Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters/MBA)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37942

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    Strategies of South African companies competing with multinationals in local markets
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Nkwanyana, Astrid; Quaye, Emmanuel
    As emerging markets are becoming more enticing to multinationals, the highly competitive leisure footwear industry is also seeing new upcoming local companies in South Africa face competition from these established multinationals. In addition, customers are influenced by various aspects of the markets. Therefore, it is vital to investigate customers’ attitudes and perceptions towards the marketing strategies used by these local and global companies. Using a qualitative research design through one-on-one interviews, the study interviewed ten respondents that are sports shoe customers ranging from fitness enthusiasts and operational staff in the fitness industry to a hip hop fan. Respondents were required to be users of leisure footwear to have in-depth knowledge of their preferred brands. Secondary data was also collected from various company websites and online publications, as well as academic journals. The research results provide insights into the strategies used by local and global footwear brands in South Africa, such as product innovation, brand image, local awareness, network access and collaboration. Findings show that product innovation influences customers to buy sneakers as most believe comfort is important in their fitness journey. Customers’ attitude towards brand image is positive as they believe in the brand, which motivates them to buy the sneakers. Importantly, 70% of the customers are influenced to buy sneakers by icons they look up to, and most respondents can access the brands they want to buy. Whilst most respondents felt global companies were not locally aware, this did not influence their buying
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    Switching intentions of mobile prepaid telecommunication customers in South Africa
    (2021) Khoza, Lionel
    The South African prepaid mobile telecommunications market has become increasingly competitive, with the late entrants to the market viz. Cell C and Telkom Mobile resorting to price as a weapon to differentiate themselves. This has led to the incumbents i.e. Vodacom and MTN to (reluctantly) join in the price war thereby triggering a dynamic competitive landscape that is characterised by high levels of churn. The incumbents’ appetite to join the price war is suspicious, it suggests that these service providers are not conscious to the comprehensive factors behind the mobile prepaid customers’ desire to switch between competitors, they seem to perceive price as the only trigger. A self-administered quantitative study comprising of both online and offline surveys was conducted to understand the underlying factors and variables behind the mobile prepaid customers’ switching intension in South Africa. The study employed the PPM (Push-Pull-Mooring) framework, which Bansal et al. (2005) demonstrated its pragmatism, empirical validity and its applicability as a research framework to understand consumer switching intensions and behaviour. The results of the study indicates that perceived poor customer satisfaction and high prices are push factors that have a significant contribution to the mobile network prepaid switching intension. Perceived good competitor reputation and attractive alternatives were found to be salient pull factors of the customer switching intension whilst, switching costs as a mooring effect were not significant to deter customers from switching to an alternative service provider. Managers need to consider developing hybrid plans (between prepaid/postpaid) that supports the average spend per user revealed in this study. Moreover, they need to fully understand the prepaid customer purchase decision journey to tighten the marketing mix of their propositions. Offering low perceived pricing should not be at an expense of their network investment. Relationship building initiatives such as loyalty programs should be developed to build loyalty and deter customers from switching