3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The link between strategic CRM systems and revenue in the South African cellphone industry(2017) Mgobo, NontuthuzeloThe increase in globalisation and disruptive technologies has created narrower margins between industries. Organisational agility and innovation have become strategic enablers for survival in highly competitive markets which require constant evolution in products and services to appeal to the target markets. These developments can only be achieved by deeper understanding of these factors while building and maintaining mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships between a business and its customers. With the introduction of CRM (Customer Management Relationship) applications, businesses have become customer-centric, channelling energy and resources to customer loyalty and retention. There is a mutual benefit where meaningful relationships are nurtured and developed with the provision of appropriate products and services for customers which in turn provides a return on investment for business. Customer Relationship Management has become a major strategic driver that enables business to remain competitive and have a transient advantage. It is essential for business today to have effective CRM systems and tools that use data mining techniques as a foundation. By employing models developed from past research and using the work of various authors as a foundation, a fundamental conceptual model for the South African cell phone industry was developed for the purpose of this study. Application of this model facilitated a critique of existing strategy while clearly outlining areas for development in the case study company. The initial phase was an analysis the organisation’s strategy to determine its relevance and alignment to CRM. Data mining classification, segmentation and association functionalities were used to gain insights from customer information regarding service type (voice or data) preferences and frequency of use by geographical area. This process also revealed market share information that could be affected by external factors such as economic conditions. Efforts to grow revenue with notable returns by the company under review are also revealed, and areas of concern are highlighted. These customer insights allowed for calculation of revenue growth per area based on product use with the assumption value for ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) based on historical industry data. Ranking of the best and worst areas based on revenue, sales and service type was assessed by geographical area. The study’s foundation rests on evidence of successful CRM strategy implementation. The study concludes that this success is attributable to effective CRM systems that are aligned with customer centric business objectives. This needs to be driven by top management down through the business to be successful. With all these factors taken into consideration, this study concludes that strategic CRM application can increase business revenue in the South African cell phone industry.Item A study to use a data mining approach to classify customer price sensitivity using a retail banking foreign exchange historical dataset(2018) Maplanka, NtombizodwaData analysis combined with machine learning has become an essential part of the modern scienti c methodology, o ering automated procedures for the prediction of a phenomenon based on past observations, identifying underlying patterns in data and providing insights about the problem. This thesis seeks to demonstrate the use of data mining techniques to classify price sensitive customers using a historical dataset from a retail banking forex department. Two data sets were merged (customer data and deals data), and statistical models were tted and compared; namely decision trees, random forests and neural networks. All models produced excellent results when tted on the datasets; the random forests performed slightly better with marginal improvements over decision trees and neural networks. These models gave the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of at least 0.90 and percentage correctly classi ed of least 0.95 for the datasets. Apart from making the most accurate predictions of the response variable random forests and decision trees were used to identify predictor variables that are most important to make these predictions. The study shows that in retail banking under the given setting, the foreign exchange division can price the clients appropriately and increase competitive edge by using data mining techniques to predict customers' price sensitivity to foreign exchange rates. The next step for the bank is to use these methods to retain the customers, increase revenue as well as make improvements in pricing where warranted.Item Evaluating the back to basics programme :water provision in Giyani Local Municipality(2018) Sithole, Matimba John PhilipSince the establishment of the “new” local government systems in the post-apartheid South Africa municipalities are increasingly facing persistent challenges of distributing basic water services to all communities. These challenges are more prevalent among municipalities that are largely rural areas and comprised of poor communities. The national government has over the years implemented policies and various support programmes aimed at improving the performance in service delivery. In 2014 The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs introduced the Back to Basics programme to ensure sustainable delivery of basic services, including basic water supplies. However, municipalities continue to experience water services delivery challenges, especially in poor rural areas where huge water backlogs are evident. This research investigated the extent of the B2B implementation in facilitating the long-standing challenges of water supply to rural communities in the Giyani Local Municipality (GLM). GLM was identified as one of the dysfunctional municipalities in South Africa. Data were collected through the use of interviews of water technicians from the GLM, Mopani District Municipality (MDM), an official from Lepelle Northern Water (LNW) and Siyandhani Water Committee member. The results show that inadequate water supply infrastructure; lack of investment in alternative water sources; operations and maintenance of water supply infrastructure; socio-economic conditions of rural communities; water resources management approaches; and poor planning and coordination among key stakeholders are responsible for water supply problems in rural areas. It is argued that these factors are primarily responsible for unsustainable water allocations to rural communities and have a direct impact on the effectiveness of the B2B programme. The research concludes there are spatial inequalities that exist between rural and urban areas spatial in terms of water allocation, and that a more equitable model for local government support underpinned by meaningful participation and water resources management by communities is necessary in ensuring sustainable water provision to rural communities.Item Customer reassignment strategies and cross-selling performance: a South African study(2018) Hobo, NtomboxoloItem Nature of client team structure and role of the client team leader in two successful infrastructure programmes(2018) Mosaleisi, TsholofeloABSTRACT The role of the client is critical in successful infrastructure project delivery. This requires the appointment of an experienced and capable client team to lead and oversee infrastructure programmes or projects. A number of professionals often work in a client’s project management team and play various roles. While textbooks may identify some of the professionals and their roles, little empirical research has been conducted on the structure of such client teams and the critical role of the client’s team leader in leading the infrastructure delivery process and managing the whole professional team to perform their roles successfully and deliver the project to achieve the intended objectives and value for money. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the nature of the team structure in each case and how the client’s project team leader performed his role to ensure successful delivery of the infrastructure programmes. Data collection was undertaken through semi-structured interviews with eight (8) members of the team, documentary analyses and listening to one detailed presentation by three key members of the client’s team including the client team leader and the client himself. Based on the results of the work, successful delivery of infrastructure project requires a client team that is structured in a hierarchical manner in terms of reporting lines, but has flexible interaction between members of the team. Although there was a clear hierarchy, various team members referred to structure of the team as ‘’Flat structure’’ this implies that although there was a hierarchy in terms of leadership and membership of the team, they operated much as equals within the team. In relation to the role of the client’s team leader, it was found that project decisions and actions are driven by the values and interests of the client. The client’s team leader viewed his primary role to be ‘unblocking obstacles to progress’ and ‘demand management’ of inputs from everyone in the supply chain. The qualitative data showed one possible relationship between the team structure, role of the client tem leader, and project outcomes – the role and performance of the leader is a critical determinant of successful project outcomes. In conclusion, the main contribution of this study lies in the use of a comprehensive methodology to develop a systematic understanding of the contemporary structure of a client’s infrastructure project delivery team; and the critical elements of the role of the delivery manager entrusted with the responsibility to lead the client’s team and deliver the intended objectives of the infrastructure programme or project.Item Employee attitude change in adopting a market orientation and integrated e-CRM in large corporations in SA(2018) Ganesan, KeanaWithin the business-to-business playing field, large corporations in South Africa have implemented and deployed Enterprise Systems like e-CRM in the hopes of improving processes, managing customer relationships and financial gains, as promised by the technologies. These organisations have a typical product-centric focus and end up using the tool for sales management and customer profitability. Without the supporting culture and mindset manifested throughout the organisation, adoption of new technologies like e-CRM and its benefits will remain an unrealised goal. Previous research conducted in the separate fields of culture and technology state that Internal Marketing strategies can be used as change management strategies in terms of either culture or technology adoption. This study explores which Internal Marketing strategies can be applied to induce an attitude change regarding the simultaneous adoption of a market orientation and an integrated e-CRM. Three peoplefocused strategies were chosen as critical success factors, namely: (i) employee involvement; (ii) inter-functional coordination; (iii) and education, training and development. They were selected based on the aim of reducing employees’ resistance to change - especially organisational culture and technology usage. This paper builds on past findings that the identified strategies will have a positive impact on the conjunctive adoption of these organisational changes. A path model incorporating SEM visual statistics is applied to investigate the hypothesised variables. The findings indicate that education, training and development has a positive and direct impact on the increased adoption, however, both employee involvement and inter-functional coordination have an indirect effect through education, training and development. These results are founded on the study of employees at varying levels of large corporations with implemented e-CRM systems, operating within the business-to-business environment in South Africa.Item The role of personality and organisational cultural differences in the success of salesperson-buyer dyads(2016) Hammerich, WestleyArguably the most important function a business focuses on is revenue generation, which is ultimately achieved through immediate sales and the inculcation of future customer spend. For many businesses, notably in the business-to-business realm, salespeople are still required to form relationships with key customer buyers and to achieve or facilitate sales through this “dyadic” interpersonal relationship. Understanding what makes relationships and interactions between customer buyers and salespeople successful – from a sales perspective – remains an important concern for organisations and marketing theorists. In such sales relationships, the “success” of the sale and the longer term sales relationship can depend on aspects of the interpersonal relationships such as the ability of the parties to communicate well, come to agreement, and potentially even bond socially. The ability of parties to form productive and conducive interpersonal relationships in turn depends on factors such as personality and culture. This thesis argues that there is no particular “best” personality or culture for the formation of successful sales relationships, but that match between the personality traits of salespeople and customers as well as between their respective organisation’s cultures may facilitate success in sales. As indicated above, the thesis studies two main dependent variables, namely sales success and word-of-mouth. These variables are derived from the theory of customer equity management (Rust, Lemon, & Narayandas, 2005). The thesis argues that prior to generating income through either a sale or through word-of-mouth the organisation will need to have a relationship with the customer. Relationship marketing (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) provides a framework for understanding what constitutes a relationship. The current study aligns itself with prior literature arguing that relationship quality comprises three components specifically; trust, satisfaction and commitment. Personality research has remained at the heart of industrial research and managerial practise. Voluminous literature has used the Big Five personality traits for understanding customer’s interactions. The five personality traits include Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience (Soto & John, 2012). The current study argues that it is not the personality traits themselves which are important, but rather the similarities or differences between the customer and the salesperson. Organisation culture has been shown to affect several different arenas within the management field, but has not been much examined within the context of dyadic relationships. The specific relationship that the study addresses is the customer-salesperson relationship. In this thesis I argue that both the customer and salesperson to some extent embody and reflect their respective organisational cultures, and in addition, sales systems can reflect organizational cultures, for instance where bureaucratic organizational culture creates sales systems with high levels of formality. In turn, match or mismatch in organizational cultures may affect sales or relationship outcomes in various ways. The well-known organisational culture index (Wallach, 1983) will be used to capture the cultures from both the salesperson and customer. The three elements of organisational culture measured by the index include bureaucratic cultural aspects, innovative cultural aspects, and supportive cultural aspects. To test these relationships, the thesis presents an empirical study based on a cross-sectional, quantitative, survey of the SME market in South Africa. One hundred salesperson-customer dyads participated in the study, and data from each member of the dyad was surveyed separately. Statistical techniques such as partial least squares structural equation modelling and polynomial regression were used in the analysis of the data. A response surface methodology allowed for graphical representation of the polynomial regression results. These results then acted as inputs for a Bayesian Networks analysis (Charniak, 1991), which are used to improve the understanding of causality. Results of the empirical survey indicate that trust, satisfaction and commitment affect the level of word-of-mouth while only trust and commitment have an effect on sales. The analysis indicates that matches or mismatches in the personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness do affect dependent variables of relationship quality, sales success and word-of-mouth, and do so in differing ways. This thesis provides several unique contributions to sales theory and literature. First, although the salesperson-customer dyad has been studied before, the differences in personality traits have not been included. This is particularly true within the South African context. Secondly, organisational culture literature has been reviewed and studied but has neglected the role that organisational culture plays in the sales environment, specifically when interacting with a customer. Third, several theories are used to explain why the constructs came together; however certain aspects of these theories are questioned. Lastly, several practical applications are provided that allow organisations to improve the hiring process and implement training objectives for their sales force. Key Words: Dyad, satisfaction, trust, commitment, customer lifetime value, relationship marketing, relationship quality, organisational culture, bureaucracy, innovation, supportive, response surface, polynomial regression, Bayesian network, customer equity management.