MAN400

Global Green Books Case Study

Green Books Publishing Inc. ("Green Books") was started two years ago by two friends, Julion Neidhardt and James Fitzsimmons, who met in college while studying in Toronto, Canada.The two friends graduated in 2017.

Green Books strives to become the most profitable publishing company in Canada and currently serves the academic community.Julion and James are targeting seasoned Professors who have established a reputation in their field and now want to author their own books. During their 4 years of study, the pair established many wonderful relationships with their Professors.This allowed them to consult with their Professors on the launch of their new business. They discovered that the majority of Professors have tremendous subject matter expertise but consider themselves to be novice authors.As a result, Professors set out in search of good freelancers for content editing, copyright management, cover design, publishing and promotion. Unfortunately, determining which freelancers to work with is rarely easy because few offer all the services required.This discovery led Julion and James to launch their own publishing business.As a full-service provider, Green Books does not aim to compete on price.Instead, they charge a premium for the management of the end to end publication process.

Like many sectors, the publishing business is in a constant state of change. Green Books is riding a wave of interest in eBooks due in part to their greater portability, accessibility and environmental benefits.Within the academic sector, competition among the publishers has always been intense.Innovators like Green Books are looking for ways to better link student success to the eBook platform.

In the new business, Julion is accountable for sales and marketing and James is accountable for operations (editing, electronic assembly and publishing). Each of the company's college clients creates their own course material from scratch and this means each order is unique.Once the order is fulfilled, the eBook does not have to be produced again as it becomes available in a digital format. Green Books must source all the images for each eBook and ensure that the copyrights are obtained as quickly as possible.In some cases, copyright delays make it very challenging to have the eBook ready for the start of the semester, as requested by the Professors.

After two years of steady growth, Green Books began to experience some challenges in completing their eBook orders on time, on budget and with expected quality.Narinder Kaur is Green Books' Manager of Desktop Publishing.This is where all the action happens - Narinder's team of 13 Desktop Publishers designs and creates each of the custom order eBooks.Narinder began to wonder if it was time to introduce project management practices into the Green Books organization. One of Narinder's college friends, Peter Brugnatti, became a Project Manager after graduation and had been working in the field for 2 years.Narinder had a great idea - ask Peter if he thinks Green Books should use project management practices! Narinder set up a meeting with Peter and was looking forward to connecting with him again.

Answer questions

1)It is possible that an eBook project will be over budget, late (behind schedule) and/or fail to meet the expectations of the client.

Identify one risk that could cause any one of these outcomes to occur.

2) Let's assume that Narinder decided to outsource the creation of new graphic designs to a professional design firm.He wants to make it in order to save time. Identify 2 criteria you think he should use to evaluate the various suppliers? Please note that Green Books is not aiming to compete on price.Instead, they aim to serve the market as a full-service provider.

3) As Samantha builds the schedule for each eBook, should she use the top-down or bottom-up approach?Explain your answer. If you believe she should use both approaches, explain why you believe this and how she would use both approaches

4)Recall the triple constraints of project management.Which constraint do you think is the most important for an eBook project?Explain your choice.

5)Assume you're Samantha and you're creating the Project Charter for an eBook project. Identify 2 criteria you would include in the "Project Success Criteria and Satisfaction" section of the Project Charter.