IPM Award-Winning Business Case Study
IPM’s Background information
Integrated Project Management Company, Inc (IPM) was founded by Richard Panico after realizing the high and pressing need for project execution excellence across industries. As much as most business consultancies helped organizations in the development of their solutions, Richard realized that many companies struggled to implement the laid strategies efficiently. This struggle was primarily attributed by the inability to execute, which rendered the applied strategies valueless. IPM is focused on skilled Project Management as well as leadership to change solutions and strategy to sustainable results. Primarily, services are provided by IPM to companies in life Sciences, Consumer Products, Healthcare, and Industrial products. Part of the services offered to the companies in these industries includes project portfolio management, acquisitions and mergers, product development, business process management, to point out a few.
The strategic plan that resulted in the winning is the culmination of the Business Planning Process that is divided into four key process steps. The first step being observation in which the firm collects inputs that help in the initial planning guidance from internally and the market. In the orientation step, the firm’s strategic imperatives are identified. The decision stage then follows in which resource gap analysis is done to help in creating goals and initiatives to be approved. The goals are tiered initiatives, especially due to budget management. The action stage trails with the primary goal being deploying the strategic plan through action plans that are executed. This whole business process becomes a continuous improvement from what worked well and what went wrong from the action plans.
IPM’s Business model and its importance
Unlike several other small and mid-sized consulting firms, IPM employs full-time direct employees which helps in preserving the firm’s quality standards and reputation. Most firms in this sector focus on a flexible staffing model that augments staff with independent consultants at high demand times. Through the firm’s consistency in the employees, the company has managed to maintain the quality of services delivered to the clients, and this ultimately contributes to the company’s competitive advantage
IPM’s Competitive Advantage
According to the report, one of the IPM’s competitive advantages is the company’s value-based sustainable culture which helps the company operate within its mission and values. In addition to the culture, consistency in high quality of services offered to the clients is another advantage because it is a passion that defines their complacency, hence the high priority for quality delivery. Also, as part of the competitive advantages, the employees at the company create a family.
Development of competitive advantage
The IPM focuses on creating a reliable plan of execution for the critical initiatives their clients are going through. The sustainability mainly depends on this ability to provide solutions while at the same time iterating through their business model and capabilities to maintain a high position on the market. The ability to provide reliable solutions is a factor of process, discipline and leadership, hence the high-quality services that help the company stay on top of the chain. Additionally, the company has managed to be completely debt-free, which has helped underwrite its aggressive strategy for organic growth through increased sales and expansion using the company’s resources.
IPM’s vision, mission and values
In terms of vision, the firm thinks it is going to be a prestigious consulting firm with outstanding leadership to change solutions and strategies to sustainable results. This firm belief is driven by the mission through the exemplified excellence, ethical leadership and community involvement in the daily operations of the firm. While the ability to provide top-notch leadership is the purpose of the firm, the obsession with excellence, honesty, ethical conduct and integrity, will help the company manage an impeccable reputation. Such an organization only maintains such a high profile through the fundamental values such as honesty, integrity, caring for both the company family and clients, respect, humility, taking responsibility, excellence and spirituality. These values have brought impeccable results to the firm, and it’s through the character elements such as diligence, resilience, enthusiasm and work ethic that helps keep winning.
Strategic Objectives at IPM: The company’s key strategic objectives are; diversification, growth and talent engagement. The chosen objectives are designed to help address strategic challenges through the core competencies, advantages opportunities in the company’s reach through addressing the different aspects identified in their SWOT analysis. Talent engagement has a high priority as it is focusing on the firm’s employees, while diversification is primarily client-focused. The firm tries to get as many organizations and clients from different industries. The last objective being growth, the company uses the first two objectives in ensuring that the aspects within the daily operations are iterated even more with time, hence the ability to stay on top of the chain in the consulting industry.
IPM’s BPP uses proactive approach strategies, which are superior since they allow the organization using the technique the flexibility to produce decisions instead of responding out of the need to a scenario that already might be out of control. Using three strategic orientations, observe, orient, decide, act a special proactivity profile are made, reflecting the patterns within the identified proactive activities (Brege & Kindström, 2020). The step strategy chosen by the company is tracked and improved throughout the year using the Internal Project Portfolio Management (IPPM) process. These generic techniques help us realize the job of proactivity in crafting high performing market strategies by representing various routes to success.
Strategic management is the science and art of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will allow a company to achieve its goals (Thomas,1983). BPP strategy management includes the organization’s objective, goals, strategic initiative. Developing policies, as well as plans which are meant to achieve these objectives, also allocating resources to apply these plans and policies. All this is done to balance the company’s scorecard used to evaluate a business’s overall performance.
IPM’s set of conditions which are implemented by actions, pass the fit test, which displays a dynamic match with the internal and external facets of the firm’s whole situation. The test also makes the firm attain a major and sustainable competitive advantage, which makes the company winner.
Future strategic planning is a crucial business practice for placing a company for good results, aligning leaders to the same strategy, and leading management decisions. IPM balances short-term and long-term planning horizons via prioritizing Initiatives, which specify how IPM will achieve each objective and will be resourced in a short (Tier 1) versus long-term (Tier 2) timeframe. This ensures the essential Initiatives (Tier 1) are completed in the future.
