scholarly journals Achieving a Sustained Competitive Advantage in the South African Telecommunications Sector

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 278-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mfanasibili Ngwenya
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
The South ◽  
Sustained Competitive Advantage ◽  
Telecommunications Sector

scholarly journals The competitive status of the South African Wheat Industry

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 651-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Van der Merwe ◽  
Philippus Cloete ◽  
Herman Van Schalkwyk
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
Wheat Flour ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
The South ◽  
Wheat Market ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Trade Partners

This article investigates the competitiveness of the South African wheat industry and compares it to its major trade partners. Since 1997, the wheat-to-bread value chain has been characterised by concentration of ownership and regulation. This led to concerns that the local wheat market is losing international competitiveness. The competitive status of the wheat industry, and its sub-sectors, is determined through the estimation of the relative trade advantage (RTA). The results revealed declining competitiveness of local wheat producers. Compared to the major global wheat producers, such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany and the USA, South Africa’s unprocessed wheat industry is uncompetitive. At the same time, South Africa has a competitive advantage in semi-processed wheat, especially wheat flour. The institutional environment enables the importation of raw wheat at lower prices and exports processed wheat flour competitively to the rest of Africa.

scholarly journals Assessing service quality in the mobile telecommunications market

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 510-517
Author(s):  
Jeevarathnam Parthasarathy Govender
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
Mobile Telecommunications ◽  
The South ◽  
Five Dimensions ◽  
Customer Expectations ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Telecommunications Market

The South African telecommunications market is vibrant and growing, dominated by two players. It is recognised that service quality plays an important role in establishing a competitive advantage. The aim of this paper is to assess ratings of service quality among mobile telecommunications customers. To this end, a survey was conducted among 400 customers using the SERVQUAL questionnaire to measure customers’ expectations and perceptions based on the five dimensions of service quality. The findings indicate that there are gaps between customer expectations and perceptions of service quality. The tangibles dimension exhibited the smallest gap for both companies and the assurance and empathy dimensions revealed the largest gap scores. There were no significant differences in overall expectations between the two companies, but there were significant differences between the companies on overall perceptions of service quality. There was no significant difference in the overall expectations and perceptions between males and females.

scholarly journals Being on top of your game at the bottom of the pyramid

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pravina D. Oodith ◽  
Sanjana Brijball Parumasur
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Bottom Of The Pyramid ◽  
Collaborative Effort ◽  
South African Context ◽  
The South ◽  
African Context

This paper analysed the viability of Prahalad’s Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) proposition within the South Africa context as a mechanism to eradicate/minimize poverty by ensuring a joint collaborative effort by government, NGOs, large domestic firms, multinational corporations (MNCs) as well as the poverty stricken citizens themselves. It conceptualized the BOP proposition and, having reviewed statistics on the extent of poverty globally and in South African in particular, confirmed that the BOP is a lucrative market in the South African context. From the paper, it is evident that the BOP proposition, if effectively implemented, has the potential to reduce poverty in South Africa and increase the profits of MNCs. It then reviewed Prahalad’s twelve Principles of Innovation and strategically divided these into six differentiation and six low-cost strategies. The paper concludes by articulating creative strategies (based on Prahalad’s 12 principles of innovation) for active participation and competitive advantage at the bottom of the pyramid, which are vividly presented in a model for strategic partners especially multinational corporations (MNCs) to adopt when expanding their scale of operations to incorporate the BOP market.

scholarly journals Competitive Advantage Threats and Opportunities in the South African Clothing, Textiles, Leather, and Footwear (CTLF) Industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Sipho Mbatha
Keyword(s):  
Response Time ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
Quick Response ◽  
The South ◽  
Significant Contributor ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Low Rate

Despite the employment and competitive advantage decline experienced in previous years, the South African clothing, textile, leather, and footwear (SACTLF) industry is still a significant contributor to the country’s manufacturing sector. To restore employment figures last seen a decade ago in the industry, the SACTLF has to explore competitive advantage threats and opportunities, among others. To explore competitive advantage threats and opportunities in the SACTLF industry, a leading SACTLF retail group and two leading clothing manufacturers’ associations (representing over 100 CTLF organisations) were purposefully sampled and interviewed. Emerging from the transcripts is that the low rate of innovation and lack of access to manufacturing inputs are the main competitive advantage threats. Strengthening quick-response time and localisation emerged as competitively advantageous opportunities. This article’s findings show that the SACTLF industry has the potential to develop a competitive advantage. The findings of the study contribute new knowledge to the literature.   Received: 27 July 2021 / Accepted: 7 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

scholarly journals Meeting the challenge of the work-life balance in the South African workplace

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
GF Mageni ◽  
AD Slabbert
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
The South ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Insight Into

The work-life balance (WLB) construct as a business imperative has been of growing concern in organisations outside South Africa for the past two decades, particularly given the pressure to create a sustainable global competitive advantage through human capital. Within the last decade this aspect has been prominent in various forums. However, no studies as yet provide insight into the applicability of WLB models to the South African workplace. The present article therefore explores the composition of a WLB system, and analyses constraints on its application under the conditions of the South African labour market.

scholarly journals Competitive intelligence practice challenges in the South African property sector

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-305
Author(s):  
Tshilidzi Eric Nenzhelele
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
Competitive Intelligence ◽  
Success Factor ◽  
Critical Success Factor ◽  
The South ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Critical Success ◽  
Fierce Competition

Competitive intelligence is a critical success factor for businesses of different forms and sizes. It helps businesses to survive in the midst of fierce competition. Competitive intelligence offers competitive advantage to firms. However, firms find it challenging to practice CI. Whilst competitive intelligence practice challenges have been identified in other sectors in South Africa, no research has been conducted to establish competitive intelligence challenges in the South African property sector. This study aims to establish challenges faced by property practitioners in practising competitive intelligence. The study was quantitative in nature and a web-based questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The analysis was descriptive in nature

scholarly journals The impact of infrastructural change and regulation on entrepreneurial competitiveness in the South African telecommunications sector

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-110
Author(s):  
S. M. Oberholzer ◽  
M. Cullen ◽  
C. Adendorff
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
South African ◽  
The South ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Telecommunications Sector ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Global Drivers

The fast pace of technological advancements is regarded as one of the global drivers of change. In the telecommunications sector in South Africa, these technological advancements as well as sector transformation pose competitiveness challenges to entrepreneurs. This paper reports an empirical study performed to contribute to the promotion of entrepreneurial competitiveness within the telecommunications sector of the South African economy. From the empirical study, significant relationships proved to exist between the intervening- and independent variables and the dependent variable of this study, namely Perceived Entrepreneurial Competitiveness. The independent variable Infrastructural Change positively influenced both the intervening variable Entrepreneurial Orientation and dependent variable Perceived Entrepreneurial Competitiveness. In the same manner, the independent variables of Regulatory Alignment and Entrepreneurial Mindset did positively influenced Perceived Entrepreneurial Competitiveness within thisstudy. The study found that entrepreneurs can position their businesses more competitively if the factors that impact directly or indirectly on Entrepreneurial Competitiveness in the South African Telecommunications sector are taken in consideration.

scholarly journals Competitive intelligence practice in the South African property sector

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tshilidzi E. Nenzhelele
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
South African ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Competitive Intelligence ◽  
Skills Development ◽  
The South ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Global Competitiveness ◽  
The World

Background: The South African property sector contributes highly to creating jobs, skills development, poverty reduction and economic growth. Although South Africa dropped in the global competitiveness ranking, the property sector of South Africa remains very competitive. To survive in a competitive sector, firms around the world practice competitive intelligence(CI). Although the use of CI has been examined in other sectors in South Africa, no study on CI practice has been conducted in the property sector.Objectives: The objective of this research was to establish the extent to which the property sector of South Africa practices CI.Method: This research was quantitative in nature and a web-based questionnaire was used to collect data from estate agencies in the South African property sector.Results: The results indicate that the South African property sector is very competitive and estate agencies practice CI to gain competitive advantage and make quality decisions.Moreover, the results reveal that the property sector practice CI legally and ethically. The results indicate that the majority of estate agencies are very small employing at most five employees and make at most 5 million Rands annual turnover.Conclusion: The South African property sector ethically and legally practices CI to gain competitive advantage and to aid in making quality decisions.

Articulation of Industrial R&D with Higher Education in the Telecommunications Sector in South Africa

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Paterson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South African ◽  
Research Capacity ◽  
Telecommunications Industry ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
The South ◽  
Industry Research ◽  
Telecommunications Sector ◽  
Education Industry ◽  
Higher Education Industry

This article shows how and why particular higher education-industry research and development networks articulate with the South African telecommunications sector. The range of competing and complementary data telecommunications technologies available in the South African market provide varying opportunities for enterprises to engage in R&D. Two case studies based in the South African telecommunications industry examine R&D interaction between industry and higher education institutions which have nascent rather than developed R&D capacity and which are dependent on industry initiatives. The analysis suggests that the origin of a particular industry-higher education R&D network is contingent on the growth trajectory of the industrial sector in which it is located and on the maturation of research capacity in the higher education sector with which it is linked.

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