Many companies develop their portfolios, programs, and projects to set particular objectives, share them with other people or clients, and reach certain goals. Every project implies the creation of innovative or revolutionary technologies. Projects are intended to satisfy companies’ clients or develop new techniques to attract more customers. Project management can be interpreted as a process that helps employees of any firm achieve various goals. A program includes several or a plethora of projects of one firm. Such an organization lets many projects be controlled and managed appropriately and in accordance with the standards of any chosen program. A portfolio implies an extended presentation of programs or projects, regardless of their contributions and relations to one another. In general, portfolios are intended to unite multiple projects to control and operate them together, which lets companies reach the objectives set previously. Emirates Airline Foundation has all of the elements mentioned above. Nowadays, the corporation’s directors think of different possible ways to achieve their goals. The following paper will discuss the project, program, and portfolio management strategies of the Emirates Airline Foundation Company.
The Emirates Airline Foundation Company’s portfolio, program, and project management systems
EAF Introduction
To start the discussion, it would be proper to state that the Emirates Airline Foundation Company specializes in humanitarian assistance, charity, and other activities that are intended to help people who have particular needs or seek aid. The organization might be considered non-profitable as its employees, projects, and other actions are supported by the financial and Internal Audit departments of the Emirates Group. The primary goal of Emirates Airline Foundation is to help people who do not have housing, food, clothes, appropriate medicaments, and education. Although the fact of such people’s needs is not discussed by mass media, many families in the Third World Countries cannot afford to buy even clear water as their average incomes vary from twenty to thirty dollars per month.
The central objective of EAF is to reduce the world’s poverty rate and save individuals (especially children) who do not have any finances to live in accordance with high standards. This organization was established in the United Arab Emirates after receiving the appropriate permission from the country’s government. Also, the funds of this company (not more than five percent a month) are used by the local politicians to address the administration’s needs and other essential expenses.
EAF Mission
As it is mentioned above, the EAF Company focuses on providing humanitarian assistance to children from low-income families and societies. Therefore, its mission is to give young people an opportunity to realize themselves in this world. In particular, the charity organization provides children with all the necessary materials and aid to help them obtain proper education and well-paid jobs in the future.
EAF Values
All people, who work for the Emirates Airline Foundation, think that it is not fair that residents of developed countries have better lives than their peers from some Third World Commonwealths. The primary value of the EAF team is the life of a human as it cannot be ruined due to such factors as economic issues or unfavorable locations of people’s habitats. It is also essential for the corporation to make the entire world’s population equal. The company’s philosophy says that all the resources on Earth should be allocated among the planet’s inhabitants, regardless of their homes’ dislocations.
Supplies Provided by EAF
As mentioned above, there are several types of humanitarian assistance given to the people from Third World countries who live in poverty and face particular problems on a daily basis. Some of these living issues will be listed below:
- Food and clear water. Unfortunately, the populations of such countries as Bangladesh, India, and several others do not have access to drinkable water. This situation is caused by the pollution of the planet’s oceans, seas, and rivers. Also, transnational companies prefer to place their factories in the territories of developing countries because of the low labor cost, which has a tremendously adverse impact on the environment and living conditions of the local inhabitants.
- Health and necessary medicaments. Many children from different African and Asian states suffer from serious diseases (sometimes even lethal or untreatable) that cannot be eliminated due to the lack of appropriate medical supplies. EAF gathers all the data about the medicaments required by children who cannot afford necessary drugs and sends the essential items to the Third World countries. Also, if young people need the help of an educated doctor, some UAE licensed hospital workers might be asked to deliver emergency aid to infected or ill individuals.
- Housing. Sometimes, the living conditions in Third World countries are awful as children do not have any homes to hide from awkward weather and have comfortable lives. Therefore, the Emirates Airline Foundation provides shelters to abandoned children. This saves young people from being infected with such diseases as HIV/AIDS and other illnesses that are prevalent in Africa.
- Education. It is essential to give every person an opportunity to learn, develop and realize one’s potential in this world. Some children seek good education as this is one of the ways for them to prosper and live worthy lives. The EAF organization also makes everything possible to give valuable knowledge to poor children.
EAF Portfolio
The Emirates Airline Foundation Company has multiple projects included in its portfolio. All these missions are intended to address the needs of vulnerable populations from the states of India, Africa, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. These are the main destinations of the airline corporation that supports all the charitable activities performed by EAF. The portfolio management of the company has some benefits that let it organize charitable processes and missions. For instance, it is much easier to allocate and utilize resources among EAF projects optimally. Also, the portfolio management implication supports particular projects of the UAE corporation constantly. In turn, the possibility of different conflicts’ occurrence during the organization processes is reduced to the minimum. Appropriate project management also lets the company’s employees coordinate among their mutual projects better and faster.
The portfolio of every company or its program should include several strategic plans to identify the main purposes and objectives of the chosen activity. The following list will enumerate all of the goals mentioned above adopted by EAF in its general portfolio:
- Make children from Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka healthier.
- Give children from Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka hope for a better life.
- Improve the living conditions of children from Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
- Support the families of young people from Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
- Prevent the young representatives of vulnerable populations from Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka from being infected with lethal or untreatable diseases.
EAF Project Management Office
Every company that develops various projects, programs, and portfolios must have several people working in its PMO (project management office). This department specializes in coordinating, gathering necessary information, and operating different projects considered by employees of the EAF Company. Also, the workers of PMO should monitor the organization’s budgets and expenses that are presented in the form of tables or graphs for a better understanding and visual tendencies’ analyses. The PMO managers coordinate with their colleagues to help them accomplish and plan particular tasks within one of the corporation’s projects. The following list will enumerate the primary functions of the EAF PMO:
- Reducing the time required for the completion of the company’s projects. It is essential to define certain time frames for the realization of EAF projects to organize the company’s employees’ work correctly.
- Organizing the processes required to complete various projects. An efficient PMO creates favorable conditions for other workers to accomplish their work with a high quality.
- Organizing and providing informational support to people who are involved in diverse projects. All the managers of PMO must give necessary information and data that might be helpful to their colleagues who are responsible for separate activities.
- Monitoring the EAF projects’ completion progress and making reports. All the methods and achievements should be reported to EAF superiors. These people should understand how their finances are allocated and spent.
- Delegating. Only qualified specialists are usually allowed to control all the EAF projects’ progress. Therefore, they can delegate responsibilities among their auxiliaries for a better work organization.
- Management tools. Technical specialists from the company’s project management office are required to control and monitor the status of every project developed by EAF employees with the help of management tools.
- Information office. The PMO of the charitable company discussed above has to answer all the questions of other workers that might occur during the realization of a particular project.
- Methodology. Managers that work at the EAF Corporation’s PMO are intended to support other employees of the company who use recommended methods and suggestions in their work to improve its quality.
- Correctional actions. If there are some issues presented by the prolonged terms of projects’ realization, the PMO managers are allowed to develop correctional methodologies to improve the quality of other colleagues’ work.
- Assisting the project management department. PMO must control and organize the work and different operations performed by the representatives of the EAF project management department to balance the number of professionals in different spheres necessary to complete various projects.
- Helping employees to cope with uncertain or complex projects. As is mentioned, the EAF PMO is supposed to provide additional information in case of various uncertainties. However, if the problem is not solved, the office has to analyze multiple biases that emerged during the project development and find an appropriate way to eliminate these issues.
- Educating future project managers. As the number of EAF projects proliferates, the company needs new people to control and assist other employees in the realization process of different charitable events. Therefore, new experts obtain an appropriate education at the corporation’s PMO as well.
- Marketing and communication. An efficient project management office should always communicate with vulnerable populations to know their needs and address them adequately.
- Archives. Also, the EAF PMO holds every finished and developing project in its database.
Strengths of PMO Implementation in EAF
As it is mentioned above, there are a plethora of functions within the Emirates Airlines Foundation that its project management office is in charge of due to the professional qualities and experience of its employees. The following paragraph is intended to discuss the primary strengths of the EAF PMO team that let the corporation be useful in the development and realization of its projects. The first advantage of the discussed department is its workers’ ability to allocate the available financial means among people who live in need from different countries. For instance, when children from Chad have to be provided with medicine to treat their health issues, young people from Bangladesh might suffer from hunger. The project management office specialists can identify the number of supplies required by inhabitants of both zones. Also, they define the cost of the help provision (purchasing different items ad delivery). This ability is sometimes essential when many locations seek help from outside as all the budget money has to be organized and divided among vulnerable populations accurately.
Deficits of PMO Implementation in EAF
Although PMO is intended to control the entire working process, some issues might emerge because of its intervention. For instance, it would be advantageous for the project management office employees to elaborate on the presentations of their reports that have to be less complicated and contain only necessary information. For instance, it is essential to record such data as the company’s expenses, the benefits of the successful project, and so on. However, it is not always important to report the data about the innovation performance of every EAF employee during different project development processes, as this data is stated in other sources. Therefore, the sound recommendation for the given issue is to remove and not mention all the details of every project as such an informational burden distracts readers from the main points that should be considered when analyzing a certain event.
The Emirates Airlines Foundation Company’s projects, their life cycle, and phase’s structure
The Emirates Airlines Foundation established a plethora of projects intended to help children from the Third World countries of Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The corporation’s superiors support vulnerable populations of developing countries by providing clean water and food to these people as the locations mentioned above always have the lack these resources. Also, EAF aims at building shelters and educating children and adolescents who live in poverty as this is the only way for them to realize their potential in this world. The number of annual projects of the charitable company varies every year, which makes it impossible to give a precise figure as to the events’ quantity. However, it is known that EAF workers are involved in twenty-one missions in the year 2017. Unfortunately, there is no accurate information as to the transnational organization either. The only credible data source says that Emirates Airlines Foundation is supported by the profits gained from multiple flights between international airports. Also, regular citizens and the UAE government make donations to save other peoples’ lives.
The section of the second question is intended to analyze three different projects of the Emirates Airlines Foundation. The first charitable mission is called The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship, which is located in Bangladesh, to cure the local population of different diseases. Another project, The Big Pen School in Nairobi, Kenya, was built to educate children who do not have enough finances to afford other institutions. The third realized mission by the EAF is Kidane Mehret Children’s Home that is supposed to give shelter to homeless young people. All the events mentioned above refer to the type of management projects.
Project Lifecycle and Phase’s Structure
Every project has its life cycle, which identifies what actions should be performed by managers of the EAF management office to complete a particular mission. The following list will enumerate every stadium of the project development:
- Scope. When the first stadia is finished, all the goals and objectives of a certain project should be set and evaluated by all members of the team that is responsible for the mission’s completion.
- Change. Indeed, some changes might occur during the project discussion. Therefore, different innovations have to be considered at this level, as managers should evaluate them and decide whether their implementation is useful or not.
- Planning. People who work at the PMO of the company should develop effective plans and schedules. Further project progress will be made according to the information obtained at this stage.
- Management. Project managers organize the team that is required to complete the objectives set previously.
- Success. All the expected goals are reached, and their outcomes are beneficial for the purposive audience.
- Monitoring. This level becomes permanent after the project is completed. This stage is required to eliminate particular issues that might occur during the exploitation period.
There are three stadia that are widely used to determine various projects’ progress. The first phase of identification might be considered synonymous with the first lifecycle step (scope). This level requires participants to set possible goals, develop the name of the project, and discuss the main points of its further realization. The next stage is the define phase that includes such activities as planning and elaborating on the decisions adopted previously to make them more productive and efficient. The last executing phase implies the realization of the planned mission and recording its outcomes to compare them with the original plan and schedule.
The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship Project
Before analyzing the project of The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship in Bangladesh, it would be proper to state that more than two and a half million people were saved with the help of the professionals who work at this medical institution. There are many individuals with different traumas, fractures, and diseases in the country due to the regular floods and other awkward weather conditions. The Emirates Airline Foundation gave the local people a chance to heal at the facility mentioned above, and it supports the ship financially by paying high salaries to the doctors and other medical personnel members who work there. Also, it would be proper to state that all the equipment installed on the ship is professional and new. It lets the doctors treat their patients fast with the services of a high-quality.
It is necessary to state that the project mentioned above is considered to be significant (according to the table of capital investments) as it required approximately one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for its realization. Although the managers of Emirates Airlines Foundation PMO tried to address every phase and elaborate on every project cycle element properly, there are some issues detected in the organization system. For instance, the phase of design and construction was not given enough attention by the transnational corporation’s employees as the general appearance of the hospital, and the ship’s reliability are not described anywhere. Moreover, it is possible to see that the construction might not last another ten years if it is used by people on a daily basis. Therefore, it is essential to consult professional builders or engineers to invent a reliable method and renovate the hospital according to its standards.
Because of the short term of The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship project realization, the construction was not tested appropriately. It is important to close the facility for one day and make various examinations to set an approximate exploitation term. This step is necessary because it can save the company’s finances and many people’s lives.
It would be proper to state that every project has different stages of its management and life cycle due to the wide range of actions that are necessary to implement within their organization. The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship is a medical institution, which currently remains at the position of a completed mission that needs constant monitoring. As the plan was successfully brought to an end, the project has to be assisted by people who might prevent or eliminate various issues that occur during the treatment processes of the vulnerable populations from Bangladesh. As the medical institution is situated beyond the developed and civilized world, some employees of the EAF Company are obliged to check the object and record its condition or improvements needed for the further functioning of the clinic.
The strength of the project
The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship is situated in a place that almost all Bangladeshi have access to, regardless of their habitats’ locations. Also, the hospital is based on a floating ship, which is considered to be very creative and efficient as it does not occupy the territory of the Third World country. Another strength of the realized mission is that the discussed medical institution employs only local doctors and nurses. These people receive their salaries from the representatives of EAF PMO, which automatically increases their wealth and makes them contributed to the health of other Bangladeshi.
The weakness of the project
As it is mentioned above, the main weakness of The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship is its unreliable construction. The managers from the Emirates Airlines Foundation project management office state that the ship is floating and does not have any concrete foundation. The construction of the medical institution is weak. It is necessary to stabilize the ship and fix it in one place to prevent various possible oscillations that might be caused even by minor waves. This factor is very important as doctors’ work always requires accuracy. Moreover, there are many medicaments on board of this ship that might break or mix because of the rolling waves. It would be proper to mention that storms are very common in Bangladesh.
Recommendation
It would be advantageous for the EAF PMO managers to develop and build a stable foundation for The Emirates Friendship Hospital Ship. There are many techniques of the underwater building that might be implemented with the help of professional architects’ or builders’ consultations. Such an improvement does not require much investment, whereas the patients will be able to undergo different procedures or operations, regardless of the weather outside.
The Big Pen School Project
The Big Pen School that is situated in Nairobi, Kenya, is a minor project as it required only six thousand and five hundred dollars for its completion. This mission is aimed at improving the local children’s education, giving them opportunities to develop in this world and build successful careers in the future. The main concept of the projects was to renovate the building of the demolished school in the town of Nairobi. All the rooms of the educational institution could place not more than five hundred students at the same moment, whereas the walls and the roof were falling apart. “A team of Emirates staff volunteers decided to help renovate the building in 2005 when the school, which educated around 500 students at the time, performed remarkably well in the national examinations tables, despite its sorry state.” Also, the EAF Company provided electricity, sewerage system, and other utilities to the students who study at this school.
The missing phase of this project is designing the building. Although the project did not have a limited budget, the children from Kenya did not need the luxurious interior of their school. It was important to provide all the conveniences for students to study in appropriate conditions. Therefore, the school design phase was skipped on purpose. The main goal of the project was to renovate the building according to modern standards, which was successfully accomplished. The project might be considered closed. However, some managers from the Emirates Airlines Foundation are obliged to monitor it constantly to detect various issues or improvements that have to be necessarily addressed.
The strength of the project
The main strength and advantage of The Big Pen School projects is its dislocation. The educational institution is situated in one of the poorest districts of Nairobi, which gives people who live in poverty the ability to acquire education and develop professional skills useful in their future careers. It would be proper to state that one school in this area is still not enough for the local population as these buildings cannot place many children in classes at the same moment. Therefore, teachers are obliged to stay for an evening or even night shifts to learn students of different ages.
The weakness of the project
The main weakness of the project is the fact that The Big Pen School was renovated. It would be more rational to demolish the old building and erect another one. Such a step would let the construction team extend the size of the school to fit more students. Also, some problems might emerge with the reliability of the educational institution as its foundation and primary materials are old and weak. It is recommended to monitor the condition of the building and rebuild it as soon as possible as its destruction might cause tremendous harm to the local students.
Kidane Mehret Children’s Home Project
Emirates Airlines Foundation established Kidane Mehret Children’s Home in Ethiopia for orphan infants and adolescents left without any places to go. The project is also minor because it required less than one hundred thousand dollars to build the Children’s Home. When managers from the EAF PMO developed the given project, they did not miss any phases of its organization process as the facility works properly and does not need any improvements. The project is currently closed. Although the project is finished, it does not mean that the orphanage is not working today.
It would be proper to mention that Kidane Mehret Children’s Home hosts many young people (more than one hundred and fifty) of different ages. The orphanage is supported by EAF till the present moment. Local citizens work at the Children’s Home on a regular basis.
The strength of the project
The primary strength of the project is the ability to place many children in it at the same time. Unfortunately, many infants from Ethiopia are born out of wedlock. Therefore, the number of children living in this facility always increases.
The weakness of the project
There are almost no significant issues in this project as children who live in Kidane Mehret Children’s Home have access to various books, computers, and other developing sources or activities. It is essential to mention that the facility’s interior is constantly renovated according to modern living standards. Also, children have all the conveniences required for a comfortable life. However, it is highly recommended to improve the level of pre-school education in the orphanage to prepare children for primary education appropriately.
Conclusion
The Emirates Airlines Foundation Specializes in developing, managing, and supporting various projects intended to help the vulnerable populations from the states of Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The corporation is currently working on twenty-one missions aimed at improving poor children’s health, education, and living conditions. All the projects are operated and organized by the EAF PMO managers and other employees.