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There is increasing interest by businesses worldwide to expand their operations into emerging markets. Several African businesses are also determined to have their share of the growing market opportunities in Africa currently targeted by foreign multinationals. This increasing interest in international expansion invites analysis of business models that allow businesses to thrive in spite of the known challenges of doing business in a foreign market. Against this backdrop, the research aimed to establish why internationalising firms should achieve high degrees of similarity of business operations, whilst taking advantage of benefits of local adaption, and how these firms can achieve this replication-adaptation balance. The research was undertaken as a comparative two case-study, with the aim of understanding the benefits of adopting flexible replication as a model for international expansion, the optimal mix of fixed and variable elements of a business model of an internationalising firm, and the circumstances and the timing of adopting the model. A qualitative research approach was adopted, comprising documentary research, eight semi-structured interviews with senior managers of the companies in the banking and retail sectors, and observations. The different sources of data were used to triangulate the findings. The study found that internationalising firms that achieve high degrees of similarity of business operation, whilst taking advantage of benefits of local adaptation realise higher performance. Furthermore, the research showed that internationalising firms can achieve an optimal flexible replication by fixing the elements of the business model that are affected by integration pressures and allowing the elements that are affected by the responsiveness pressures to vary. The study recommended that, internationalising firms should consider transactional completeness pressures, when configuring their business models. The study also confirmed that internationalising firms having clarity of their winning attributes design a flexible replication model prior to operating in a foreign market.A model that encapsulates the key findings of this study was also developed. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / mngibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The research examines the factors influences e-procurement adoption in CBZ Bank, Zimbabwe and its impact on the bank's strategic sourcing in order to enhance understanding of the impact of e-procurement on strategic sourcing.

The research examines the factors influences e-procurement adoption in CBZ Bank, Zimbabwe and its impact on the bank's strategic sourcing in order to enhance understanding of the impact of e-procurement on strategic sourcing.

In the context of increasing consolidation in the banking industry, this research examined the profitability and efficiency performance before and after international mergers and acquisitions of acquiring banks, and the major determinants to improve performance. In a sample of 295 commercial banks and bank holding companies, international mergers and acquisitions does lead to potential improvement in efficiency for acquiring banks. However, no evidence shows that profitability would be improved through international mergers and acquisitions. Further, it is found that enhancement in net interest margin is most significant variable to influence the improvement in profitability; while reduction of administrative costs and net-interest revenues and improvement in generating loans are significant to enhance the efficiency performance.

The China government has worked on economic reformation and opening policy¡@since the end of 1978 in order to follow the trend of international economic development. Economic decides finance, financial reformation, such as setting up central bank system, improving the function of commercial banks, developing financial market, is one of the most important chain in economic reformations. Basically, the main part of this research is review of the reform process of the banking system in China. Because the Chinese economy is in a rapid transition and its banking system has been constantly changing since the late 1970s. The financial system of Mainland China has been improved a lot for more than twenty years. There are still many problems in structure and operation during the procedure of financial development. A lot of bad loans for national banks, unhealthy financial management, immature capital market and the impact as the entry into the WTO, are going to be the tests of banking system of Mainland China. Beside, we use the theory of banking crisis discussing the problem of China¡¦s banking industry. And research an outline of the present situation of banking system in China. Our major discussing are as follows¡G Chapter one of this research is introduction of this research. Chapter two reviews how the current banking system has emerged from the all-inclusive monobank system in the past. Chapter three we review the theory of banking crisis. Chapter four provides an outline of the present situation of banking system in China. In Chapter five we discuss the problems happened and the possible impact to the banking system in China by the entrance of WTO. Chapter six provide a summary of this research.

Abstract The focal study initially describes the development of the banking industry in Finland, then analyses the development of banking partnerships, and concludes by applying the findings about partnership development to the banking industry in order to increase our understanding of the industry development, especially of the development of the nature and structure of a typical banking firm. In this study, banking partnerships and co-operation is the perspective from which industry development is studied. The study constructs a framework of reasons for entering partnerships from three theoretical views. The partnership-specific view explains the reasons based on the benefits that a partnership may produce for a bank. Industry-specific view explains the reasons based on the banking industry paradigm, i.e. what are the general banking logic features that could explain the change in partnership entering reasons and how those features have developed. The external view explains the reasons from the environmental level, specifically environmental attribute and changes that can stimulate partnership entry. Examining partnership entry reasons through these three-levels and the different emphasis of each view improves both the theoretical understanding of the reasons banks enter partnerships as well as our understanding of the development of banking industry. The development of the vertically integrated banking model towards a more core-competence specialised one describes the development of banking logic. In the continuum of the logic in Finland, the focus of customer service on core competences places the customer service at the centre of the integration of business functions and disciplines. On the other hand, the growing need for economies of scale does not allow a domestic or regional bank to maintain a great deal of the existing proprietary manufacturing. This means that an entire service can and has to be manufactured outside the bank's own hierarchy. The production of banking services are transforming from the traditional proprietary manufacturing model to a three-levelled model. A great part of the existing production will be outsourced because of the increasing need for scale of economies. In other words, economies of scale will be purchased instead of proprietary manufacturing. The second level is formed by such banking services that have certain needs for the economies of scale, but in addition, qualities like flexibility are important factors in the production. The need of scale forces domestic and regional banks to move the manufacturing outside of the focal bank, but the need of qualities highlights partnership-like needs in the selection of the producer. The third level is the "manufacturing" of tacit personal services, in which the economies of scale is absent. For Finnish banks, this layer forms the core of their proprietary operation.

Although most organisations want to improve quality and reduce costs, the deployment and implementation of continuous improvement methodologies is commonly viewed as a daunting journey. Many organisations fail to properly structure and/or support continuous improvement initiatives, which ultimately doom them to failure. South African Banks are not adopting Lean and/or Six-sigma to the point where it is going to make any sort of significant difference to the bottom line over a significantly meaningful period of time. So where are they going wrong? Often it comes down to key issues that are not addressed effectively as part of the deployment. The research objectives are: • The primary objective is to establish what the mission critical success factors for Lean and/or Six-sigma implementation in South African Banking are. • The secondary objective is to define a list of the sources of benefits for Lean and/or Six-sigma implementations in South African Banking. The research questions/problems to be addressed are: • What are the mission critical success factors for Lean and/or Six-sigma implementations in South African Banking? • How do South African Banks prioritise these critical success factors? • How do South African Banks that are already on the Lean and/or Six-sigma journey perform against these critical success factors? • What are the gaps between the importance’s of the critical success factors versus the banks actual performance against these, and how is this gap impacting on the benefits that the banks are experiencing? • What sources of benefits are South African Banks experiencing? • Can generic guidelines be provided to the South African Banks for successful Lean and/or Six-sigma implementation?

Fourteen years after the demise of apartheid and embrace of democracy, South Africa as a nation is still undergoing its transformation politically, socially and economically. This environmental churning has high impact on employee perceptions within the workplace, which subsequently affects retention rates. Among the challenges facing people managers in this environment is employee motivation. However, to thoroughly understand what motivates today’s diverse employee base, one needs to look further than the current landscape into historical backgrounds, to build up character models for different demographics. The study aimed to identify associations between employee motivation and employee demographics (gender, age, race and organisational level) in the South African banking industry by also taking into account South African history to understand these associations and to translate the insights gained into effective leadership. A survey questionnaire, based on ten motivation factors, was adapted from similar studies pioneered by Kovach in 1946, who conducted subsequent studies in 1987 and 1995. The questionnaire for this study was forwarded via email to South African banking employees requesting them to provide demographic data and complete a short questionnaire with two countercheck questions per motivation factor. The collected data was then analysed to identify any associations by highlighting differences in means of the responses to the motivation factors between employee demographic categories. The means were also used to rank the ten motivation factors for each demographic category. It was concluded that there were associations, particularly between generations and the motivation factors, while gender showed the least association. On the other hand, similarities were also identified. Deserving of particular mention are similarities indicative of the Ubuntu concept of African culture across all demographic categories. Recommendations for retention strategies were provided based on these conclusions.

This study investigates the dynamic and challenging affluent market of the South African banking sector. An evolution in client demands has created a need for a more exclusive banking solution known as private banking. The research project takes place in the ABSA Private Bank Gauteng Division, the population of which are private bankers and financial planners involved in the actual client facing engagements. Through a questionnaire sampling 40 client facing staff, responses were gathered followed by deeper investigation into the objectives through interviews of both the direct reporting lines in each of the suites in the province, including the provincial executive.