More than ever, business leaders are focused on growing revenues, containing costs and providing a higher level of customer support, whilst reducing the cost of business support activities, such as information technology costs. One method of achieving these apparently contradictory goals is through the use of thin-client computing. There has certainly been a contradicting view held by many industry pundits such as Gartner and International Data Corporation on whether this is indeed the case. This dissertation is a case study that focuses on what thin-client technology's impact is on the Total Cost of Ownership in the desktop computing environment relative to the traditional use of laptops and PCs, now commonly referred to as fat-clients. The factors and elements that contribute to a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for desktop computing will be explored. This study endeavors to douse the contradictory philosophies that claim for and against a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in deploying thin-clients. The literature review presented outlines the contradictions in philosophies. Research will be undertaken on National Ship Chandlers, which is in the largest ship chandler in Africa. National Ship Chandlers was migrated from a fat-client to a thin-client environment in 2002. National Ship Chandlers management seeks to understand whether they have realised a lower Total Cost of Ownership as a result of the migration. In this context, this study seeks to clarify which of the computing environments, thin-clients or fat-clients yield a lower Total Cost of Ownership within an outsourced desktop environment. In so doing it may assist in bringing clarity to the ongoing feud on the contradicting philosophies and technology claims. There has been no significant academic research undertaken on the Total Cost of Ownership of thin-clients in relation to fat-clients in an outsourced desktop environment. Both qualitative and quantitative research techniques are employed. The conclusions from this will be evaluated and presented. Based on these findings recommendations will be made to National Ship Chandlers management on a strategic direction for their desktop computing environment. This study reveals that for an outsourced desktop computing environment using thin-clients, National Ship Chandlers could realise an approximate 23% saving over a fat-client implementation. This excludes the benefits that can be realised from aspects of information security, ease of the operational platform and greater system availability. Thin-client technology has provides CEOs and CIOs compelling reasons to deploy as a desktop computing architecture and will continue to grow its' market-share into the future. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

ESKOM is the Electricity Supply Commission, a South African utility company that provides electricity to South Africa. The Group's principal activity includes generation, transmission of electricity to industrial, mining, commercial, agricultural and residential customers and distributors. Eskom services a customer base well in excess of 3 million. In the past years Eskom had a few hundred thousand customers and as such had a customer service model that relied on face-to-face contact with all its customers. Customers enjoyed coming into an Eskom office for a chat when they paid their accounts, and had other electricity related queries. Five years ago their customer base had grown to approximately 3 million and it was obvious that Eskom could not continue with that model. South Africa had come out of the apartheid isolation and Eskom realised that they were very uncompetitive. Faced with this growth, improving customer satisfaction and ways to deliver service became critical questions. It became clear as well that customer acquisition and retention are important and will even be more so in a future deregulated electricity supply industry. The Group had to come with creative solutions to questions presented by these challenges. The utilization of call centres to address customer service delivery, customer satisfaction, as well as means to remaining competitive in the new millennium is the route that ESKOM has taken to address these key questions. Hence the basis for the study is to investigate the effectiveness of call centres as tools to offer service delivery and customer satisfaction. The focus of the study was located at the Shelley Beach Area Office; wherein it was apparent that the customers in this zone were not using the call centre to address their queries rather opted to visit the area office personally. The study then aimed to discover the cause of this, and how it could be curtailed, as the office was not as sufficiently equipped to deal with the vast number of queries that descended on them in this manner. The findings of the study will chart a way in unraveling the extent of the problem of people not using call centres, also will uncover the underlying factors that sustains this behaviour. It will also help in identifying what needs to be done to discourage this trend. The effectiveness of call centers has, however been found to differ between rural, urban and semi-urban areas. Call centers appeared to be more effective in urban areas, where supporting infrastructure (telephones) is readily available than in rural areas with limited access to telephones. It was noted that in rural areas mostly access to the telephone was limited in comparison to semi-urban and urban areas. Now, 7% of rural households have landline phones, up from 6% in 1994. The level of awareness of the call centre in these areas was also a point of concern. Up to 70% of people in rural areas were not aware of the existence of the call centre. In contrast to 76,8% in urban areas who were aware of its existence. Another factor, that influenced the use of call centres or lack thereof, was the degree of satisfaction, received from call centre service. Despite these concerns, the rural infrastructural development will see the increase in telecommunication in rural areas. The heightened awareness of existence of call centres and the service they provide will modify the rampant tendency of customers in Shelley Office area to descend in that office in their numbers. While the study's recommendations are not prescriptive, however they provide necessary information relevant for decisive intervention by management. It offers guidelines as to what could be done. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Strategy gives an organisation direction. In order to continue successfully into the future, the organisation's strategy must be developed to ensure that the vision is ultimately achieved. Strategy cannot be achieved successfully without an in depth understanding of the internal resources and capabilities of the organisation nor can it be achieved without a deep understanding of the changing external environment. The strategic question of the suitability of marketing products over the Internet in South Africa has been addressed. This study evaluates the Watches Unlimited organisation in relation to the changing environment of the South African economy with specific research into the changing requirements of the new electronic economy (e-conomy). The research covers the theory of strategy bringing to light the requirements of the new e-conomy. A model of strategic suitability has been developed and used to evaluate the internal resources of the Watches Unlimited organisation to the external environment. The evaluation reveals the suitability of the organisation to the changing requirements of the external environment, specifically the Internet, while not loosing sight of the vision, mission and objectives of the organisation. Having understood the requirements of the organisation and the South African external environment, strategic options have been developed to underpin the vision of the organisation. Recommendations have been made and conclusions drawn that will prepare the organisation for the grand strategy of market development. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

With the advancement of technology and rapid globalisation, organisations need to be alert and responsive to changes in the marketplace. It is expected of organisations to be lean, low cost producers of goods or providers of services. Those that do not fit this general description are mercilessly raked aside to make way for new competitors. Those that do survive cannot stagnate into old style business operations, but have new adopt new ways to forge forward or suffer a similar fate of other organisations, forced to close their doors by being uncompetitive. In the world competitiveness report, seen below, much to the dismay of a handful of brilliant businessmen, South Africa features in the twenties and thirties, and has for the past five years shown fair but not rapid signs of advancement into the top twenty. What needs to be explored are the reasons behind this phenomena. Is South Africa simply not trying as a nation to move up the competitiveness ranks? It is obvious that the answer is a simple negative. South Africa is certainly trying, but while we begin to get into the mode of being competitive, our competitors in the rest of the world have already begun this process two decades ago and are well experienced in being competitive and forcing organisations into survival and success. Bayside Aluminium, a subsidiary of BHPBilliton, the worlds largest mining group, did exactly that. Bayside Aluminium decided to implement two such reengineering processes. The first reengineering process, called the BRP or Bayside Renewal Process was an issue of survival. In other words had Bayside Aluminium not gone through this process, the smelter would have faced closure within one year. The objective of this process was to allow Bayside Aluminium to survive for at least the next decade. The success of this process will be discussed at a later stage in this thesis in Chapter 2. The second reengineering process had distinct differences in the way it was conducted and had a similar objectives but with a different time frame. The second reengineering process was called the CTG or 'close the gap". The main objective of this process was to close the competitive gap between Bayside Aluminium and its competitors in the medium term in order to maintain long term survival. This process was done with the view of accelerating cost saving exercises like natural attrition, which are more medium term. Also one of the objectives was to do such an exercise whilst the company was not under pressure to reduce costs immediately. The thesis attempts to display the success of the two reengineering processes, whilst critically evaluating the methods used to implement the two process with a greater emphasis on the CTG process, being the latter process which BHPBilliton is exercising at other subsidiaries. Issues discussed and critically analysed in detail are • Real time cost benefits • Full time employee reduction success • Organisational climate before and after the process and its effect on the plant performance including the future impact of cooperation by Unions • Bayside Aluminium's movement on the cost curve after the exercise The learnings that arise out of this study could easily be applied to any organisation embarking on a similar exercise without having to make the costly mistakes that sometimes arise during reengineering exercises due to inexperience. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Autolab is a department of the South African Sugar Association, which develops and provides support services for computerised systems installed in the local sugar industry as well as one sugar mill in Zimbabwe. Autolab’s customers in South Africa were surveyed to measure their present levels of satisfaction towards the service provided by Autolab and to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. The data collected for this formal study was through a quantitative survey research instrument called SERVQUAL. The survey was limited to Autolab’s Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) users who are in contact with the Autolab staff and who will be able to rate their quality of service. These users are mainly the senior employees of the departments that are using the Autolab’s LIMS systems. They represent the population of this study, which are 79 users. A very good response rate of 91 % percent was achieved with 72 questionnaires being completed and returned by the respondents. The results of the survey show that the respondents’ expectations exceeded their perceptions for all the service quality dimensions. However, the difference between expectations and perceptions was significant for all the service quality dimensions except the empathy dimension. This implies that Autolabs’ customers have some level of dissatisfaction with the quality of service they provide. It is hoped that the shortcomings identified in this study will help Autolab to improve the quality of service they provide. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.

This report investigates the knowledge, use of and attitudes of Black patients towards their medical aid schemes. The focus was on both the private and public sector employee and also on the various medical aid schemes covering these employees. Significant differences in opinions were noted and reported between the private and public sector employee. The majority of Black medical aid patients lacked sufficient knowledge of their medical aid schemes. Their perceptions ofthe various role-players within the medical aid industry were very poor. The dissertation concludes with recommendations on how the various role-players can make a change to improve the Black patient's knowledge, use of and attitudes towards his medical aid scheme. / Thesis (M.B.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Procurement has been viewed as a Cinderella function, merely rendering service to core functions such as operations/production, engineering, R&D and marketing. The activities of procurement have been mundane and repetitive in nature. The importance of procurement can be understood by looking at the cost of goods sold as reflected in each company’s financial statement. In some companies this cost is more than 70% of sales revenue. World class companies realised this and elevated the procurement function to strategic levels. However, lagging companies still operate as if it is fifty years ago. The aim of this study is to determine whether companies are adapting new methods of procurement instead of pitting suppliers against each other in search of the lowest purchase price. A sample of 30 procurement managers was drawn from the 2006 Financial Mail 100 SA Best Companies. It comprised managers of companies stemming from different industries ranging from petrochemicals and banking services to hospitality, etcetera. These companies were chosen because they are the best in their class. Data was collected using questionnaires developed by the researcher and e-mailed to respondents. Regression analysis was conducted and it was established that there is a positive relationship between information sharing and trust. There seems to be a negative relationship between trust and communication. It was noted with dismay that a large contingent of procurement personnel who are supposed to uplift the status of procurement do not possess post-matriculation qualifications. This poses a serious drawback since these procurement personnel are supposed to transact with highly qualified sales representatives from the supplier companies. It is therefore recommended that companies be selective in their procurement approaches, tendering for leverage items, negotiating for strategic items and using a procurement card for shop items. Supplier performance measurement must be conducted to improve performance and partnerships formed with high performing suppliers. The skills levels of procurement officials need to be upgraded to enable them to deal with new challenges. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009. / Sasol Secunda Shared Services and Kumba Iron Ore.

Abstarct not available. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Everyday and in all facets of industry some people are motivated to seek promotion. The reasons behind this motivation to succeed are vague and very little information exists to explain why people seek promotion. It was on this basis that this study was undertaken; to add to knowledge of what motivates people to seek promotion. The common thought or belief is that people seek promotion so as to earn more and to increase their living standards and to be financially “better off” than their current circumstances. However, this study has shown that not to be the case. People are not only driven by financial gains but instead have a deeper desire to succeed. A probability sample of 123 was drawn from people who work within industry and hold various positions from senior management to those at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy. The sample was made up of 43.9% in management, 29.27% in administrative positions, and 26.83% working within the factory environment. The gender making up this sample was 21.95% female and 78.05% male. The majority of the data collected was through an online survey web page and the balance through respondents completing a paper based questionnaire. Statistical analysis software called SPSS was used to subject the data collected to statistical scrutiny. The salient feature of this study is that people displayed high levels of confidence in either being a manager or belief that they would do well as a manager. The study also shows that people are not motivated through financial rewards as a precursor for promotion, but instead seek promotion to better their non-financial lives. Personal satisfaction, job satisfaction and the desire for a challenge are the main factors for promotional desires. This dissertation has added to knowledge of what motivates people to seek promotion. The information can be used by organisations to assess their staff for promotional abilities and gives a broader understanding of why their people seek promotion. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.

This study is about how the use of client insight can maximize the effectiveness of a marketing strategy in an organization. During the study an extensive literature review was done to investigate the role of management in creating a client centric culture by applying theories such as the Five-factor model of personality and the Full Range of Leadership Model proposed by Bass and Avolio (1994). Detailed review on the latest client insight theories and global trends such as neuromarketing, advocacy advertising and law of lens was explored. A client insight research survey was administered to investigate specific aspects of the client centric culture and the implementation of insight driven marketing strategies within Sanlam. The survey found that there is high level of awareness of client centricity within the organisation. However, the implementation of client insight driven strategies in most departments surveyed was unfavourable. Areas identified for improvement were the need for greater awareness, usage of client insight related services and a more active role of management in promoting client centric strategies. Best practices, policies and recommendations with regards to management's role in using client insight, data mining and market intelligence was suggested for the enhancement of the marketing strategy. It was recommended that change agents be incorporated within Sanlam to catalyze the process of entrenching day-to-day client insight driven work performances and management transformation. Further investigation is suggested regarding the incompatible data management technology, which should enable the company to obtain a single view of the client as well as instituting the virtuous cycle in the market research and information department. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.