NWU Business School

Mr Daniel Kgahlela is from the Limpopo University. In this interview, he focussed on the important role of administration in a business. All businesses need good administrative processes in everything they do. If this is not done properly, quality can be jeopordised. He focused on the fact that many rural business and people still do not have access to the internet, which creates many problems for them going forward in their businesses.

Going forward, he suggested that there should be online platforms where people can watch and learn and how online systems work. This is especially important in education as we need to support young people in our country.

Lastly, Covid 19 impacted on the way we do administration and therefore we should focus on streamlined way to make the world to connect to each other.

The African continent has various levels of women emancipation, and as such the role that women play in the economy differs vastly. What challenges do women face in South African workplace and also in Africa? How do they overcome these women-specific challenges to play their part at work and in the economy, and to what extent can their experiences help other women to overcome their challenges?

One woman who successfully started out and worked her way to the top is professor Kiveshnie Naidoo. Prof Naidoo is PhD Alumnus of the North-West University Business School and is currently employed as the Academic Director of probably the largest private higher education institution in Africa. Prof Naidoo speaks openly about her challenges as a woman in business world, and how she negotiated these challenges. She passionately offers advice to other women who might experience challenges in their place of employment.

Youth unemployment in South Africa is a staggering 53%. Universities and other tertiary institutions simply do not have the capacity to deal with the educational demand. Many capable and eligible students are short-funded or they just do not have the funds to educate themselves for a better future.

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) are incapable to provide sufficient financial support. On the supply-side, teaching and learning is still largely done via traditional beliefs and structures with classroom lecturing (albeit online education rapidly increased during the Covid-19 pandemic). This situation is for the most part, also true for the most African countries. To add insult to injury, many of the students exiting educational institutions are require further training to cope with the challenges emanating from the 4th and 5th Industrial Revolution workplace. Do they have the needed skills to cope?

In this Bon Bon prof Christo Bisschoff discusses potential near-future scenarios with Prof Ahmed Shaikh. Prof Shaikh is a specialist par excellence on skills development and education. He is a PhD Alumnus of the NWU Business School, a former Vice-President of the South African Business School’s Association, and the Managing Director of a large private business school operating actively in Africa.

Prof Shaikh mentions several modern educational trends and methodologies that could shape the future of business education throughout Africa. He also discusses the capacity of education institutions and the pressure of numbers experienced by South Africa and also African countries in their quest to educate the continent. Finally, he delves into his crystal ball and offers some possible education scenarios for the near future.

Experts agree that although everyone is born with the ability to be creative. This ability, like many other talents, differ widely among individuals. Creativity is at its highest when children are young, and the younger, the more creative they are. However, although there are many benefits to a structured school and education system, the creative stimulus it is not one of them. Structured thinking is not conducive to develop youth creativity.

This then raises the question if creativity can be successfully reinvigorated by learning, or is it a case that if creative thinking is lost, it is lost forever? This is also true for business creativity. If there is a learning component in creativity, how is this done, and can this also apply to business solutions? Astute and new entrepreneurial thinking originates from creative thinking. Creativity can differentiate South African entrepreneurs form their competitors and play an important role to develop products and services, create employment, and contribute to the South African economy.

In this Bon Bon interview, prof Christo Bisschoff of the NWU Business School interviews prof Ziska Fields on youth creativity. Prof Fields is PhD Alumnus of the North-West University Business School and employed at the University of Johannesburg. Prof Fields has performed focussed creativity research and developed two models to measure and improve creativity. One model dealt with university students, and the other model investigated the non-tertiary youth of South Africa.

This model to measure creativity university students has been employed internationally in comparative studies at the Radboud University of the Netherlands, College of Nursing at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines, and at the Faculty of Teacher Education at the University of Rijeka in Croatia. Prof Fields also discusses the issue of learning creativity and uses practical examples to explain aspects of youth creativity in South Africa.

The South African middleclass consumer market is changing rapidly. Specifically, the female market is attracting interest because many women can now afford a new range of products and services as they become financially emancipated and independent. Specifically, the black female upcoming middleclass consumer comes under the spotlight because they are now economically empowered to exercise their choice to buy material goods and services. Noteworthy is also the fact that several women from all over Africa are absorbed by the South African economy, and these women also experience the benefits of the growing female middleclass and adapt new consumer behaviours.

In this Bon Bon interview, prof Christo Bisschoff of the NWU Business School discusses the upcoming female consumer market with prof Mornay Roberts-Lombaard is a PhD Alumnus of the North-West University and employed at the University of Johannesburg. Prof Roberts-Lombaard is widely recognised as one of the leading experts on South African consumer behaviour. He is the editor and author of the newly released edition of his book on South African Consumer behaviour. Prof Roberts-Lombaard explains the changing dynamics of South African female consumers and how this market opens up new opportunities for a myriad of products; among these products and services are cosmetics, entry level vehicles, banking and insurance.

South Africa has a very sophisticated financial services sector which is highly regulated, and to some extent was able to survive the 2008 global financial crisis better than banks and institutions in other countries. Ultimately, the South African financial services sector has seen aggressive expansion of prominent banks into Africa – evidence of the perceived potential Africa holds for the banking sector in particular.

In this Bon Bon, Prof Jan van Romburgh speaks to the CEO of First Capital Bank in Africa, Mr Jaco Voljoen. Mr Viljoen has more than 20 years’ experience in the African banking arena and formerly held positions in Uganda, Nigeria Botswana and currently Malawi. Mr Viljoen explains his views on the opportunities and pitfalls of doing business in Africa and also ponders into why it is important to have a relevant MBA.

The worry list for business leaders in Business Africa is legion - think of expensive transaction costs that culminate in questions such as whether clients have access to hard currency for payment.

The massive infrastructure spending needed to function more efficiently - Fauconnier (2021) calculated that Africa should spend more than R1.9 trillion a year and taking into account that the wheels of distribution (logistics) are very important for the continent, the issue gets even more serious. The markets in Africa must also become more hospitable and cost-effective for foreign companies to attract much-needed FDI. The cost and speed of doing business needs to improve.

The continent's agro-potential (its largest economic sector at 15% of GDP) is far greater than its prevailing production levels and many countries are also net importers of food. Food security is a big challenge as such.

The above is hampered by acute skills shortages and the lack of skills transfers.

It is well known that the informal sector is a significant part of the workforce and that this type of employment is pivotal in keeping households above the poverty line (Rogan and Skinner, 2019), especially in the African continent. Many people, especially in South Africa, who find themselves in poverty are depending on government for support.

This is not the case of Alexis Eluta Mbomba who in 1999 migrated from the DRC with his wife, his positive spirit and a car licence to South Africa. Today, 21 years later, he is an icon because he crafted a unique job opportunity for himself and other jobless people and sustaining it for 19 years in the busy streets of Kalk Bay, a tourist town in the Western Cape Peninsula. His venture is about safe car parking in the hub of the town where parking is a nightmare.

Alex and his co-workers will rail in visitors who are desperately looking for parking. Alex will convince the visitors to hand-over the car (big or small) and keys, find parking, keep it safe and return the car with keys at the pick-up point to a relaxed and happy visitor. He became an icon in Kalk Bay to both international and national visitors who many have learned to know him and entrust their cars and goods with Alex whilst enjoying the seaside town.

Obviously Alex knows how to make a living for himself and family, through his commitment and trustworthiness in this venture, but why and how did Alex manage to sustain his career and become an icon? In the video the work of Alex is visible and he tells us more about how his personal value system of self-power, belief, respect, trustworthiness and endurance assisted him to be economically independent. All these values are related to personal leadership as discussed by Chopra (2013) in his book on Self Power, where he motivates people to take their lives into their own capable hands no matter what challenges they may confront. We need more Alex’s to alleviate poverty and other socio-economic challenges in Africa.

Dr Alistair Gaopaleloe Mokoena is a Chartered Marketer, currently the CEO of Google South Africa. Academically he developed a critical success factors framework to sustain South African advertising agencies in the digital age, this contribution also apply to other African countries.

The advertising ecosystem has been digitally disrupted, exposing weaknesses in the business model that African, including South Africa’s advertising agencies have relied on for decades. As a result, many advertising agencies are losing business to new dynamic and nimble competitors who have emerged in the digital age. This CSF framework was built of the following five pillars: modern marketing principles, effective advertising, agency sustainability, must-have skills for advertising agencies, and key digital capabilities for advertising agencies and clients, and lastly agency structure and process considerations.

Based on Dr Mokoena’s academic and industry knowledge and experience, the following three concepts has been put to Dr Mokoena for his view:

* General overview regarding Africa’s potential opportunities in this current and future digital revolution.

* Africa’s media landscape, and how this could contribute to African based digital economies.

* Google South Africa’s contribution to the rest of Africa’s economies within the digital space.

Interviewer: Prof JJ Prinsloo

Generally, very little is understood within academic as well business circles about traditional leadership and its relevance in the modern democratic society in which we find ourselves. Nonetheless, this is a form of governance that is still very prevalent in South Africa's rural communities especially in the former Homelands. There is a perception that this form of governance is a direct contradiction of a democratic system of governance, and it is often perceived to be an autocratic form of leadership/governance.

Approximately 17 million hectors of land (14% of South Africa) which was previously classified as homelands throughout South Africa, is currently under the stewardship of traditional leaders. The implication of this being that for businesses to be able to unlock some of the opportunities which may exist in those communities, such as mining, farming, tourism and FMCG retail, they might need to have an appreciation of the impact that this form of governance may have on their ability successfully establish themselves in those areas.

The North West University Business School is strongly pursuing a focus on Africa, and aspires to shape executive minds in Africa, it was therefore a very positive step towards this when many areas of possible collaboration were identified during meeting. According to the house of traditional leaders, the expertise of the North West University Business School will enable the House to assist the DiKgosi to sharpen their administration skills and to serve their communities more effectively. The opportunity to conduct research in these communities was also highlighted as a possible area of collaboration.