2 assesments to do

Welcome to the Strategic Plan for Worlducation.

This document sets out our vision for the next two years and how we hope to achieve it.

We hope you enjoy reading this document.

Lucas Lopez

CEO

Worlducation

Founded in 2016, Worlducation is a social startup that manufactures tablet computers for primary school students. Our focus is not only on the hardware, but also creating software, content, and activities to better engage and educate primary school students.

Worlducation aims to change the way children learn at school by implementing artificial intelligence technology that can follow up on each child’s progress and adjust to their needs as they learn, creating the optimal path learning experience. Worlducation envisions a world in which every child learns how to read and write – a world without illiteracy. Therefore, for each classroom that buys our product, we donate and train a classroom somewhere around the world that can’t afford the same technology. We then connect the classrooms together so that they can grow and collaborate throughout their learning cycle.

Vision Statement

To see a world without illiteracy.

To be the change and facilitate a world without illiteracy by changing the way children learn at school and the number of schools that have access to technology.

Core values underpinning our activities are:

Ethical principles

Innovation

Strategic Priorities

Ensure that all financial operations, performance indicators and results support the strategic policies

Identify new and expand existing sources of revenue and ways to help more classrooms in need

Achieve profits of at least 10% per annum.

Increase our reach

Increase range of products and services offered to reach a larger target market

Increase sales to increase donations to needy classrooms.

Continue building deeper customer relationships

Customer-centred practice, with a focus on meeting their total needs for high-quality technology

Strengthen the skills of our people, to better support customers

Have an effective help desk function to meet customer needs

Strengthen the effectiveness of internal customers through provision of effective systems within each team

Drive innovation to better meet customer demands.

Attract, engage, and develop the best staff

Continuing the drive to a customer centred, high-performance workforce and culture

Strengthening the skills of our people, to better support customer needs

Empowering innovation and responsiveness to change

Continuing to enhance the diversity of our workforce

Exploring the use of technology in human resources.

Senior Management consisting of the CEO and General Manager heads up the overall organisation.

The company consists of key teams as follows:

Sales Team consisting of the Sales Manager and 3 x Sales Representatives

Operations Team consisting of the Operations Manager, Administration Officer and Accounts Officer.

IT Team consisting of the IT Manager, IT Support Officer and Help Desk Officer.

Each team develops its own performance plan each year for the upcoming 12 months. Each team is expected to:

Set its overall objectives to align with its key function and our strategic directions.

Define overall responsibilities according to the function within the company.

Set outcomes.

The Market

The technology market is a growing and ever-changing industry due to the rapid rate that technology is being updated. Emerging technologies include artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IOT). There is an increasing focus on cyber security.

Due to the global pandemic, the issues with the manufacturing industry have impacted on the supply of hardware components.

The trend for consumer spending during the pandemic has taken a downturn but this has not affected the ICT industry as due to more people working from home, consumer appetite for tablets has increased.

Situation Analysis

Our marketing strategies aim to:

build our brand

generate leads now

convert those leads quickly

have every part of the business supporting each other.

improving our marketing and advertising

continually improving the quality of service given to clients

maintaining effective communication channels with all stakeholders to ascertain industry requirements and then develop products and manage services accordingly

continually improving communication channels with all our stakeholders, ensuring a flow of timely and accurate information to facilitate effective planning and decision making

targeting identified growth markets with planned, market appropriate campaigns employing a variety of promotional strategies and advertising mediums

offering attractive fee structures to our clients

continually improving the skills, knowledge and effectiveness of our team through our commitment to training and development

regularly reviewing the effectiveness of all our operations and making improvements when and where necessary.

As a company we focus on collaboration both within and outside of the company. Currently our external partners are:

Lion Marketing – our marketing agency.

IT Biz Solutions – Internet Service Provider and web hosting.

Oz Aid – informs of us education projects in need.

Key innovation and continuous improvement approach

Due to global economic conditions, a wait and watch attitude is being adopted while we brainstorm and provide cost estimates for future business models. All policies and procedures should be reviewed and updated to represent best practices.

Key strategies to monitor and evaluate performance and sustainability of key systems and processes include team meetings, staff surveys and the use of financial reports and regular performance reports.

Supply chain background

Worlducation has a complex supply chain that begins when a sale is made usually via a sales representative or through an online enquiry that is handled by the sales team. Sales are recorded in an internal Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP System) which notifies the operations team that an order needs to be delivered. The operations team verify the sales order and authorise the delivery of a manufacturing request to the factory in Hong Kong. Manufacturing team in Hong Kong notes the order specifications and delivery details and incorporates this within its production schedule. The order is manufactured, and the operations team arrange freight and shipping directly to the customer.

Operational alternatives

Innovative business models have been brainstormed by senior management and include establishing a second manufacturing facility (estimated cost $5 million), outsourcing manufacturing to a third party (lost margin of $200 per unit sold or $2 million per year assuming 10 000 units are sold), developing a cloud based solution where customers can access the software remotely on their own devices (estimated cost of $2 million), purchasing off the shelf tablets (lost margin of $300 per unit sold or $3 million per year) or repurposing used tablets ($100 per unit sold or $1 million).

Operational Activities

Recently a decision has been made to start working on a cloud-based solution but continuing with the existing business model.

Operational activities for 2022 are indicated. Responsibility for each area is to be determined based on staff member skill sets or potential.

Our people

Our people skills are as follows:

Worlducation aims to enhance and streamline communications to reinforce the vision and strategic priorities and to manage change across the organisation. As such, we will continue to develop and trial new communication platforms, channels, and tools to improve information sharing and collaboration between all staff members.

This policy is to be implemented in a way that ensures compliance with relevant legislative requirements and standards of best practice.

Worlducation expects that staff will use the channels and for business purposes only and comply with all relevant policies and procedures.

Communication channels

Worlducation has several internal communication channels available for communication, approvals, project management, change management and knowledge management, including:

This policy adheres to national laws and regulations where Worlducation does business. It applies to any information that is material and proprietary.

This includes annual and quarterly reports, news releases, verbal communication (with external people such as analysts, investors, and the media), senior management presentations and information on the web site and intranet.

Employees must not discuss material, non-public matters, or developments with outsiders (including family members, relatives or friends).

Spokespersons

There are three main groups of designated spokespersons for Worlducation Corporation:

Any news release being issued to the media or public must be approved by Worlducation's executive management team. This includes (but not limited to) blogs, newspapers, magazines, adverts, social media and press statements.

Emergency communication

Crisis and emergency situations that may affect Worlducation and its employees include items such as fires, explosions, accidents, floods, hazardous material emissions, acts of violence or terrorism and many others. In the event of a crisis, safety should be your immediate concern. Employees should notify their direct manager and/or facilities manager, who will in turn notify the executive team as soon as possible. When dealing with the media during a crisis make sure you are available for comment and:

state the facts truthfully

do not from disclose names of the injured or deceased

show empathy - express concern for employees and the community as appropriate

do not offer opinion or speculate

describe steps you are taking to manage the crisis

Say "I need to confirm that information first" if you are unsure.

Sales

Worlducation started 2021 with a huge sale to a school in Portugal. Although it was a great start, the context for the rest of the quarter was highly uncertain due to COVID-19. The drastic increase in the number of customers is great news for sales, but we do not have a dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system in place. It is estimated the ongoing costs for such a system are around $12.50 per user and will help maintain and personalise customer service.

Operations

Surprisingly the pandemic brought hundreds of new leads and that led to an unprecedented growth that brought alongside dozens of operation and production problems.

The factory in Hong Kong closed for 1 month due to government restrictions limiting supply and the sales team was overwhelmed with sale meetings over ZOOM (as opposed to face-to-face meetings with customers). Sales have requested that an animated video be made to demonstrate the product, rather than them having to try and do it via Zoom. The Sales Manager has estimated that such a video will cost $5,000 to develop (and can be developed in house).

The tech-support team had to re-adapt the software on an ongoing basis to accommodate remote learning for many of the schools. Simple software errors due to the variation between the requirements of different schools has resulted in several customer complaints.

Logistics

Since COVID-19 and the closure of the factory due to government restrictions, of the 2000 tablets due to be shipped by April 21, only 500 were completed on schedule. For the remainder of the year, shipments were delayed on average by 3 weeks. The team estimate the continued shipment delays will cost the business $45,000 per year.

Staff

There has been no movement in staff numbers. Administration staff are overworked due to the increased demand and have requested that a dedicated financial team is established. Recruitment costs average at $20,000 per employee, but the costs of replacing lost knowledge and experience due to staff resigning is $25,000 per employee. It has also been suggested that the automation of financial processes will ease the workload (Robotic Process Automation costs around $40,000 to introduce).

Financial

A survey of staff regarding the processes associated with the continuous improvement and innovation process implementation. The comments are outlined below.

Experience of the continuous improvement process

Sometimes it makes you feel unsettled, so I experience a bit of anxiety.

While there is an attempt to communicate by management and to be as open as possible, I still have a fear of the unknown.

If I had to pick on one emotion, it’s probably “disillusionment” because at the end of the day, I don’t believe the organisation is being honest with us when it comes to change. I’m scared this continuous improvement system is just an attempt to scrutinise use more closely.

I actually love and look forward to the challenges of continuous improvement and innovation. That’s what keeps me vibrant and keeps me interested. So I embrace this with excitement.

Change is good. I don’t think I have any reservations so the way I feel about these changes is that I accept it. I am motivated by it.

Personally, I get to experience the opportunity to have an impact on an improved way of operating in the organisation.

I experienced a lot of different things. I am not sure whether it is disappointment or excitement.

I guess it’s more a wait and see approach will lead to a bit of unease and nervousness. Not sure about some of the ideas, could create divisions within the organisation.

I think that some people go through varying emotions when they experience change. For me, I am not sure. I don’t know if it has affected me or not at this stage.

Resistance to change and new processes

I guess I personally haven’t resisted change. There’s no point in resisting change because it is inevitable. The best thing is to try and understand what it is all about and put yourself in the best position to achieve whatever needs to be done.

No. I don’t resist change practices because I often do not see the point, particularly in restructures. Management will do whatever they want to do and you just go along with whatever it is they want you to do. I often don’t think there’s necessarily any point in resisting change.

I think they employees resist if they don’t understand why we are doing it, that is, change and change management. I think if they understand what we want to achieve, then ‘yes’, they will not resist change and change management. If they don’t understand, then there’s going to be resistance. Why will they want to change if they don’t understand what we are trying to achieve?

No, I do not resist change if the change is meaningful and if I understand the purpose for the change. I have had a lot of change in my life and I always like to see the positive in things and see things as a challenge. Likewise, I see change in this organisation as a challenge.

Well, no. No, I don’t resist change. I said earlier that change is part of the workforce. It has to be. Different strategies are needed so change is with us. I don’t resist it.

Communication

I have to say that communication is pretty good. I mean they don’t hide things from you.

There needs to be more ways of communicating with staff than meetings and newsletters.

I feel that there is good communication within the group

There needs to be an open line of communication from top to bottom. We get more information from rumours than we do from bosses and that is something that is sad and not healthy. You need to give employees a general overview of what is happening.

I don’t think that all information is presented in an open manner. Quite often one gets the feeling that some decisions already made are being sold to you. So I don’t think this organisation fosters open expression or opinions if your viewpoints happen to differ from those being presented to you.

I cannot stress how important communication is and my experience has been that when you are not communicated to truthfully then you do not trust. If your communication channels are open and honest, change is an easy thing.

I believe the company does try to be seen to be providing as much communication as it can. There are regular staff meetings. I suppose there is a good flow of communication but whether we can expect what is being told is correct, is true, I am not sure.

Communication needs to be timely. Often people with my experience are very aware of changes that are going on a long time before it is formally articulated which leads to a lot of rumours, suppositions and misinformation. So timely communication is a fundamental sort of thing.

I think communication can be improved. I have said earlier that there are board, executive and leadership meetings but I am not sure to how well the outcomes of these meetings are communicated throughout the organisation. So perhaps the only weakness that I see in this organisation in terms of change management would be overall communication and consultation. There are pockets of people who do change management very well but I’m not sure that it cascades right down to the bottom levels. People usually hear about the change after the event.

They give us information so that they are hoping we’ll make the opinions they want us to make based on the information they provide. They don’t actively seek any feedback from us. I don’t believe they want feedback.

CEO

Lucas Lopez

Sales Manager

Jade Somers

IT Manager

Hal Hyland

Operations Manager

Albert Biden

General Manager

Irene Green

Sales Representative

Jay Santos

Sales Representative

Jane Stone

Sales Representive

Jala Singh

IT Support Officer

Helen Hunt

Help Desk Officer

Hayley Hill

Accounts Officer

Alicia De Souza

Administration Officer

Alan Ibrahim

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