BCOM HONOURS ACADEMIC CALENDAR 11.2.1 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT [100] Cu ESTION ONE [40] Read the following text and answer the questions that follow The history of one of SA's favourite snacks: Ouma Rusks BY AN DREW UNSWORTH A lot of countries like their versions of rusks, but South Africa really loves them especially Ouma's. Rusks may be found all over the worid, but they have been a particularly South African favourite food or snack for centuries, certainly long before the famous story of the iconic brand, Ouma Rusks. That Ouma, literally, cashed in! In one form or another, dried bread or cake, and anything in between, has been around forever. It's a way of saving bread, storing it, and carrying food on long journeys, the original padkos. France has its biscotte, Germany has zweiback, whole slices of a loaf, while the Netherlands has beschuit, which are round slices of very soft sweet bread, dried and sold in rolls. ("Biscot" simply means baked twice). The rst published Dutch recipe for beschuit appeared in the wonderfully named De Volmaakte Hollandsche Keukenmeid (The Perfect, or Complete, Kitchenmaid), in 1746, a popular book that was republished many times. Dutch settlers brought their beschuit to the Cape of Good Hope, and they have been made here since the 16905 at least. In the 17005 women in the Cape were selling homemade rusks to passing ships en route to the East or back, and to expeditions into the interior. Later, rusks were no doubt carried on every Voortrekker wagon heading out of the Cape, and more were made at every uitspan or camp. During the AngloBoer War, rusks played a part in keeping the Boer commandos fed in the eld. Boerebeskuit were, and still are, balls of yeast bread packed tightly into bread pans, baked, broken up into segments, and dried in the oven. Traditionally they had no sugar, and some still make them that way. REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL (RBS) JANUARY 2022 37 BCOM HONOURS - ACADEMIC CALENDAR A century after the Great Trek, rusks came to the aid of the small Eastern Cape town of Molteno. The Great Depression had devastated the economy of rural towns: the price of wool had fallen and the Molteno district produced not much else. The local dominee came up with a scheme to help. He offered the women in his congregation half a crown each to start a small business enterprise. One of them, Elizabeth Ann Greyvensteyn, known as Ouma Nannie, decided to make rusks to sell at church bazaars, sports meetings, and other gatherings. She used a family recipe, possibly one from her husband's cousin Emmarentia, or "Ren". Typical of any cook, Ren apparently gave the recipe for her mosbolletjie or musk rusks on condition that it did not go further. It didn't, but the rusks did. They were a great hit and Ouma's husband Thys, who owned the first Ford car dealership in Molteno, took to delivering the rusks further afield using his Ford bakkie. This soon earned him the nickname Thys Beskuitjies. Their son Leon got involved in the business and built a rusk drier using an old car engine and more clay ovens in the barn on the family farm Freidenheim. It became a small factory, and today Ouma Rusks are still manufactured on the farm. In 1941 Leon got the new Industrial Development Corporation to lend the family business its first ever loan of f1,500 to expand into a new factory. That burnt down in 1952 and another was built. The rusks were long sold as Uitspan and Outspan Rusks, later changing to Ouma Rusks. In 1956, Leon Greyvensteyn founded Simba Chips as well, but that's another story. The family sold the business to Fedfood in the 1970s and, over the years, Ouma Rusks have had a number of corporate owners: the recipe has changed, and many new varieties and flavours of rusks have been added. In 2013 Molteno nearly lost Ouma Rusks along with 250 jobs. Faced with deteriorating roads, water and electricity supply, then owners Foodcorp considered moving the factory to Randfontein. CEO Justin Williamson decided that for the sake of Molteno, it was the wrong thing to do. After negotiations with the Inkwacana local municipality, Eskom and others, the rusk factory not only stayed but was rebuilt with a R46m investment. It now produces 23 tons of rusks a day. REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL (RBS) - JANUARY 2022 38BCOM HONOURS ACADEMIC CALENDAR Adapted from https:waw.timeslive.co.za:'sunday-timesflifestylelfoodI2020-03-01-the-history- of-sas-favourite-s nackouma-rusksf Questions 1.1. When considering the sustainability and future growth of an organisation, the context and where the company is on its growth path is important. Knowing where the organisation is going and how to get there is equally important. Compare and contrast the approach to strategic growth of the Ouma Rusk brand before Leon Greyvensteyn got involved with the business against the approach to strategic growth alter he got involved. (15) 1.2 Critically evaluate the overall strategic intent of Ouma Rusks as an organisation and make specic reference to the role of the sustainability of the organisation. (15) 1.3 Examine the role that Elizabeth Ann Greyvensteyn played in the organisation and evaluate her ability to understand organisational environment. (10) QUESTION TWO [15] You plan to launch a small business to supplement your income. You believe that despite the economic challenges associated with Covid19, there are several opportunities to start new business and have decided to start a fruit and vegetable delivery service business. Your friend cautions you against the idea because there are several existing and new entrants to this market. You value the opinion of your friend, and immediately set about doing a competitor analysis. Applying the theory that you have learned to your planned business by demonstrating the steps and considerations associated with competitor analysis. QUESTION THREE [45] Read the following text and answer the questions that follow REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL (RBS) JANUARY 2022 39 BCOM HONOURS - ACADEMIC CALENDAR Facebook's outage has people rethinking how they make money online BY SAMANTHA SUBIN 9 OCTOBER 2021 Lakinya Francis is building a Linkedin account, Haley Sanchez is expanding her email list and Michael Elefante plans to build out his website. "We get so fixated on what's working and that's fine, but we need to have a backup plan, especially when we're relying so much on technology," said Francis, who runs a consulting company that helps people make money through vending machines. Influencers who have long relied on Instagram and Facebook to connect with fans, advertise and sell products, are rethinking where they post their content after suffering losses when the company's platforms went offline for several hours on Monday. CNBC spoke with 10 online creators and small business owners who use Facebook, its Instagram or WhatsApp services, or a combination of all three for this story. Each of their estimated losses during Facebook's outage ranged from a few hundred dollars to over $5,000 from sales, affiliate links, sponsored posts, and product launches. It's a demonstration of just how big Facebook's influence is over the online economy. Even a small outage means losses for people who rely on Facebook services to do their work or advertise their products. But a record six-hour outage is even worse. Facebook's vice president of infrastructure Santosh Janardhan apologized for the mass outage in a blog post late Monday. Janardhan blamed "configuration changes on the backbone routers," for taking services down, but did not specify what changes happened. More than 200 million businesses actively use Facebook's tools and numerous content creators rely on Instagram for sponsored posts, affiliate links, and sales revenue. And the outage occurred as CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook make an aggressive push to incentivize and woo creators from the likes of TikTok, Snapchat, and other social media platforms. Last year, Instagram launched a short-length video feature called Reels to compete with TikTok, and Zuckerberg recently said the company would pay out $1 billion through 2022 to users who create content for both Facebook and Instagram. Facebook also said it won't take a cut from creator REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL (RBS) - JANUARY 2022 40BCOM HONOURS ACADEMIC CALENDAR features like online events and fan subscriptions until 2023, and announced new ways they could make money on lnstagram in April. \"Investing in creators isn't new for us, but I'm excited to expand this work over time,\" he wrote on Facebook earlier this year. Along with a refund, Facebook and lnstagram should offer something like double exposure to those who prepaid for advertising on Monday, said Michael Heller, CEO and founder of Talent Resources, a marketing agency that deals with inuencers. Most companies and inuencers with campaign posts planned for Monday pushed to Tuesday or even Friday in case of glitches, said Alexa Vogue, vice president of brand partnerships at 'ITPM lnuencer Talent Management. An outage on YouTube or TikTok, where her clients get paid per view, would have caused more nancial damage, she adds. \"Yes it was a wakeup call, but in the grand scheme of things inuencers that are successful will always be successful,\" she said. Many creators and small businesses say lnstagram is the platform of choice. It's easy to connect with users through direct messages and stories, and it offers a more focused community of dedicated followers that convert to sales. Now, the majority said they would focus on building out their website and diversifying what platforms they are using, the inuencers CNBC spoke with said. Some used Twitter, TikTok and email to beef up sales and connect with audiences during the shutdown. Francis, who runs the consulting company, plans to utilize Linkedln and email lists, a tool that helped her make some sales during Monday's outage. For Sanchez, who operates a small candle store, the outage came during a busy season gearing up for the holidays. She regularly uses lnstagram to tag products, update customers through stories and divert people to her Shopify store. \"That's where I'm making my business,\" Sanchez said. \"I'm not making hundreds of sales a day. I'm a smaller candle company but this is my fulltime job. So even if I made three sales that l potentially lost, that's important to me.\" She used Monday to reach out to customers and build up her email list in preparation for future outages so she can better communicate with customers. REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL (RBS) JANUARY 2022 41 BCOM HONOURS - ACADEMIC CALENDAR Elliott Elkhoury, who sells resources for real estate investors, estimates he lost $3,000 to $5,000 on Monday between missing traffic to his platform and social media, and the inability to run ads. Between advertising dollars and branded content, Heller suspects losses from Monday ranged in the hundreds of millions. The financial hit to clients likely spanned $3 million to $4 million dollars, he adds. Michael Elefante, who runs short-term rentals, and teaches others how to run them, estimates the losses at $1,500 to $2,500 through affiliate links and paid mentorships. Now, he's going to focus on direct mail messaging and his website. John Eringman, a financial content creator with over 50,000 followers on Instagram and 1.2 million on TikTok, estimates he lost a few hundred dollars. That came from a combination of book sales and one-on-one coaching sessions through his Instagram. Eringman has diversified his business by creating a following on TikTok and a website. But if the outage extended into Wednesday, he could've lost $2,500 on a sponsored post for Instagram and Tik Tok. "There is a lifespan to social media," he says. "Make sure you are owning your audience rather than letting Facebook or Instagram own your audience." Adapted from: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/09/facebook-instagram-outage-hurt-creators- small-businesses.html Questions 3.1 "I'm a smaller candle company but this is my full-time job. So even if I made three sales that I potentially lost, that's important to me." The owner of the candle company recognised that online platforms present an opportunity to scale the business and access foreign markets. Critically discuss the strategies for entering foreign markets and focus on challenges referred to in the article that may impact on fundamental entry decisions. (15) "Last year, Instagram launched a short-length video feature called Reels to compete with TikTok" REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL (RBS) - JANUARY 2022 42BCOM HONOURS - ACADEMIC CALENDAR Instagram wants to evaluate its strategy to compete with TikTok and have turned to you for advice. Discuss how Instagram's strategy may be evaluated with reference to criteria and basic requirements that the evaluation should encompass. (15) 3.3 "... CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook make an aggressive push to incentivise and woo creators from the likes of TikTok, Snapchat, and other social media platforms." Discuss the generic competitive strategies that are commonly used and evaluate the strategy that you believe is most appropriate for Facebook to effectively use to woo customers/creators from its competitors. (15) END OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL (RBS) - JANUARY 2022 43