose of Technical Analysis

• In order to find out the most suitable and optimal structure of the project in terms of technology, location etc.
• The primary purpose of conducting technical analysis is to find out the technical feasibility of the project. It’s done to know whether all the inputs required to set up the project are available or not.
• Deciding from all available alternatives which will be the best option for the organisation.

Use of Various Informational Tools for Analyzing

Choice of Technology/Manufacturing Process:

Firstly the component associated with technical analysis is the choice of technology or the choice of the manufacturing process. The several factors which influence the choice of technology are:

• Plant Capacity: Also known as the production capacity is the number of units that can be produced in a specific also period of time.
• Principal Inputs: These inputs used to make final products and constitute at least 10% of the cost of material.
• Investment Outlay and production costs: Investment outlay is the cost incurred to acquire an asset or execute a strategy similarly production cost are the business costs involved in the production process.
• Use by other units: The technology adopted should prove to be successful earlier by other existing units.
• Ease of adoption and modernization must be an important factor while making a choice for technology.

Technical Arrangements:

This aims to make arrangements to obtain the technical know-how needed to conduct the proposed production process.

• Price of the technology in terms of infrastructure and licensing fee.
• Suitable modes of payment available must be available.
• Collaboration time of the agreement.
• Benefits from research and development services.
• Process and Performance guarantees of the technology.

Raw Material: In short it is the basic material which upon processing is converted into the final product. It is basically of four types:

• Agricultural products: Field crops, fruits, vegetables, rice, wheat etc.
• Mineral products: Industrial rocks, minerals, clays, sand, gravel, talc, ceramics, paints etc.
• Live Stock and forest products: Farm animals, sheep, horses, goats, pigs, dyes, wood, paper, rubber etc.
• Marine Products: Fish, corals, bacteria, sponges, seashells, crabs etc.

Product Mix

It is also known as product assortment is the total range of products offered by the company. Market requirements guide the choice of product mix.

While planning the production facilities some flexibility in product mix should be thought in accordance with the technical aspects.

It is an important area in technical analysis. It must aim to satisfy a broad range of customers and to do so it must be compatible with other available resources.

Plant Capacity:

Plant capacity also known as the production capacity is the number of units that can be produced in a specific period of time or can be called the maximum output rate of production.

FNC (feasible normal capacity): The capacity achievable under normal working conditions and on the other hand NMC (Nominal maximum capacity- capacity achievable technically or the installed capacity

Following factors have bearing on the plant capacity decision:

• Technological requirement
• Input constraints
• Investment cost
• Product Mix
• Latest Developments
• Ease of absorption
• Auxiliary Materials & Factory Supplies
• Processed Industrial Materials & Components
• Period of collaboration & Assistance provided
• The continuing benefit of R&D work being done
• Market conditions
• Resources of the firm
• Government Policy

Factors influencing the Choice of site location:

• Proximity to the source of raw materials: so the location must be close to the area from which raw material is to be acquired.
• Proximity to markets: for instance, the markets in which the product will sell must be close to the production site and flow of goods must be smooth.
• Availability of infrastructure: infrastructure must be available and suitable in order to conduct operations at that location.
• Government policies: above all the government restrictions must be minimum.
• Other factors: for example the climatic conditions, general living conditions, ancillary units, pollution.

Advancement in the Era of E- Commerce in Project Management

Ecommerce projects are one of the most challenging of all kinds of software projects, owning to the nature of the project itself. With integrated and inter-organisational nature, ecommerce projects have a faster development cycle time and a pressing need for an effective strategy at every phase of the project to deal with the problems.

• Package Selection: The hardest challenge of picking the right software vendor and the package solution from a plethora of options.
• Business Intelligence: Techniques and procedures to obtain the required information about the company’ s competitors, customers, their requirements and all the other internal business processess.
• Customer Relationship Management: The ability to learn how to treat each customer and his requirement as an important individual.
• Process Improvement: Aligining the organization’s operations with its strategic objectives with a goal to improve products and services.
• Human-Resource Management: Hiring and managing the skilled people and do the best to avoid any kinds conflict & project obstacles.

Tactics:

Set clear trackable goals with compelling metrics

Though almost every e-commerce project will have the ultimate goal of selling more products, it’s unfortunately common for a business to forget entirely about setting specific goals.

A bad project manager might decide that it’s worth carrying out some influencer marketing, then simply assume that it was worth it if the influencer in question gets a lot of hits for the relevant content.

Monitor and track the use of time

E-commerce businesses often rely on remote working and flexible hours because they’re ideally suited to them, and they’re great for productivity. That said, they’re somewhat harder for monitoring.

This is a problem because time is a precious resource, and it’s hard to manage a team effectively when you don’t know where time is being wasted.

Think of virtual assistants. Do you know how they’re using the time you’ve paid for? This is what Timeneye was designed to help with. Get everyone in your business operating on the same page and tracking their time in the same way. You can then look through the time logs to determine exactly where time is being lost through inefficiency, and start making changes.

Choose the right e-commerce business tools

Because so much of an online business takes place through digital systems (and even in the cloud), it’s mission-critical that you base your company on the right foundations.

Choose well, and you can scale your business smoothly, keep your team ticking along, and cut down on wasted costs through automation.

Ideally, every e-commerce business would run on a simple and scalable CMS like Shopify, allowing the hosting to scale with massive growth. It would use tools like Timeneye to track time, and use a project management tool like Basecamp to keep all relevant files and notes in one location.

Never stop iterating and testing

You plan a project, implement it, achieve the goal (or goals), and move on. That’s how most people would operate in most instances, but ecommerce is a different beast. There, very few projects are ever truly finished. Instead, they’re iterated. You plan some website updates, get them drafted, run them as A/B variants to see how they perform, then go right back to planning. Optimizely has some great options for product teams.

Why? Because there’s no such thing as a perfect store, or a perfect product listing, or a perfect checkout service. There’s always something that could improve. Couple in the aforementioned variability of e-commerce tactics, and you have all the reason you’d ever need to keep going with the improvements and never stop.

Use a scaling budget to account for change

Creating a small business budget is a mandatory part of running and growing a sustainable business, because you’ll always need to be investing and reinvesting in your business.

One problem that comes up a lot with e-commerce is that a budget that seemed right to begin with can become a problem it can suddenly become too little, or even too much.

This is down to two things: old methods becoming more or less effective (such as SEO tactics losing potency after Google algorithm changes), and sales fluctuating massively. If you happen upon a hit product, you might suddenly have an opportunity to make a lot of money from it, but only if you can budget for it.