Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2011 / Online company registration is a service, which has been claimed by Congo-Brazzaville immigrant entrepreneurs. It has taken centuries for scientists to develop computers that successfully enable businesses to grow in an effective erasure of national frontiers for business purposes. B2B e-commerce, which heralded the dawn of globalisation in the EU, USA, India, New Zealand and South Africa, is not yet applicable in Congo- Brazzaville. Presently, B2B e-commerce has made the global economy porous, which consequently activated online business registration. This porosity has enabled SMMEs to save supply chain management costs, create jobs, improve customer care and contribute to the country’s GDP. However, owing to the characteristics of Congolese immigrants’ SMMEs in Cape Town, online business registration has become imperative to enable them to expand in Congo and to save supply chain management costs and contribute to the country’s economic reconstruction process. Recently, the Centre For Business and Administrative Procedures (CFBAP): Centre des Formalités Administratives des Entreprises’ (CFE) B2B e-commerce website has become in demand. Furthermore, at a national level, e-commerce website adoption at CFBAP will leverage the country’s standards of conducting business and will boost the pride of CFBAP, as an organisation, as well as its partners in an aspect that is at the core of its values. The main objective of this study is to analyse the benefits of online business registration for Congo-Brazzaville immigrant entrepreneurs in Cape Town. The study has established motivating factors to implement an e-commerce website at CFBAP in Brazzaville, but did not recommend any specific e-commerce technology for the institution. The research has also made an earnest attempt to illicit reasons why Congo-Brazzaville immigrant entrepreneurs invest in Brazzaville in spite of being well established in Cape Town. The research target population included Congo-Brazzaville immigrant entrepreneurs who were selected from their association and who live in Cape Town, where the study was conducted. The nature of the research dictated both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in order to gain a better understanding of the research problem that was identified. Key words: E-commerce, CFE, Congo-Brazzaville, World Bank, SMMEs, immigrants, Centre for Business and Administrative Procedures (CFBAP).

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M.Tech. / Information is a company’s greatest asset that is continually under threat from human error, technological failure, natural disasters and other external factors. These threats need to be identified and quantified and their relevant protection techniques need to be deployed. This research will allow businesses to ascertain which of these data protection strategies to embrace and deploy, thereby highlighting the balance between cost and value for their business needs. Every commercial enterprise should understand the business value of their data and realise that protecting this data is of utmost importance. However, company data often resides on different mediums, in different locations and implementing a data protection strategy is not always cost effective in terms of the cost of storage mediums and protection methods. The challenges that businesses face is trying to distinguish between mission-critical data from other business data, excluding any non-business or invaluable data that resides on their systems. Thus a cost-effective data protection strategy can be implemented according to the different values of business data. This research provides a model to enable an organisation to: · Utilise the model as a framework or guideline in determining a strategy for protection, storage, retrieval and preservation of business critical data. · Define the data protection strategy to meet the organisation’s business requirements. · Define a cost effective data protection solution that encompasses protection, storage, retrieval and preservation of business critical data. · Make strategic decisions based on an array of best practices to ensure mission-critical data is protected accordingly. iii · Draw a conclusion between the costs of implementing these solutions against the real business value of the data that it protects.

M. Tech. Business Administration / The main objective of this study was to identify and quantify the issues in implementing cloud computing by small and medium business in Pretoria. The empirical data were collected using an online self-administrated questionnaire. The respondents were taken using a mere random sampling of 120 SMEs in Pretoria. A total of 102 usable responses was obtained. A quantitative approach was applied.

[Truncated abstract] Rumours can lead to unpredictable events: the manner in which an organisation responds to a commercial rumour can alter its reputation, and can affect its profitability as well as, ultimately, its survival. Commercial rumours are now a prominent feature of the business environment. They can emerge from organisational change, pending workforce layoffs, mergers, and changes to management, in addition, commercial rumours can lower morale and undermine productivity. There are several well-known examples of commercial rumours that have been, or continue to be, circulated. Commercial rumours are typically either about a conspiracy or contamination issue. Conspiracy rumours usually target those organisational practices or policies which are identified as undesirable by the stakeholders. This form of rumour is often precipitated by situations where people do not have all the information about a situation, for example the rumour about Proctor & Gamble being run by the Moonies. Snapple, the soft drink company, was rumoured in 1992 to be supporting the Ku Klux Klan in closing abortion clinics. Contamination rumours are wide-ranging and typically have revulsion theme, such as McDonald’s "worms in the burger", Pop Rock’s candies which exploded in the stomach, and poison in Herron’s paracetamol . . . Marketers suggest that web sites Commerical Rumour Responses on the Web represent the future of marketing communications on the Internet. The key implication of this study for organisations is when faced with a negative rumour, specific and selected Web pages can be used manage company’s stakeholders recall the rumour and organisational stakeholders can be persuaded by the company’s rumour response strategies.

This project explores the question of why local business owners are not taking advantage of the benefits the Web has to offer. It presents information that small business owners could use to develop websites for their businesses. It also examines what it would take to start a web design business targeted at local merchants.

This study examined how online social networking (OSN) leads to increased communication and collaboration across inter-firm boundaries. This online social networking behaviour represents significant opportunities to firms in the form of improved problem-solving, increased collaborative innovation and enhanced engagement with stakeholders. There are also risks inherent in the widespread use of OSNs, such as the loss of control over information flows to individuals outside the organization, potential damage to the reputation of brands and organizations, and loss of productivity due to excessive usage of OSNs during work hours. In particular, this study sought to test four research propositions, specifically, that usage of one particular OSN, LinkedIn (LI), results in: 1) an increased number of inter-firm connections; 2) an improved ability to communicate across inter-firm boundaries; 3) greater access to problem solving or innovation collaborators; 4) increased organizational problem solving or innovation ability. The study methodology involved both quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative portion of the study involved survey research among over 500 LinkedIn (LI) users to determine changes they reported in various dimensions related to inter-firm relationship-forming, information-sharing and collaborative problem solving since using LI. The sampling approach was purposive and the sample frame consisted of the researcher’s own extended LI network, and an effort was also made to make the survey link available to all LI members through public posting in the site’s Q&A section. Though no individual or group was systematically excluded from the opportunity to take the survey, some limitations are inherent in the approach taken. The survey respondents were self-selecting, which makes it difficult to confirm that the sample is reflective of all LI users. Also, the use of the researcher’s own LI network as a key source of survey respondents may have biased the study toward more open networkers, since the researcher’s network was built up over time by practicing open networking behaviours. As a result, the sample may tend to under-represent more closed or restrictive networkers. Notwithstanding these limitations, no one particular group of respondents was excluded from the opportunity to take the survey, and the resulting data suggests that there were significant numbers of respondents who considered themselves closed networkers. Also, the spread of respondents by geographic area, occupation and age was found to resemble published statistics from LI on its user base, so it appears that the data is reasonably reflective of the LI user base, though this would be difficult to verify or measure. Qualitative research was also undertaken among senior managers at companies that have embraced the use of OSNs by staff to determine their experiences along similar dimensions. The findings from the quantitative survey showed that users of LI have experienced an increased number of social connections with individuals as a result of using LI, and that these connections are often with people in other organizations, including competitors and customers. Survey respondents also reported that they have been able to draw upon their LI networks in order to solve problems and be more innovative in their work. Analysis of the qualitative research yielded a list of suggested best practices that could be adopted by firms wishing to harness the collaborative power of OSNs. These suggested best practices have been grouped under the areas of strategy, listening, communication, guidelines, training, diffusion and measurement. Some suggested areas for future research included: the role of performance measurement and reward systems in managing OSN usage behaviour; the organizational risks of centralized versus decentralized control of messaging via OSNs; the role of training in the effective deployment of OSNs in an organizational context; and the organizational risk of increased connectedness with competitors resulting from OSN relationships. / Business Management / D.B.L.

This study examined how online social networking (OSN) leads to increased communication and collaboration across inter-firm boundaries. This online social networking behaviour represents significant opportunities to firms in the form of improved problem-solving, increased collaborative innovation and enhanced engagement with stakeholders. There are also risks inherent in the widespread use of OSNs, such as the loss of control over information flows to individuals outside the organization, potential damage to the reputation of brands and organizations, and loss of productivity due to excessive usage of OSNs during work hours. In particular, this study sought to test four research propositions, specifically, that usage of one particular OSN, LinkedIn (LI), results in: 1) an increased number of inter-firm connections; 2) an improved ability to communicate across inter-firm boundaries; 3) greater access to problem solving or innovation collaborators; 4) increased organizational problem solving or innovation ability. The study methodology involved both quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative portion of the study involved survey research among over 500 LinkedIn (LI) users to determine changes they reported in various dimensions related to inter-firm relationship-forming, information-sharing and collaborative problem solving since using LI. The sampling approach was purposive and the sample frame consisted of the researcher’s own extended LI network, and an effort was also made to make the survey link available to all LI members through public posting in the site’s Q&A section. Though no individual or group was systematically excluded from the opportunity to take the survey, some limitations are inherent in the approach taken. The survey respondents were self-selecting, which makes it difficult to confirm that the sample is reflective of all LI users. Also, the use of the researcher’s own LI network as a key source of survey respondents may have biased the study toward more open networkers, since the researcher’s network was built up over time by practicing open networking behaviours. As a result, the sample may tend to under-represent more closed or restrictive networkers. Notwithstanding these limitations, no one particular group of respondents was excluded from the opportunity to take the survey, and the resulting data suggests that there were significant numbers of respondents who considered themselves closed networkers. Also, the spread of respondents by geographic area, occupation and age was found to resemble published statistics from LI on its user base, so it appears that the data is reasonably reflective of the LI user base, though this would be difficult to verify or measure. Qualitative research was also undertaken among senior managers at companies that have embraced the use of OSNs by staff to determine their experiences along similar dimensions. The findings from the quantitative survey showed that users of LI have experienced an increased number of social connections with individuals as a result of using LI, and that these connections are often with people in other organizations, including competitors and customers. Survey respondents also reported that they have been able to draw upon their LI networks in order to solve problems and be more innovative in their work. Analysis of the qualitative research yielded a list of suggested best practices that could be adopted by firms wishing to harness the collaborative power of OSNs. These suggested best practices have been grouped under the areas of strategy, listening, communication, guidelines, training, diffusion and measurement. Some suggested areas for future research included: the role of performance measurement and reward systems in managing OSN usage behaviour; the organizational risks of centralized versus decentralized control of messaging via OSNs; the role of training in the effective deployment of OSNs in an organizational context; and the organizational risk of increased connectedness with competitors resulting from OSN relationships. / Business Management / D.B.L.

A retail enterprise is a business organisation that sells goods or services directly to consumers for personal use. Retail enterprises such as supermarkets enable customers to go around the shop picking items from the shelves and placing them into their baskets. The basket of each customer is captured into transactional systems. In this research study, retail enterprises were classified into two main categories: centralised and distributed retail enterprises. A distributed retail enterprise is one that issues the decision rights to the branches or groups nearest to the data collection, while in centralised retail enterprises the decision rights of the branches are concentrated in a single authority. It is difficult for retail enterprises to ascertain customer preferences by merely observing transactions. This has led to quantifiable losses. Although some enterprises implemented classical business models to address these challenging issues, they still lacked analytics-based marketing programs to gain competitive advantage. This research study develops an intelligent analytics-based (ARANN) model for both distributed and centralised retail enterprises in the cross-demographics of a developing country. The ARANN model is built on association rules (AR), complemented by artificial neural networks (ANN) to strengthen the results of these two individual models. The ARANN model was tested using real-life and publicly available transactional datasets for the generation of product arrangement sets. In centralised retail enterprises, the data from different branches was integrated and pre-processed to remove data impurities. The cleaned data was then fed into the ARANN model. On the other hand, in distributed retail enterprises data was collected branch per branch and cleaned. The cleaned data was fed into the ARANN model. According to experimental analytics, the ARANN model can generate improved product arrangement sets, thereby improving the confidence of retail enterprise decision-makers in competitive environments. It was also observed that the ARANN model performed faster in distributed than in centralised retail enterprises. This research is beneficial for sustainable businesses and consideration of the results is therefore recommended to retail enterprises. / Computing / M Sc. (Computing)