Preparing for the implementation of any new tax is a mammoth task. This mammoth task was evident when the National Treasury, SARS, companies, professional bodies, industry bodies and advisory organisations alike were preparing for the introduction of the new dividend tax in South Africa. The preparations included extensive consultations, sharing of information and providing guidance in newsletters, journals, guidance notes, websites, blogs, magazines, news papers and the like. Companies, Regulated Intermediaries and shareholders do not only have to be informed of the legislative changes, they need to be informed about the when, what and how of the impact of the tax and about the preparation needed for the implementation of dividends tax. Several common themes were identified that are critical to the successful implementation of dividends tax. These themes include communication between the business community and the regulators, as well as communication within the organisations. Involvement in and by the industry bodies has also been identified as critical to the successful implementation of dividends tax, while the timely preparation and communication of the regulatory reporting requirements is essential to the process. Within organisations, centralised oversight enables the coordinated preparation and implementation of the new tax. AFRIKAANS : Die voorbereidings vir die implementasie van enige nuwe belasting is 'n reuse taak. Die omvang van hierdie taak het duidelik geword toe die Nasionale Tesourie, die Suid Afrikaanse Inkomstediens, maatskappye, professionele liggame, industrie-organisasies, ensomeer voorbereidings moes tref vir die implementasie van dividend belasting. Die voorbereidings het konsultasie met lede, die deel van inligting en die voorsiening van leiding in nuusbriewe, joernale, webtuistes, tydskrifte en koerante ingesluit. Maatskappye, gereguleerde tussengangers en aandeelhouers moes nie net ingelig word oor die veranderinge in die wetgewing nie, hulle moet ook ingelig word aangaande die wanneer, wat en hoe van die impak van die belasting en die voorbereidings vir die implementasie van dividend belasting. Verskeie gemeenskaplike temas wat krities is tot die suksesvolle implementering van dividend belasting is geidentifiseer. Hierdie faktore sluit in kommunikasie tussen die organisasies, die besigheids samelewing en die reguleerders, asook interne kommunikasie binne die organisasies. Betrokkenheid in en by die industrieorganisasies is ook geidentifiseer as krities tot die suksesvolle implementering van dividend belasting, terwyl die tydige voorbereiding en kommunikasie deur die reguleerders en die kommunikasie van die rapporterings vereistes van die reguleerders essensieel is tot die proses. Sentrale interne oorsig binne organisasies maak die gekoordineerde voorbereidings vir die implementasie van dividend belasting moontlik. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Taxation / unrestricted

With the mounting pressures on institutions of higher education to do more with limited resources, the opportunity to collaborate with other colleges has emerged as a viable tool to create efficiencies and obtain valuable knowledge otherwise unattainable by an institution, even if that collaboration takes place with a competing institution. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are critical to managing student information and college operations, but can be challenging for colleges to implement. Consortia present a unique solution to colleges to address gaps in their expertise and skills needed to achieve a successful ERP implementation. This study explores the factors that are critical to successful ERP implementations in a community college setting and aims to develop a model that will assist colleges in targeting their efforts so as to make the best use of their resources. This paper shares a set of best practices to assist community colleges in accomplishing successful ERP implementations. In addition, this paper introduces a potential solution to community colleges of using a consortium relationship with like colleges to support the ERP implementation process and best practices with regard to these consortia to successfully support these efforts. Additionally, this best practices are discussed in this paper and are a compilation from insights gained through a review of the academic literature on ERP success factors and surveys of four community colleges that had completed ERP implementations. We hope that these insights will prove beneficial to colleges contemplating the implementation of a new ERP system. We believe that this paper can also assist colleges in determining if a consortium approach to their ERP implementation would be advantageous, generating greater bargaining power for the participating colleges, providing for the sharing of information between colleges, and helping to accommodate for any deficiency in expertise.

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A robust enterprise system will enable companies to simplify their business process to achieve thespeed, efficiency and flexibility that are so fundamental for market survival. But implementations ofsuch enterprise system and their assimilation into the organizations seems to be very tricky and veryoften unsuccessful. The reasons are many, because it is not just the system that is new, but also theprocesses, collaboration patterns and job roles. However it is safe to say that the failures are not justdue to the technology, but also due to the inappropriate change management in connection with anintroduction of a new enterprise system.This bachelor thesis is aiming to identify, describe and explain the conditions contribution to asuccessful change management triggered by an enterprise system implementation process. This thesisis based on a case study in a large global pharmaceutical company that has embarked on a journey totransform their business processesThe most important conclusions resulted from this case study are that change management isabsolutely essential for successful assimilation of an enterprise system by the organization and thecase company is very well aware of it. The conditions that indicate the successful change managementare increased efficiency, simplified business processes, improved cross-functional collaboration, andhigh user satisfaction.

Background Lean and agile approaches to product development impose a paradigm shift in the way organizations are structured, lead, affect the core culture of the firms that use them. As more and more organizations attempt the move from traditional to lean-agile ways of working a large number of challenges and success factors from these transitions are reported in the scientific literature. Many of these challenges can be mitigated, and the success factors boosted, by the traditional line-manager. Objectives The objective of this study is to provide an empirically grounded theory of what managers can and should do in order to ease the transition to lean-agile ways of developing products and services. Methods This study uses constructivist grounded theory in order to obtain an empirically based theory for how managers ease the transition. This is achieved by combining the results from an online survey, a series of interviews, and field observations. The collected data is then analyzed, categorized and continuously tested against new data, resulting in an emergent theory that can be put into the context of the available scientific literature. Results This thesis presents the results from a yearlong study of a Swedish organization in the middle of transitioning from a traditional plan-driven to a scaled lean-agile approach to product development. The resulting theory states that managers can greatly ease the transition by being the manager teachers for their organizations and committedly leading the way in adopting the lean-agile values, principles and methods, in a value-based manner – making sure the new ways are adapted to fit the context of the company and its goals as an organization. Conclusions The conclusion of the study is that not only are managers needed in organizations adopting lean-agile values, principles and methods, they are central to a successful adoption. However, when not being knowledgeable of lean-agile, not staying committed, and not engaging with the teams and practitioners the managers may on the contrary end up costing the company the opportunities offered by the new approach to product development. The resulting theory is grounded both in empirical data and the scientific literature.

More companies of differing structures and sizes are starting to utilize CERP systems where it contributes to eliminating most physical investments needed for a traditional ERP system. This makes CERP systems more obtainable for small firms compared to traditional ERP systems where fees can be adapted to fit the firm size. However, there are no established information about CSFs pertaining to CERP in small Swedish firms and thus leading to this study. The purpose of this study is to generate knowledge on the critical success factors of the post implementation phase of CERP systems. This has been done through an abductive methodology where CSFs pertaining to CERP in small Swedish firms have been identified through the lens of a unified CSF model and analyzed using structural contingency theory. The data in the study was collected through semi-structured and unstructured interviews that were conducted with respondents in management positions in small Swedish firms utilizing CERP systems. This led to the findings of the study where eleven CSFs pertaining to CERP during post implementation were identified. These findings suggest a high importance in the factor, vendor dependability where a control shift from the organization to the vendor was identified pertaining to CERP during post implementation in small firms. This differed from the findings of earlier research pertaining to CSFs for ERP during post implementation in large firms where the control was suggested to be mostly with the organization.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka projektmedlemmarnas upplevelser av framgångsfaktorer i projektet. En kvalitativ undersökning med semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med nio projektmedlemmar. Intervjumaterialet bearbetades via tematisk analys och genererade ett resultat som visar att delaktighet och kommunikation är bidragande faktorer för framgång. Att det krävs förståelse för det som sker i projektet för att lyckas, detta genom att skapa tydlighet om projektets helhet och roller. Resultatet visar även att det behövs insyn i projektets olika delar och att delarna behöver samverka med varandra för att nå ett lyckat projektresultat. Slutsatserna är att projektmedlemmarnas olika tillvägagångssätt och agerande i projektet är faktorer som bidrar till framgång, vilket tydliggör betydelsen av mänskliga faktorer i lyckade projekt. / The purpose of the study is to examine the project members' experiences of success factors in the project. A qualitative study with semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine project members. The interview material was processed through thematic analysis and generated a result that shows that participation and communication are a contributing factors for success. That it is necessary to understand what is happening in the project in order to succeed, by creating clarity about the project's whole and roles. The result also shows that transparency is needed in the different parts of the project and that the parts need to cooperate with each other to achieve a successful project result. The conclusions are that the different approaches and actions of the project members in the project are factors that contribute to success, which clarifies the importance of human factors in successful projects.

Innovation is extremely important for companies to gain and sustain competitive advantage in the modern business environment. Nowadays ability to adapt and evolve is crucial for any company willing to survive. The key to effective adaption and evolvement is innovation. New products are commonly seen as an output of innovation whereas new product development process is considered to be a sub-process of innovation.  The thesis focuses on development of a new product in the company the author has been working for. It aims at assessing the methods that the company is employing to develop new products. The goal is to determine the flaws in the new product development process of the company and the negative effects on performance and output the flaws have.  The thesis describes the generic new product development process, a certain form of which is used by majority of the companies involved in new product development. It contains a narrative literature review of articles documenting research in the field of best practices of new product development. It also reviews studies of critical factors of new product success, which separate the best performing companies from the others.  The thesis uses the best practice research and success factors studies as a reference point to assess the methods and evaluate the process that the company used to develop the product the thesis is focused on. The thesis also describes the market and the competition that the company is facing. In the end it gives a number of recommendations. The company can use the results as guidelines for improvement.

Despite the existence of extensive literature regarding risk management, there still seems to be lack of knowledge in identification of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in this area. In this research Grounded Theory is implemented to identify CSFs in Risk Management Systems (RMS). Factor analysis and one-sample t-test are then used to refine and rank the CSFs based on the results of a survey which has been performed among Risk Management practitioners in various types of Swedish corporations. CSFs are defined from three different perspectives: (a) the factors that have influence on the inclination and readiness of corporation for implementing RMS. (b) the factors that are important during the design and implementation of RMS in corporation and can significantly affect the success of RMS design and implementation and (c) the factors that are crucially important to successfully run, maintain and administrate RMS after the closure of the project of RMS design and Implementation. This systematic approach towards understanding the taxonomy of the success dimension in RMS is important for re-enforcing effective risk management practices.

The theme of this research is to establish how South African companies evaluate the benefits of a capital investment, in terms of ERP implementations, to the organisation. The question of whether determinable value can be quantified and the methods used to calculate such value is explored. A search is conducted for critical success factors for successful ERP implementations, key metrics used for monitoring results, and the approach of South African companies to determining benefits. The research is designed to establish what post purchase analyses of completed projects are conducted and what percentage of completed implementations are considered successful in the South African environment, as well as the possible reasons for those successes and failures. The research consists of firstly a qualitative study of the goals of value creation of ERP decisions, which included a couple of interviews with IT and Process Engineering consultants to form a basis of knowledge for why companies implement ERP systems in the first place, followed by a quantitative descriptive study of the implementation success factors and post implementation analysis, by means of a survey of South African companies. The outcome of the research shows that ERP in South Africa has matured to a level where the majority of projects are judged by the key decision makers to be successful, in contrast to expectations created by the literature review performed. It also highlights that, in the capital budgeting decision making processes followed by companies of different sizes, qualitative factors play a slightly bigger role than quantitative factors in the motivation of an ERP implementation. In addition, this research concludes that companies who identify a clear business value goal with the proposed ERP implementation, ensures buy-in from top management, perform proper planning before embarking on the project, as well as follow some kind of rigorous measurement framework, experience higher levels of ERP success than those who do not. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted