M.B.A. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master in Technology: Marketing, Technikon Natal, 2000. / This research has aimed to explore the impact of clustering on the ability of small manufacturers in the clothing industry in Port Elizabeth to enhance their competitiveness. The research study was conducted in two stages, which included both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Firstly, an exploratory qualitative study using the Delphi method was employed to identify the key problems currently being experienced by small manufacturers in the clothing industry. Finally, the application of a structured questionnaire to small manufacturers in the clothing industry followed, exploring the awareness of and interest in clustering as a strategy for enhancing competitiveness. A key observation to emerge from the qualitative research is that significant differences were evident between the responses of academics, professionals in small business development and small business owners. An analysis of the problems experienced by small manufacturers in the clothing industry revealed that high labour costs and low I productivity were the frontrunners. The lack of knowledge was cited as the most important problem preventing the wide scale implementation of horizontal clustering. Another key observance to emerge from the quantitative study is the fact that very few significant differences are evident between the two groups viz. small business owners and experts. The research indicated that although in the minority, horizontal linkages exist between small clothing manufacturers in Port Elizabeth. The results indicated furthermore that the majority of small clothing manufacturers in Port Elizabeth are / M

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Thesis (MTech (Mechanical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2008 / Product innovation has transformed the minds of business people because of its ability to increase productivity. Other than increased productivity it also allows companies to extend the range of the available products to consumers as well as lowering the prices consumers have to pay. Product innovation if managed correctly will create wealth and reward risk-taking by means of technological development throughout organisational processes. SMEs fail to manage product innovation because they are unable to cope with pressures exerted by external factors as well as lack business management skills. This then impacts on the level of innovation that takes place in a company. A lack of innovation and sound leadership skills often leads to very little strategic vision in the company. This influences the commitment of the workforce and often causes the downfall of a company. Case study methodology was used to collect and analyze the data, which was drawn from an empirical study covering nine engineering companies which practices NPD (New Product Development). Observation, questionnaire and personal interviews were used to collect relevant data for analysis. In addition, the SPSS 14.0 was utilized in order to generate frequencies, tables, and in particular graphics, as the researcher believes that graphics are helpful and easy to make the analysis more understandable. The paper aims to investigate whether SMEEs in the Western Cape are using key NPD success factors to deal with the environmental uncertainties that disturb the management of NPD. The findings of the study indicated that the principles of key NPD success factors were found to be in place in the SMEEs in the Western Cape. All the managers who took part in the survey showed determination and commitment towards the success of their organizations. Those SMEEs proved that their existence was meant to satisfy the needs of their customers. Those managers also showed that they knew exactly what their customers needed. Employees in those organizations worked as a team and produced good quality products that satisfied their customers. Those organizations started small but grew with time as the needs of their customers continuously changed. The growth in those organizations was seen in the number of employees employed from time to time.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration (Entrepreneurship)))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017. / Although SMEs are aware of project management, it seems that a vast majority of firms are not actually well-informed about what project management is, and therefore, might not even be adhering to project management principles. Hence, the main objective of this study was to determine the extent to which SMEs (involved in construction, events and information technology and located in the Cape Metropolitan area in South Africa) apply project management principles. This study used a mixed method approach (both qualitative and quantitative) and various relevant instruments to collect and analyse data. A total of 223 questionnaires were administered to employees working in conjunction with a project management department, and five face-to-face interviews were conducted with owner-managers of selected SMEs. The statistical package for social science (SPSS) was used to analyse the quantitative data with results presented in a tabulated format; content analysis was used to transcribe qualitative data and categorise this data into themes. The study found that the project management sector is still predominately male-dominated, and project teams are not selected on the basis of experience. Furthermore, those who lack experiences are not trained. The nature of work done, company understaffing, time and financial constraints and poor team dynamics were all cited as factors affecting the application of project management principles within SMEs. Several recommendations emerged from the findings. First, it was recommended that women be empowered as active participants in project management, thereby reducing the evident gender imbalance; training and development should regularly be conducted to fully equip employees with vital skills and competencies. This will more strongly ensure that clients are satisfied with quality outcome and thereby establish a good reputation for SMEs. Project managers should create contingency plans for potential challenges. Additionally, the project manager should ensure that by virtue of the company being understaffed, specific roles and responsibilities of individuals should be clearly delineated, clearly communicated and clearly understood. Alternatively, the company may employ more personnel for particular projects, or independent contractors could be hired to assist. Moreover, time constraints can be eradicated by establishing timelines through the Gantt chart and measuring milestones. Finance and other resources should be allocated economically with and ongoing budget-cost analysis for monitoring expenditure. It was also deemed advisable that project managers send their teams for wellness training to avoid negative team dynamics, and as for labour unrest, senior managers should engage proactively with unions and delegates.

M.Com. (Business Management) / The global economy has over the past decades undergone radical changes. The South African economy has not been immune to the changes taking place globally. The pressures on competitiveness add urgency to the search for greater effectiveness. Most managers know that few decisions, such as operational strategy, problem solving and performing core competencies are more critical decisions than the selection of the customers to be served. In today's competitive world, successful outsourcing is a powerful tool for organizations of different sizes to be cost-efficient, increase flexibility, services and productivity, to focus on core competencies and rely on outsourcing vendors/partners to supply the non-competencies, to gain monetary benefits, add value and gain competitive advantage over rivals. Therefore outsourcing Is one of many business tools that may also be available and applicable to small businesses to gain a competitive advantage over rivals. The primary motivation for this study stems from the relevancy of outsourcing as a management tool, and whether outsourcing could also be applied in small business management, and hence this study attempts to examine the possible merits for small businesses to consider outsourcing as a management tool. Further, the researcher hopes to show in this study the principles on which good outsourcing decisions may be taken to benefit the small businesses and the Involved parties in the outsourcing arrangement. Hence the primary objective of the study is to determine the merits of the small business sector to utilise outsourcing as a business tool, and the supporting secondary objectives are to research the concept of outsourcing: to explain the rationale in outsourcing and all its manifestations, to research the concept of the small business sector, its major needs, challenges and threats, and to deduce from the results achieved In the above mentioned areas, possible merits for small businesses to consider outsourcing as a management tool.

M.B.A. / The focus on small and medium sized enterprises in South Africa stems from the recognition throughout the world of the importance of small business to a nation's economy, particularly through their creation of additional employment opportunities. The slow growth in employment in the South African economy has accelerated the need for emerging entrepreneurs to play a stronger role in job creation, income generation and growth. These enterprises accounted for about 60% of total employment in 1997. The adoption of sound corporate governance practises is very significant for the continued success of small and medium enterprises. Enterprises must place a lot of emphasis on corporate governance in order to survive in the economy. Corporate governance is seen as enhancing return on capital through increased accountability. Corporate governance is good to have and also good for the continued success of an enterprise. The benefits to be derived from the adoption of sound corporate practises and conduct more than outweigh the costs of implementation. Good governance leads to competitive advantage in the market place, improved efficiency and effectiveness, increased shareholder value and increased market value. To determine the requirements that emerging entrepreneurs need to comply with in order to improve productivity, efficiency and credibility, a research study was conducted to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of the entrepreneurs towards corporate governance. In addition, the study also focused on the benefits to be derived by emerging entrepreneurs from the introduction of corporate governance and the suitable effectiveness criteria for corporate governance within emerging entrepreneurs. The research was limited to 40 small and medium sized enterprises within the Gauteng area, which is one of the 9 provinces in South Africa. The responses indicated that a majority of the entrepreneurs are ignorant of the subject of corporate governance. The ii few entrepreneurs who are familiar with corporate governance had different views or attitudes on the subject. The majority of the respondents, who responded positively, believe that there are a lot of benefits to be derived from the introduction of corporate governance within their enterprises. It is also interesting to note that some of the entrepreneurs who stated that they were ignorant of the subject of corporate governance have in fact implemented some of the recommendations as set out in the Code of corporate practises and conduct.

M.Comm. / The knowledge-based service industry consists of numerous professional practices. The nature of the service is a function of the type of knowledge offered e.g. technical specialists, artistic design specialists and legal specialists to name but a few. Providing a service instead of a product to satisfy a need in the market requires special unique skills and approaches. Since most professional practices are small, the total management task is the responsibility of the partners or the board of directors. In an area of specialisation, such as engineering, general management skills are also required. Knowledge of finance, marketing, personnel, operations and general management aspects are important. The study incorporates a broad set of issues from economic aspects to management functions to determine what the critical success factors (CSFs) should be to ensure the success of small professional knowledge-based organisations. Internal factors are considered and related to how the firm operates. The study extends externally to examine how clients perceive the services rendered. From a general point of view, managerial competence is rated as the most important critical success factor. It influences the relationship between the client and the professional providing the service. The role of the client's opinion is important when providing an effective service. It is vital to know what the client needs and how to satisfy the needs. Use is made of a service - quality rating model to determine where customer expectations are not being met. The study is concluded by recommending that the CSFs be actively used to focus the firm's internal activities and resources on the external client requirements. In essence, management must do more active work, in areas such as cost control, where clients feel they are being neglected. More attention needs to be focused on the tangible aspects of service delivery. To bring about success as well as attending to the listed CSFs, training was deemed to be necessary with regards to quality management, financial management, marketing management and personnel management. All action plans that could be developed by the service provider need to be simple to implement on an ongoing basis. Time and effort is to satisfy a client's needs. The results of this study indicate that management should focus their efforts on the tasks of management. It does not suggest that they actually do the work of transforming knowledge into tangible products. It does say that management should actively influence those people who do the work of knowledge transformation. The client should always be the centre of the firm's activities.

All around the world, SMEs are perceived as the engine room of economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation, due to their flexibility and quick adaptability to change. It is believed that, for developing countries to address their social and economic challenges, it would be beneficial if they leverage the potential that the SME sector potentially possess. However, despite the government focus on supporting and encouraging the establishment of SMEs through the small business development programmes in order to address these social challenges, SME sector has experienced a high degree of business mortality, which impacts negatively on the ability to create sustainable employment opportunities in the long term. This view is supported by the work of (Ligthelm and Cant 2003). According to the global economic monitor (GEM), the small business mortality in South Africa is among the highest in the world. It is said that that most newly established SMEs will not survive beyond 48 months Von Broembsen, as cited in Olawale and Garwe (2010: 730). One of the reasons that lead to the high failure rate of SMEs is the lack of strategic planning and the poor allocation of resources. The literature review suggests that SMEs that embark on strategic planning are the ones that are most likely to experience sales growth, personnel growth and asset value growth, as opposed those that do not do any strategic planning at all. The primary objective of this research was to establish how a strategic planning process can be used as an investment decision-making tool for manufacturing SMEs in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. In order to address this research problem, the following sub-problems had to be solved: What strategic planning processes do current SME managers use?; What strategic performance measurement systems do SME owner-managers currently use?; What capital budgeting techniques are currently being used by SME’s in the region?; How do SME owner-managers evaluate the risk of the projects at hand?. The research design was methodological triangulation in nature, that is, using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, though a quantitative paradigm was more dominant that the qualitative paradigm. A questionnaire was designed as a primary source of data collection from a selected sample group. The empirical study revealed that there is some level of strategic planning amongst SMEs, however, it is mostly informal and unstructured. It also emerged that strategic planning can be used as more than just a performance measurement tool, it can contribute more effectively to strategic alignment, organisational learning and diffusion of knowledge throughout the organisation. The empirical study also suggests that SMEs understand that capital budgeting is critical for the success of the organisations. However, very few SMEs have a formal capital budgeting process. It also became evident that most SMEs are still relying on the traditional capital budgeting techniques; that is, ‘gut feel’ and the payback methods of evaluating projects. The empirical study suggests that the largest group of SMEs rely on break-even analysis and scenario planning as the major indicators of the impact the projects will or may have on the organisation. The recommendations have thus been made to address the challenges facing SMEs with regard to strategic planning, strategic performance measurement, capital budgeting and project risk evaluation.

This study is concerned with the practicability of using operations research in a small business. For purposes of the study, operations research is regarded as a separate management function for applying scientific methods to the understanding of the operations of goal-directed organizations. A small business is defined with regard to the size of its operations as having a value added of less than five million dollars per year. An examination of recent surveys demonstrates that operations research is a prevalent, growing and valuable management aid in large and medium sized companies. They also provide evidence that OR is not used extensively in small business. On the other hand, statistics on business failures and reports of research on the management of small companies provide evidence that small businesses have management problems which possibly could be solved by operations research. A survey of local small business management was conducted principally to determine the extent to which operations research is used by small companies, the reasons for non-use of OR by most small businesses and the existence of operating problems which might be effectively solved by operations research. This survey, as well as other evidence indicates that operations research is used to a very limited extent by small business. The reasons for non-use are: 1) the non-analytical approach of small business management, 2) the managers' lack of familiarity with operations research, 3) the lack of trained personnel, 4) the unavailability of accurate, relevant data, 5) the high cost of leasing and operating electronic computers and 6) the opinion that OR is not economical for small business. This survey and other research has identified small business problems to which OR might effectively be applied. Retaining consultants is a means of overcoming the lack of trained personnel especially if the small business maintains a continuing relationship with a consultant who has a small, flexible operation and the ability to assist in other management functions. Computer time-sharing and computer service bureaus are inexpensive means of obtaining the computer capability which is often necessary for operations research. Small computers may also be feasible for a small business if it has enough other data processing work. A case study of a local small business identified sales forecasting, capital budgeting, production scheduling and inventory control as areas in which operations research could possibly contribute towards the Company's goals. Formulation and testing of decision rules for inventory management and estimation of the costs of an inventory control system for the Company demonstrate that operations research is practical for this small business. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate