Thesis (MDF (Development Finance))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Mobile lifter (ML) is a product that is used to lift loads or materials ranging from 20–600 kilograms (kg), and to move the loads to anywhere within the factory up to a height of 2.3 metres (m). The ML is ideal for loads heavier than human comfort, dangerous to touch by hands, requiring repetitive moving and not heavy enough for a forklift. As the need for labour rises and manufactures want to increase productivity, the ML becomes the solution. Currently, there is no company that specialises in ML, and that provides good service to the customers. HELM intends filling that gap in the markets. HELM plans to acquire exclusive distribution rights with a European base supplier of MLs. HELM will become the distributor of MLs in Southern Africa. HELM will have its base or office in Cape Town (CT), but also secure subcontractors in three other provinces, namely Gauteng, KwaZulu- Natal (KZN), and the Eastern Cape (EC). HELM will sell products from its supplier partner and it will offer services and a maintenance plan to its clients at a competitive rate. The ML can be used in manufacturing, wholesale, the retail trade and motor trade, and transport and storage. The three sectors account for over 35 percent of South Africa’s gross domestic product. The manufacturing sector is the largest sector with many industries. The most attractive industries are the fast moving consumer goods, automotive, pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing industries. Although the industry or market is fragmented, Gauteng has the largest target market with over 9000 registered manufacturing enterprise. It is followed by KwaZulu-Natal, then the Western Cape and finally the Eastern Cape. The ML industry is still in its infancy, and HELM Solutions intend to sell 25 units in the first year, 33 in the second and then 36 in the third year. The current distributors of MLs only have one point of service per distributor in South Africa and MLs are non-core products for them. HELM also intends differentiating itself from other distributors by being a solution provider to clients, and not a product distributor. HELM wants to understand the clients’ business, understand their needs, and provide them with solution that will also increase their profit. This should give HELM a competitive advantage and make it difficult for clients to substitute the HELM products and service. Franck Tshilombo is one of the three entrepreneurs who will be directly involved in the business. He will start as the only employee of the business. He has been working with MLs for the past four years. His experience ranges from selling and marketing to ordering, assembling, service and maintenance of MLs. Kevin French brings experience in the financial field of investments. He holds a B Com degree and is a CFA charter holder. He has 25 years combined experience in financial services at large corporates and smaller entrepreneurial start-ups. He owns an investment management business and two paint distribution businesses. His experience includes starting new businesses, takeovers and turnarounds in financial services, and construction and electrical engineering. Collin Ramukhubathi who has a mechanical engineering degree and is an MBA candidate, has 15 years working experience in general management in construction and the mining sector. HELM Solutions require funding for fixed assets and working capital. The fixed asset will be funded by shareholders in the form of assets worth R30 000 and cash of R15 000. The amount of external funding required is R154 000. The desired funding should be in the form of an overdraft loan, as not all the funds will be needed in the beginning. This funding will be used towards the monthly expenses for the period of three months and towards increases in sales within the first five months. The funds will be needed during sales growth as the cash conversion cycle of the business is long. The overdraft loan is based on the interest rate of 12 percent. Based on these estimates, the loan will be fully repaid within 11 months.

The focus of this study is to examine the factors that lead to growth in small firms in a Least Developed Country (LDC). The research is based on the manufacturing sector in Ghana. The main objectives of the research are to identify the key variables that lead to small firms' growth and to ascertain the critical barriers that impede growth. A research model which is developed out of an initial exploratory research and existing literature focuses on how the characteristics of the owner/manager, the characteristics of the firm and the business strategy variables interact to affect growth in employment. In addition factors that are perceived to have constrained the growth of the small firms during the study period are ascertained and discussed. To properly test the hypotheses developed a face to face interview survey involving 122 owner/managers of small manufacturing firms is conducted. This resulted in a range of variables that allowed for the construction of a comprehensive multivariate model of small firm growth. A resulting regression model provides about 68 percent of the explanation for the growth of the small firms sampled. It also indicates that the owner/manager characteristics variables offer the most powerful explanation to small firm growth. We find that the owner/manager's growth aspiration is the most influential factor in achieving growth. The other owner/manager characteristics variables that have positive influence on growth are level of education, prior industry experience and entrepreneurial family background. Owner/managers with local experience and/or with other business interests are less likely to achieve faster growth. Foreign owned/managed firms grow faster. Younger and smaller firms appear to grow faster. While firms with multiple ownerships tend to grow at a slower rate than firms owned and managed by one person. Business planning, marketing and export have positive and significant impacts on growth. Other business strategies such as innovations and staff training also have direct relationships with growth but not significant. Some of the main constraining factors to growth are cost of borrowing, lack of access to credit, high cost of inputs, lack of trust within the business community, high bureaucracy, late payments and lack of efficient support system. While the external environment plays important role in small firm growth and development, the behaviours, response and strategies pursued by individual owner/manager are significant factors that determine the rate at which a firm will grow.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The concept of Operational decision making is not new, but in the context of Enterprise Resource Planning implementation as is the case at PFK Electronics (PTY) Ltd., it becomes part of what ERP process that makes organisations more competitive and profitable as Wallace and Kremzar (2001) comment, "Effective forecasting, planning, and scheduling is fundamental to productivity and ERP is a fundamental way to achieve it. Properly implementing ERP will give you a competitive advantage and help you run your business more effectively, efficiently and responsively." The Operational decision making process that forms part of the research question is a process known as Sales and Operational Planning process (SOP's). The research paper is looking at how Real Time Shop floor information can impact on the decision making process, as Wallace and Kremzar (2001 : 165) state that this is the most important element in making ERP systems work. The study looks at what information is required to make effective decisions in the SOP's process and how the respondents perceive information quality, its value and the impact on decision making in the SOP's process. The research sought to further investigate a diverse demographic population, the behavioural culture within the organisation and their perception on having this information in real time directly from the shop floor. Data was collected via a survey questionnaire and an interview process which also required the review of organisational documentation where available. The research aimed to investigate what information Operations (SOP's) need to make effective decisions to meet the organisational strategic objectives and to determine the best means of obtaining and communicating the information to managers. Developing this further the research was then broken down into three objectives: • To investigate 'what' information sales and operations managers need in order to make effective decisions that will have an impact on them meeting strategic performance objectives. • To evaluate 'how' real time shop floor information can improve the decision making process in Operations in meeting strategic objectives; by understanding the types and methods used in decision making and the significance of time on information. • To recommend suitable Information Communication Technology (ICT) systems to obtain and communicate information to managers effectively within operations. During this process time constraints were of a concern, which manifested in objective three not being able to be completed to the satisfaction of the researcher. However the research process, which included the survey and interviews of respondents, the researcher felt that respondents where honest and open in expressing their views which adds to the validity and reliability of the research. The results showed that there was a clear understanding of the topic amongst the respondents. It showed that the respondents had a good understanding of information and its importance in meeting strategic objectives by making better decisions. It became clear that ERP was generally working well but that timeliness of information was the biggest obstacle in meeting strategic objectives in balancing supply and demand. The research identified the information necessary for the SOP's process to be effective and it also showed the impact of having real time shop floor information available to the decision making process. It also showed that there would be other benefits as performance could also be improved by having real time performance indicators that are used to set the pace and common goal. The report also identified some cultural differences between PFK electronics culture and NUMSA unionised employees culture and the impact it has on relationships and communication. The report concludes with the research question being answered and with a recommendation that the single most important means of improving operational effectiveness is going to be to improve the quality of information used in decision making. The research has shown that getting this information in 'real time' or as close as possible to real time is the best means of improving the quality of information and its impact on management decisions. It is further recommended to investigate the implementation of systems such as Manufacturing Execution Systems to link the shop floor directly into the current ERP system and lastly to find a means of bridging the cultural differences between NUMSA unionised employees and PFK behavioural culture. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / M.B.A.

This study focused on the possible determinants of operational efficiency at the University of Venda, which was premised on the extent to which stakeholders are involved in the strategic planning of the institution. The aim of the study was to establish the stakeholders’ involvement in the strategic planning of the University of Venda. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data during August and October 2011. The study was conducted at the University of Venda, Vhembe District in the Limpopo Province. A non-probability sampling procedure was used to select respondents. The results revealed that whilst the stakeholders seem to be involved in the process of the strategic planning, the extent of stakeholders’ involvement has largely remained contentious. The results further indicate that not all stakeholders are involved in the strategic planning process at the University of Venda. Although stakeholders are invited to participate, the process of strategic planning is absolutely dominated by the management cadre, reducing the rest participants into the doldrums. Those who are directly affected by the strategic plan are least involved in the process of the planning. Because of the lack of involvement and communication regarding the strategic planning process, the findings reveal that the majority of stakeholders were de-motivated in that regard, culminating in their lack-lustre approach towards the implementation of the orchestrated plan. The resultant lack of buy-in by the affected stakeholders, essentially the internal stakeholders (staff members and the student community), eventually hamper the actualisation of the targeted goals of the strategic plans. These results suggest that the strategic plan review should be an on-going process in order to update and involve the university community of the strategic planning processes. Proper feedback and communication on strategic planning processes should be implemented. More importantly, the stakeholders’ involvement and consultation on the strategic planning should be galvanized, since most of the staff members and students seem to be unaware of the strategic planning process at the University of Venda, let alone its contents and aspirations. / Business Management / M. Tech.(Business Administration)

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Arlo Biere / This thesis is the plan used to outline a business plan for a prospective business, TASTE ST LOUIS. While working toward my MAB Degree, I realized there were many things I could implement from the program into the business that would help this new business venture to succeed. I was able to research the food service industry to gain a better understanding of how to market and plan for the success of this venture. After I started the research on this business venture, I soon found that we needed a business plan that would answer many questions we had regarding the success of our business. The first part of the thesis is a brief summary of the food service businesses in St. Louis and the geographic analysis that became the deciding factor in locations. The second part of the thesis is an explanation of TASTE ST LOUIS. This section gives the history of the business and explains the development and start-up. The third portion, of the thesis is the small- business plan and pro forma financial statements.

[pt] Com o crescimento dos sistemas de informação baseados na internet, empresas que mantém seus negócios eletrônicos através de sistemas web necessitam monitorar o andamento das atividades dos seus negócios. Várias técnicas para monitoramento e análise da execução de processos de negócio podem ser empregadas, dentre elas: (i) mineração de arquivos de log de servidores web, tais como o Apache; e (ii) inserção explícita de código de monitoramento diretamente no código da aplicação. Tais técnicas possuem várias limitações, entre elas, a dificuldade e falta de flexibilidade para corelacionar informação ocorrendo em diferentes requisições web, e/ou necessidade de várias modificações invasivas transversais diretamente no código de componentes/classes do sistema. Esse trabalho apresenta o projeto e implementação de um framework orientado a aspectos para monitoramento e análise de processos de negócio que ocorrem em sistemas web. Aspectos foram usados para implementar as variabilidades orientadas a aspectos de monitoramento de processos de negócio ocorrendo em sistemas web. O framework foi implementado usando as linguagens Java e AspectJ e foi validado por meio da sua instanciação para duas diferentes aplicações web. / [en] Over the last years, many mechanisms and techniques to monitor web applications have been proposed, such as, mining of log files from web servers and insertion of monitoring code directly in web applications. The adoption of these techniques presents several limitations such as: obstacles to correlate information from different web requests and/or requires several intrusive changes in the code of existing web applications. This dissertation presents an aspect-oriented framework to monitoring and analysing business processes. Aspect-oriented technologies are used to implement crosscutting variabilities of monitoring of web business processes. The framework has been developed using Java and AspectJ programming languages. It was instantiated and validated through the development of two different web applications.

Submitted by Elba Lopes (elba.lopes@fecap.br) on 2018-05-23T19:00:57Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Clainton Jos?? Jockims de Avelar.pdf: 383778 bytes, checksum: 7dfa60270f5a8a5b6902775d2bec8118 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-23T19:00:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Clainton Jos?? Jockims de Avelar.pdf: 383778 bytes, checksum: 7dfa60270f5a8a5b6902775d2bec8118 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-14 / The preponderant theory of Stakeholder Management proposes the existence of positive associations between fairness (fairness approach) with stakeholders and business performance. Nevertheless, there is recent literature that proposes that not all stakeholders would care about mutually fair relationships and that such audiences would have heterogeneous motivations. In this context, there would be reciprocators and self-referents. According to this theory, companies would be more successful if they adapted their approaches to the specific behavior of the different stakeholders. Using the indicator of the percentage variation of a company's revenue with its client stakeholders over a period of two years, the objective of this article was to test if the form of treatment employed between company and client stakeholders has an influence on financial performance. The data collection took place in a large retail company and occurred through questionnaires where the type of treatment was classified in the relationship between the company and the client stakeholder. The valid sample total for the study was 421 stakeholders. After identifying the form of treatment employed in the relationship between company and stakeholder, the respective financial performance of the revenue between the years 2015 and 2016 was determined. From the survey and respective analysis of the statistical models of the sample of 421 stakeholders, it was not possible to establish a conclusive position on the theory of heterogeneity of treatments in Stakeholder Management. This research, however, generates a meaningful empirical contribution by examining the recently published theoretical proposition and also generates benefits to the business practice, since it brings operational results that suggest alternatives on how a company can manage its relations with client stakeholders. / A teoria preponderante sobre Gest??o de Stakeholders prop??e a exist??ncia de associa????es positivas entre os relacionamentos justos (fairness approach) com stakeholders e o desempenho empresarial. N??o obstante, h?? literatura recente que prop??e que nem todos os stakeholders se importariam com rela????es mutuamente justas e que tais p??blicos teriam motiva????es heterog??neas. Neste contexto, existiriam os stakeholders rec??procos (reciprocators) e os autocentrados (self-regarding). De acordo com essa teoria, as empresas seriam mais bem-sucedidas se adequassem suas abordagens ao comportamento espec??fico dos diferentes stakeholders. Utilizando o indicador da varia????o percentual da receita de uma empresa com os seus stakeholders clientes, num per??odo de dois anos, o objetivo do presente artigo foi testar se a forma de tratamento empregado entre empresa e os stakeholders clientes tem influ??ncia no desempenho financeiro. A coleta de dados se deu em uma empresa varejista de grande porte e ocorreu por meio de question??rios onde se classificou a tipologia de tratamento na rela????o entre a empresa e o stakeholder cliente. O total da amostra v??lida para o estudo foi de 421 stakeholders clientes. Ap??s a identifica????o da forma de tratamento empregado na rela????o entre empresa e stakeholder cliente foi apurado o respectivo desempenho financeiro da receita entre os anos de 2015 e 2016. A partir da realiza????o da survey e respectiva an??lise dos modelos estat??sticos da amostra de 421 stakeholders clientes n??o foi poss??vel estabelecer uma posi????o conclusiva acerca da teoria da heterogeneidade de tratamentos na Gest??o de Stakeholders. Esta pesquisa, contudo, gera contribui????o emp??rica significativa, ao examinar proposi????o te??rica recentemente publicada e, tamb??m, gera benef??cios ?? pr??tica empresarial, uma vez que traz resultados operacionais que sugerem alternativas sobre como uma empresa pode gerenciar suas rela????es com stakeholders clientes.