QUESTION 5 - BUSINESS
NOTE: Pictures attached to assist with answering the question. Case study attached in order to answer the question.!!!!
Takelot.com and Superbalist.com
Takealot.com has built its business on the simple principle that their customers come first. Their business is retail, and they strive to have the widest range of products and the best possible customer service on the African continent. Takealot.com is doing it by employing great people and developing innovative, cutting-edge tech.
They are all about their customers. They want to be the most customer-centric online shopping destination in Africa to make online shopping so easy and seamless that everyone will feel comfortable doing it. Takealot.com wants to know their customers and be a part of their lives. They want each experience the customers have with them to leave them with a smile, whether its a confirmation email, an added detail on the packaging or even the return of an unwanted or damaged order. According to Takealot.com: Sure, were only human and we make mistakes, but when we do, we confront them honestly, openly and immediately, doing everything we can to make things right.
For takealot.com, 2014 was a truly pivotal year with the announcement of a $100m investment from Tiger Global. This was quickly followed by the purchase of Mr Delivery which gave the business ownership over its own logistics network through the Takealot Delivery Team division (formerly Mr D Courier) and its own app-based on-demand food delivery service through the MR D division (formerly Mr D Food). The same year saw the successful acquisition of Superbalist.com, a curated design and fashion website, and culminated in the announcement that Naspers-owned Kalahari.com would be merging businesses with takealot.com building the premier online shopping destination in Africa. The merge was successfully completed on 1 May 2015 when all Kalahari customer accounts were successfully transferred to Takealot.com.
In April 2022, Superbalist bought G-Ways CMT Manufacturing Proprietary Limited, a small clothing and textile manufacturing business which adds scale to its private-label business. Mr D, the Takealot groups delivery business, increased orders and GMV 9% and 13%, respectively, maintaining its strong position in South Africas main cities. Mr D announced its Pick n Pay grocery partnership in May 2022 and made trial deliveries in August.
Superbalist.com is South Africas most-loved online wardrobe + lifestyle destination. Were all about accessible style that inspires self-expression and confidence.
Superbalist.com teams and their ways of working:
- Small, cross-functional teams.
- Complete ownership of focus areas.
- Collaboration with product, data science and UX.
- Set goals and develop the most effective solutions to each of them.
- Cross-team guilds focus on excellence in specific areas.
- Teams are driven by and measured on results not work volume.
Superbalist.com perks:
- Flexible working hours
- Work from home/anywhere in SA
- Working with top talent
- Personal career development plans Staff discounts
QUESTION 5
Rowe argued that strategic leadership synergistically combines both managerial and visionary leadership. Referring to the previous statement, explain how Takealot.com can ensure effective strategic leadership. Discuss the 7 steps and how it can lead to effective strategic leadership.
below will assist you with the answer
below is 5*****
DEFINING STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP Page 417 The ability of a person to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility and think strategically. The ability to influence and work with others to make day-to-day decisions and to initiate changes that will create a viable future for the organisation and enhance its long-term viability while maintaining its short-term stability. Page418 1.Understand the organisation as a whole. 2.Lead effectively and ethically for strategic results. 3.Develop and communicate a compelling vision for change. 4.Create an integrated organisational system to enable strategy implementation. Leadership tasks: Design and implement an appropriate organisational structural subsystem. - Staff the organisation and ensure social capital. - Ensure appropriate leadership within the organisation. - Create organisational culture and influence climate. 5. Build and use distinctive organisational capabilities aligned to the strategy. Leadership task AND responsibility. 6.Ensure ethical practices and good governance. 7.Initiate and manage strategic change. -Strategic leaders should understand the organisation as a whole: - Recognise the interrelated functions and the dependence on one another, as a change in one function affects other functions. - Understanding the relationship between the individual business and the industry, the community, and the political, social, and economic forces of the nation as a whole. - To recognise these relationships and perceive the significant elements in any situation, the manager should act in a way that advances the welfare of the organisation. 2: Lead ethically and effectively for strategic results Pages424-428 - Strategic leaders need to lead organisations according to the King IV Report on Corporate Governance. - Ethical leadership includes integrity, competence, responsibility, accountability, fairness and transparency. - It should eliminate any negative consequences of the organisation's activities and outputs on the economy, society and the environment and the capitals that it uses and affects. - Effective leadership is results-driven. - Strategic objectives and positive outcomes need to be attained through effective and efficient execution. 3-Develop and communicate a compelling vision to lead change Page431-433 - People contribute individually and collectively to the achievement of strategic objectives and its maintenance of competitive advantage. - Strategic leaders work with and through people to implement the strategy and ensure survival and success of the organisation. People must know what needs to be done and must be supporting in getting it done. - For the strategy to be implemented successfully people will need to be directed, inspired and motivated to act. Strategic leaders need to steer and set strategic direction with regards to the strategy. - Motivation is key to provide meaning and challenge to followers by articulating and communicating a clear, concise and persuasive vision of the future (visionary leadership). 4: Create an integrated organisational system for strategy implementation Pages433-434 - Strategic leaders need to visualise the organisation as a whole so that the strategies can be implemented across cross-functional activities. - Top managers need to understand structure, systems and processes, leadership style, staff, resources and shared values of the organisation and the interrelationships that exist between these elements, and with the overall strategy. - A fit needs to exist between the needs, demands, goals, objectives, and structures of one component and the needs, demands, goals, objectives of another component. - The leader must be able to see the big picture, make sense of the organisation, and identify, diagnose and formulate and initiate the required change for strategy implementation. 6: Build, use and grow distinctive organisational capabilities aligned to the strategy - Top management needs to mobilise the necessary resources to identify, cultivate and exploit the distinctive existing or new organisational capabilities of the organisation to ensure successful strategy implementation. - Distinctive capabilities are the activities the organisation performs exceptionally well at, to achieve competitive advantage. - Strategic leaders must understand what their key resources and capabilities are, and making investments and strategic decisions that will allow them to develop new capabilities for a sustainable future. Strategic leaders should understand what key resources and capabilities are, and what the business environment will require from them now and in the future. - Distinctive capabilities are: - Valuable; - Rare; - Costly; - Non-substitutable. - Managers must also be aware that there are various primary activities and secondary activities that can also add value through the value chain. 6: Ensure ethical practices and good governance Pages 441 \& 442 - Organisations are juristic persons and should avoid failures and scandals as this had very negative consequences for stakeholders, society and the economy. - Ethical practices and good governance play a significant role in fulfilling their responsibility, performing and being sustainable. - Ethical practices and good governance are the responsibility of top management and leaders need to lead by example. - Direction with regards to governance areas needs to be approached, addressed and conducted. - Managers need to understand, accept and fulfil these responsibilities. - The companies act and the king iv report on corporate governance, as well as other principles and practices assist with realising the benefits of good governance. - Structures, policies, processes and controls must be in place to comply with applicable legislation and codes of good practice and so be able to ensure accountability for organisational performance by means of reporting and disclosure. - Any organisation that wants to be sustainable will need to respond to the environment in which it operates. - This will require constant change and sometimes, large-scale change. - Strategic leaders need to formulate a path, a course of action or game plan that needs to be successfully implemented, which requires that they understand organisations and identify, initiate and lead successful change, - Strategic leaders need to be aware of their own position with regards to change, and how open and accepting of change they are, as well as knowing their ability to plan, initiate and lead change, which is adaptive capacity and strategic thinking. - These leaders also have to determine whether they have the credibility to initiate and manage change, or whether external change management consultants need to be utilised. - Upfront change needs to be carefully conceptualised and planned before being initiated and led. They also need to understand why change fails, and incorporate this into their planning and leading of any change
