Brand Association and Sales Growth: A Study of Nigeria the Flour Milling Industry

Branding has developed in the minds of customers a strong and positive perception of a company's products or services. However, most of these businesses struggle to use branding strategy to differentiate themselves from competition and grow sales. The goal of this study is to assess the impact of brand association tactics on the sales growth of flour milling enterprises. The major technique of data collection was administered questionnaire to the sales and marketing employees of the selected flour milling enterprises in Lagos State. The findings indicated that brand connections have a positive and considerable impact on sales growth. The study recommends that brand managers should also ensure that customers' interactions with the brand remain consistent in order to generate sales growth.

Impact of Financial Management Practices on Sustainable Growth of SMEs: A Case of Catering Organizations in Bulawayo Metropolitan Province

The study was conducted to establish the impact of financial management practices on the perdomance of SMEs in Zimbabwe. The problem statement identified lack of business growth of SMEs. The objectives of the study were to establish the impact of financial management practices on the sustainable growth of SMEs. The study was based on a sample of 101 SMEs from the Catering Industry that were selected through random sampling. Data analysis was done through SPSS version 2.2. The findings revealed that SMEs used mostly four financial management practices: capital budgeting, working capital management, Capital structure, and financial reporting analysis. The challenges faced by SMEs in implementing prudent financial management practices were mainly poor management skills, lack of business registration and lack of financial literacy skills. The results of the study implied that most challenges faced by SMEs were internally localised. The study recommended a model for growth of SMEs in which the government was the major supporter of SMES through financial literacy training and provision of financial support. SMEs were recommended to use equitable financial management practices.

The Role of information technology in business process re-engineering to improve customer satisfaction: A case of the banking sector in Bulawayo.

Organisations gunning for survival must adopt or adjust their strategies in order to respond to these changes. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) has become inevitable due to its being considered as one of the measures taken to address and adapt to the changes in the business world. Information and communication technology has been identified as one of the enablers of BPR hence this study sought to analyse the role of IT in BPR implementation to improve customer satisfaction in the banking sector. This study was guided by a pragmatic research paradigm which underpinned the study. The mixed method approach was utilised whilst a cross-sectional survey was adopted to collect data from 76 respondents. IBM statistical packsge for Social Sciences version 2.2 was used to process data. The results revealed that IT played a major role in BPR successful implementation. The study concluded that it would be impossible to implement BPR without IT. The study recommended that banking institutions should continue re-engineering their processes so as to remain relevant in the ever changing technological innovations. Training was recommended for employees on latest banking systems.

Employee’s Sustainable Performance Process: Developing a Model for Sustaining Employees performance by Managing Age Diversity

Sustaining employees performance is a critical process. Employee sustainability is crucial for achieving organizational sustainability. For an organization, it's important to understand the individual employees perspective based on their age differences. Needs and resources are different for young employees and old employees. This paper proposes a model of sustaining employees performance of diverse age groups of employees by considering individual employee’s based on Herzberg two factor theory, the motivational theory of lifespan development, and transformational leadership theory. This is a conceptual paper in nature and has successfully developed a model. The proposed model has covered important areas which can create employees satisfaction to retain them in the organization. Employee retention has been proposed as a mediator which is a strong component to build employee’s sustainable performance. For the researcher and practitioners, it will be recommended to test this model to identify its impact on employees and employers.

Development of the Theory and Practice of Higher Education Innovatics

Most of the innovative changes in higher education in relation to academic capitalism are based on market principles. The aim of the article is to further study and determine the innovative directions of the reform of higher education. For this, it is necessary to create and implement a scientific and applied system that combines theoretical and practical approaches to the innovative development of higher education. The authors propose the further development of a new scientific direction in the field of higher education - “innovatics of higher education”. Theoretical foundations and practical issues of higher education innovatics include innovative changes in a number of activities. The main of these activities are: teaching, training and study; R&D, engineering, IT and technologies development, projects activity and design creativity; financial and economic support of the educational process, R&D, activities development and business expanses; inventive and patent-licensing activities, technology transfer, academic/university entrepreneurship; cultural and moral development, upbringing of cultural, moral and human values; sports, recreational, festive and extracurricular activities including other types of universities activities. Thus, innovatics of higher education includes innovative changes in almost all areas of higher education to enhance the quality training of professionals and responsible citizens of the modern community. More over innovations can guarantee financial independence, economic stability and competitiveness for a university development. This will be useful both for reforming the higher education systems and for universities R&D in Ukraine and other countries.

Extent of Application of Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies to Enhance Tourism Sustainability: A Case of Selected Tourism Operators in Victoria Falls

This study sought to analyse the extent of the application of Fourth Industrial Revolution techniques (4 IR) in the tourism sector of Zimbabwe using the Victoria Falls as a case study. The objective of the study was to analyse the effectiveness of 4IR technologies on the competitiveness amongst tourist operators and to determine strategies that could be adapted to improve the use of 4IR technological trends. A sample of 96 tourist respondents were used in the study, as well as 30 tour operators. The study also used probability sampling through systematic random sampling for tourists and non-probability sampling through random sampling for tour operators. The findings clearly showed that pre-travel technologies used by tour operators have enhanced tourists choice of patronage. However, on-site technologies used by tour operators were limited acording to tourists who indicated that they were not satiesfied with the extent to which on-site technologies were applied. The reasons behind slow adoption of 4IR technologies by most operators emanated from lack of managerial skills, lack of expertise and lack of desire to innovate. The study recommended that operators should urgently adopt the use of artificial intelligence, they should budget towards technological upgrading as well as installation of cyber crime security systems. Organisations should also invest in digital transformation.

The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Urban Youth’s Brand Loyalty: Through Facebook Marketing

Social media being established as an effective medium of communication, marketers now highly focus on social media marketing create brand awareness and institute brand loyalty. Considering social media is the most popular among the urban youth of the country and Facebook being most popular social media site, this study is thus designed in order to identify the impact of Facebook marketing on urban youth’s brand loyalty. Information was derived by conducting a validated questionnaire with a sample of 306 people which was further evaluated through regression analysis. It was found night time, 08:01 PM – 5:59 AM, is the most popular time period for the urban youth to use Facebook. Funny, informative, international/ national news contents are top preferred content on Facebook. A positive relationship between urban youth’s brand loyalty and components such as advantageous campaign, facebook group, popular contents and brand’s relevant contents of Facebook marketing. Whereas, updated content and electronic word of mouth (E-WOM) rather had a negative influence on the brand loyalty of the urban youth.

Growing Metalwork Craft Businesses through the Lens of Entrepreneurship Education

The problems of unemployment and poverty among technical education graduates require students to develop employability skills. One way of solving these problems is through the effective teaching of entrepreneurship education, especially at technical-based higher institutions. The research adopted the narrative review approach that seeks to give an understanding of current knowledge on the rationale of metalwork craft, the concept of entrepreneurship education, school-based enterprise and their usefulness for graduates’ employment and productivity in Nigerian. The review showed that entrepreneurship education in the Nigerian higher education institutions seems to be more about creating entrepreneurship awareness, as against the practical approach, which is a means for developing entrepreneurship skills. Some challenges were highlighted that impede the successful implementation of entrepreneurship studies in Nigeria and recommendations made towards the practical realization of entrepreneurship education in our higher institutions.

Life Cycle Development of Successful Women-owned Enterprises

In developing countries, the role of women in the business sector is continuously improving. As a result, female enterprises have also been encouraged in Pakistan. This study is based on life cycle development phases from which women-owned enterprises have to go through in order to become successful. As a primary data source, face-to-face interviews with owners of successful women-owned enterprises were preferred. The data collection process was divided into two phases i.e. Phase-I and Phase-II. After data collection, qualitative analysis has been performed using NVIVO. Findings provide both generic and specific factors involved in life cycle development of women-owned enterprises. This study provides a detailed view of life cycle development model followed by successful women enterprises. The outcome of this research work is a theoretical finding which can be utilized by entrepreneurs owning small scale enterprises to improve their level of performance. Findings can also be helpful for potentially talented women interested in setting up their own business.

An Analysis of the Effect of Procurement Procedures on Customer Satisfaction: A Case Study of the United Refineries Limited in Bulawayo

The exploration sought to analyse the effects of procurement procedures on customer satisfaction through a case study of United Refineries Limited. As the industry in Zimbabwe had been enlarging in size and intricacy, so too did the challenges met across the procurement sector. Instances of such challenges comprised inter alia varying customer preferences, the requirement for ecological practices and the need to sustain relationships in the supply chain. The study was based on the network theory which highlighted that businesses in a network cannot create procurement procedures at liberty and independently without involving others in the network. The investigation assessed the effect of procurement procedures on customer satisfaction through the utilisation of the descriptive design. The research population comprised of 107 employees and 25 customers aggregated based on daily walk-ins. The sample was 84 respondents for employees and 20 for customers in terms of which judgmental sampling was utilised. The results showed that the majority of customers were not satisfied with procurement procedures given the incidence of malpractices such as bureaucracy and red-tape which fought against the effectiveness of procurement procedures which led to dissatisfaction as well as substantial discrepancies in procurement procedures. It was concluded that the strategic significance and the latent forthcoming influence of procurement procedures at United Refineries was impossible to ignore. There existed room for improvement in procurement procedures to bring about customer satisfaction. Recommendations included, training, supplier development and supplier streamlining.