Polycarpe Feussi | University of the Free State (original) (raw)

Papers by Polycarpe Feussi

Social Science Research Network, Jul 16, 2020

It’s a frustrating and confusing situation for many entrepreneurs and managers to see their compa... more It’s a frustrating and confusing situation for many entrepreneurs and managers to see their company doing well in sales volumes but the profits are falling short of the management expectations. Maybe, the company is just breaking even or even losing money. The question that may be asked is why the bottom line is not improving despite the increase in sales? And how can the management turn things around? The answer probably lies in waste and inefficiency lurking in the business and acting as a brake on the ability for the company to generate profits. Unfortunately, the way out to make the company leaner and more productive isn’t easy. In fact, many entrepreneurs and managers have no idea of how much inefficiency has built up in their business or company. In simple terms, efficiency signifies a level of performance that describes a process that uses the lowest amount of inputs to create the greatest amount of outputs within an organisation. Efficiency relates to the use of all acquired...

In simple terms, efficiency signifies a level of performance that describes a process that uses t... more In simple terms, efficiency signifies a level of performance that describes a process that uses the lowest amount of inputs to create the greatest amount of outputs within an organisation. Efficiency relates to the use of all acquired inputs in producing any given output. Thus, efficiency is a measurable concept that can be determined by determining the ratio of useful output to total input. It minimizes the waste of resources such as physical materials, energy and time, while successfully achieving the desired output. Before starting on an efficiency drive, it’s important to make sure the company is ready for the process.This paper provides various steps needed to implement organizational efficiency. The first step is take time to get all personnel on board. Their buy-in is crucial to the project’s success. Supervisors and employees must understand how important they are going to make change happen at the company. The efficiency goals need to be shared and obtaining feedback from e...

As a fast growing property management company in South Africa, City Property Administration (CPA)... more As a fast growing property management company in South Africa, City Property Administration (CPA) requires a skilled workforce to retain its leadership position in the market. Among the required skills, property managers have been the most difficult to find and to retain by the organisation. Being at the core of the operation and viewed as a critical skill, no property management enterprise can operate without property managers who are by default the operation managers. It is therefore imperative for CPA to explore new ways to retain its talented property manager and attract more. This implies that CPA should position itself as the employer of choice. Even though the South African national skill scarce skills survey of 2014 does not directly list property management as one of the sought-after skills, it encompasses the people skill, which is on the list of the top 100 scarce skills. City Property has suffered and continued to suffer as many property managers’ positions remain vacant...

Since 1994 with the arrival of the African National Congress (ANC) at the helm of the political s... more Since 1994 with the arrival of the African National Congress (ANC) at the helm of the political scene, many regions are struggling to meet the challenges of poverty alleviation and underdevelopment. Many researchers and academics, including Ndedi (2003) and Ndedi and Ijeoma (2008) have quickly pointed out that the lack of service delivery, among other things, is directly linked to the lack of capacity building of local government managers. In many African countries, many researchers have reached the same conclusion. In 2015, a cross sectional study was conducted in Cameroon with the aim of assessing once more if the lack of service delivery to local population is directly linked, among other things, to local government managers academic background everything being equal. In other words, the fact that a local manager does not have a Matric or a University degree or have a Matric or a University degree have a positive or a negative impact in the way he performs his duties. To achieve ...

Many entrepreneurs and managers in their daily tasks are experiencing decline in production and u... more Many entrepreneurs and managers in their daily tasks are experiencing decline in production and ultimately the bottom line of their organisation. What can be done to solve these impediments? The current paper answers to the above question. To achieve this, a thorough literature review was conducted on techniques related to productivity increase. They are among others, setting up performance dashboards; improving supervisor performance; and initiating continuous improvement by cleaning up and standardizing workspaces. These three lean initiatives are relatively easy and inexpensive to implement and can produce quick gains. They can also be a launching pad for more advanced or tailored productivity initiatives. In it first part, the paper discussed the setting up of dashboards. As Peter Drucker once observed, ‘What’s measured improves.’ That’s never truer than when the management want to improve their company’s operational efficiency. By continuously measuring the performance in key a...

During the national liberation struggle the African National Congress’s strategic objective was t... more During the national liberation struggle the African National Congress’s strategic objective was the transfer of state power into the hands of the democratic majority. The phrase ‘radical economic transformation (RET) has entered South Africa’s daily lexicon in 2017 with medias, academics and even using the concept for new measures used by the African National Congress to uplift the poor of the poors in South Africa. But what is RET from agricultural perspective? Does it mean taking from the haves and giving it to the have nots Mugabe style, or is it simply a synonym for inclusive growth? According to Van Zyl (2017), Radical economic transformation means an economy in which: 1. Goods and property cannot be confiscated for political purposes and citizens are secure in the knowledge that their property is safe. 2. Taxes are low and are not used to fund massive bureaucracies. Citizens are allowed to keep the more of the money they earn. 3. Buyers and sellers trading freely in an open ma...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019

Many empirical studies have been conducted on factors influencing the effectiveness of inventory ... more Many empirical studies have been conducted on factors influencing the effectiveness of inventory management in organizations. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on factors influencing the effectiveness of inventory management in organizations with the focus on Africa in general and Cameroon in particular. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify the problem of inventory management faced by Cameroonian enterprises in the Douala metropolitan area and also to determine the factors that will influence the effectiveness of inventory management. In order to achieve the above, 50 employees were purposely selected and asked to complete the questionnaires with regard inventory management. The findings of this research has revealed that poor inventory management was faced by companies based in Douala on a regular basis. Amongst those was considerable lead time of material delivery, non-reconciliation of physical and theoretical stocks, stock shortages, over and under production.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

Throughout history, the creation of any country’s wealth and economic dynamism depends upon the c... more Throughout history, the creation of any country’s wealth and economic dynamism depends upon the competitiveness of its organisations and this, in turn, relies fundamentally on the capabilities of its entrepreneurs, who are either owners or corporate. As it is developed in the literature, any individual entrepreneur detects or creates business opportunities that he or she then exploits through small and medium-sized firms. This paper is about farmers who decide to use their entrepreneurial skills to make their organisation viable and sustainable over time. Here comes the concept of agripreneurship which is the combination of agriculture (agri) and entrepreneurship (preneurship). Thus, an agripreneur is an entrepreneur in agriculture, and agripreneurship is the process thereof.The paper unpack this concept of agripreneurship in light with the agriculture of second generation that is transforming the lives of stricken farmers in developing countries.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in hi... more Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in higher levels of uncertainty and unpredictability for organizations. In order for organizations to cope with the uncertain and fast changing economic and business environment, these organizations need to innovate in order to achieve flexibility. In simple terms, the organizations must develop strategies leading to the ability of these organizations to provide horizontal information connections across the supply chain to create and deliver products that meet customer needs, by synchronization of customer demands with product creation. The generated information will create efficiency and effectiveness throughout the whole supply chain regarding production, storage and distribution, as well as eliminating redundant activities and reduction in response time. In an integrated supply chain, spanning activities include coordination with distributors and suppliers. This paper explains how through postponement strategies, flexibility can be achieved in an organization. In order to achieve the above, a thorough literature review was conducted via the search of online websites that contains material from scientific journal data-bases, articles and textbooks on the subject of postponement and flexibility. The findings of the research are found in the last part of the paper. The first part introduces the concept of postponement and its importance in supply chain management. The second part of the paper provides the methodology used in the process of writing the paper.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

The Volkswagen saga with its consequences of the rigged emissions scandal unearthed has stunning ... more The Volkswagen saga with its consequences of the rigged emissions scandal unearthed has stunning implications, namely the probability of potentially affecting people’s health, the environment, the reputation of the industry and even Germany, and more importantly the company image. In fact, Volkswagen wanted to make more profits through deceptive and illegal practices that misrepresented its cars to millions of consumers and regulators, but will be obliged to pay more than US 20 billion in the united Stated alone.Ndedi, Yota, Mua and Kouwos (2015) recommend that the current Volkswagen situation requires an overhaul of the regulatory structure, business ethics, corporate culture, and also engineering education within Volkswagen and other companies involved in identical unethical behaviours. According to the authors, laws in business ethics and their enforcement need to be tightened so that people have something to fear within Volkswagen. With regard to capacity building, business and corporate ethics programmes are needed to capacitate the company’s workers. These programmes could then more clearly outline consequences of ethics violations, criminal charges and prison sentences; and finally unethical behaviours even when they are hidden will be punished sooner or later. In addition, there is a need for a new leadership with a different way of looking at the reality, different way of thinking and different preferences. According to the authors, this new blood strengthens the overall company gene pool by adding new mindsets and new personalities.What about the image that has been tainted? The current paper is written to answer to this question.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

For decades with the beginning of competition, many organisations compete on the basis of low pri... more For decades with the beginning of competition, many organisations compete on the basis of low prices. Price wars, however, represent a fundamentally different dynamic than simply trying to get an edge on price. They begin when competitors aggressively and repeatedly set prices below established sustainable levels. In some cases, organisations that initiate price wars engage in self-destructive behaviour, which leads to downward pricing spirals that alter industry structures. In theory, there are no winners in price wars: The losers of these brutal competitions are often forced out of business, and the survivors have been known to suffer a long-term squeeze in profitability. Research suggest that in price wars that took place between 1980 and 2013 in industries including airlines, telecoms and financial services, price wars were invariably linked with serious drops in financial performance. Indeed, when price wars erupted, most companies found themselves in commodity traps: Profits narrowed considerably, and weak competitors had difficulty staying in business. The common view in economics and strategy is that a company’s ability to win a price war hinges on having a superior cost structure. However, research demonstrates that this is not the only way to gain the upper hand. Contrary to most studies, under the right circumstances, it’s possible for a company to win a price war by leveraging a specific set of strategic capabilities. Specifically, these include the ability to read the business context and how things are changing, the skills to analyze the market data to identify trends and opportunities, and the pragmatic wherewithal to implement organizational changes both internally and across the value chain. In short, recent research showed that winning a price war can have as much to do with a company’s strategic capabilities and skills as its relative cost position. This new move provokes new thinking on how companies can influence price war outcomes, suggesting that other companies might be able to achieve success by establishing five rules of engagement. The rules will help managers frame the contextual, analytical and pragmatic capabilities by helping them 1) affirm the need, 2) pick the battlefield, 3) pick the target, 4) stay under the radar and 5) align revenues with cost structures and rally support needed to succeed. This paper discusses the foundations of fighting and winning a price war.

Despite limited research into postponement strategy in the supply chain as customer’s satisfactio... more Despite limited research into postponement strategy in the supply chain as customer’s satisfaction enablers, there has been significant interest from the role players in adopting postponement strategy especially in the automotive industry. The digital age and the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution has change the business landscape substantially. Customers are more demanding and their demands are growing exponentially with technological advancement and globalization. Those changes has constrained business to compete over supply chain, which is the heart of many successful business strategic decision. As South Africa desperately need economic growth to curb the high unemployment (30%). As a major contributor to the GDP and employing up to 457 000 (Smith; 2019) people in South Africa, increasing the current market share and ensuring customer retention and loyalty is crucial in achieving these objective. This paper explore how customers satisfaction can be enhance by using their i...

Polycarpe Feussi, 2018

Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in hi... more Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in higher levels of uncertainty and unpredictability for organizations. In order for organizations to cope with the uncertain and fast changing economic and business environment, these organizations need to innovate in order to achieve flexibility. In simple terms, the organizations must develop strategies leading to the ability of these organizations to provide horizontal information connections across the supply chain to create and deliver products that meet customer needs, by synchronization of customer demands with product creation. The generated information will create efficiency and effectiveness throughout the whole supply chain regarding production, storage and distribution, as well as eliminating redundant activities and reduction in response time.
In an integrated supply chain, spanning activities include coordination with distributors and suppliers. This paper explains how through postponement strategies, flexibility can be achieved in an organization. In order to achieve the above, a thorough literature review was conducted via the search of online websites that contains material from scientific journal data-bases, articles and textbooks on the subject of postponement and flexibility. The findings of the research are found in the last part of the paper. The first part introduces the concept of postponement and its importance in supply chain management. The second part of the paper provides the methodology used in the process of writing the paper.

Polycarpe Feussi Independent Date Written: December 23, 2015 Abstract As a fast growing proper... more Polycarpe Feussi

Independent

Date Written: December 23, 2015
Abstract

As a fast growing property management company in South Africa, City Property Administration (CPA) requires a skilled workforce to retain its leadership position in the market. Among the required skills, property managers have been the most difficult to find and to retain by the organisation. Being at the core of the operation and viewed as a critical skill, no property management enterprise can operate without property managers who are by default the operation managers. It is therefore imperative for CPA to explore new ways to retain its talented property manager and attract more. This implies that CPA should position itself as the employer of choice.

Even though the South African national skill scarce skills survey of 2014 does not directly list property management as one of the sought-after skills, it encompasses the people skill, which is on the list of the top 100 scarce skills. City Property has suffered and continued to suffer as many property managers’ positions remain vacant for months and yet some incumbent found the job very challenging. The heavy workload, which is a direct result of resignation and insufficient numbers of property managers has negatively affected the talent and if not resolved will hamper the brand. Stress-overloaded workers have embarked on an exit or resignation, citing poor work life balance, growing the ratio of voluntary turnover within the organisation.

This research aims to explore the available retention enablers as well as the removal or lessening of barriers to property managers, as a scare talent source to help CPA living it dream of addressing the future.

This research has used a mixed-method approach which is an integration of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, with the aim to complement and fill the gap that each method has.

The results show that the main concern centres on the adequacy of reward and recognition, whereas barriers are a lack of career development opportunities and promotion, lack of flexible work schedule and poor financial compensation. The leadership is advised to take appropriate measures to remove the barriers, to enhance the enablers so that CPA can enjoy a dedicated workforce that is committed to its values, working towards its visions by achieving mission milestones efficiently.

Suggested Citation:

Ndedi , Alain and Feussi, Polycarpe, Retention Enablers and Barriers at City Property in South Africa (December 23, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2707620

Books by Polycarpe Feussi

Social Science Research Network, Jul 16, 2020

It’s a frustrating and confusing situation for many entrepreneurs and managers to see their compa... more It’s a frustrating and confusing situation for many entrepreneurs and managers to see their company doing well in sales volumes but the profits are falling short of the management expectations. Maybe, the company is just breaking even or even losing money. The question that may be asked is why the bottom line is not improving despite the increase in sales? And how can the management turn things around? The answer probably lies in waste and inefficiency lurking in the business and acting as a brake on the ability for the company to generate profits. Unfortunately, the way out to make the company leaner and more productive isn’t easy. In fact, many entrepreneurs and managers have no idea of how much inefficiency has built up in their business or company. In simple terms, efficiency signifies a level of performance that describes a process that uses the lowest amount of inputs to create the greatest amount of outputs within an organisation. Efficiency relates to the use of all acquired...

In simple terms, efficiency signifies a level of performance that describes a process that uses t... more In simple terms, efficiency signifies a level of performance that describes a process that uses the lowest amount of inputs to create the greatest amount of outputs within an organisation. Efficiency relates to the use of all acquired inputs in producing any given output. Thus, efficiency is a measurable concept that can be determined by determining the ratio of useful output to total input. It minimizes the waste of resources such as physical materials, energy and time, while successfully achieving the desired output. Before starting on an efficiency drive, it’s important to make sure the company is ready for the process.This paper provides various steps needed to implement organizational efficiency. The first step is take time to get all personnel on board. Their buy-in is crucial to the project’s success. Supervisors and employees must understand how important they are going to make change happen at the company. The efficiency goals need to be shared and obtaining feedback from e...

As a fast growing property management company in South Africa, City Property Administration (CPA)... more As a fast growing property management company in South Africa, City Property Administration (CPA) requires a skilled workforce to retain its leadership position in the market. Among the required skills, property managers have been the most difficult to find and to retain by the organisation. Being at the core of the operation and viewed as a critical skill, no property management enterprise can operate without property managers who are by default the operation managers. It is therefore imperative for CPA to explore new ways to retain its talented property manager and attract more. This implies that CPA should position itself as the employer of choice. Even though the South African national skill scarce skills survey of 2014 does not directly list property management as one of the sought-after skills, it encompasses the people skill, which is on the list of the top 100 scarce skills. City Property has suffered and continued to suffer as many property managers’ positions remain vacant...

Since 1994 with the arrival of the African National Congress (ANC) at the helm of the political s... more Since 1994 with the arrival of the African National Congress (ANC) at the helm of the political scene, many regions are struggling to meet the challenges of poverty alleviation and underdevelopment. Many researchers and academics, including Ndedi (2003) and Ndedi and Ijeoma (2008) have quickly pointed out that the lack of service delivery, among other things, is directly linked to the lack of capacity building of local government managers. In many African countries, many researchers have reached the same conclusion. In 2015, a cross sectional study was conducted in Cameroon with the aim of assessing once more if the lack of service delivery to local population is directly linked, among other things, to local government managers academic background everything being equal. In other words, the fact that a local manager does not have a Matric or a University degree or have a Matric or a University degree have a positive or a negative impact in the way he performs his duties. To achieve ...

Many entrepreneurs and managers in their daily tasks are experiencing decline in production and u... more Many entrepreneurs and managers in their daily tasks are experiencing decline in production and ultimately the bottom line of their organisation. What can be done to solve these impediments? The current paper answers to the above question. To achieve this, a thorough literature review was conducted on techniques related to productivity increase. They are among others, setting up performance dashboards; improving supervisor performance; and initiating continuous improvement by cleaning up and standardizing workspaces. These three lean initiatives are relatively easy and inexpensive to implement and can produce quick gains. They can also be a launching pad for more advanced or tailored productivity initiatives. In it first part, the paper discussed the setting up of dashboards. As Peter Drucker once observed, ‘What’s measured improves.’ That’s never truer than when the management want to improve their company’s operational efficiency. By continuously measuring the performance in key a...

During the national liberation struggle the African National Congress’s strategic objective was t... more During the national liberation struggle the African National Congress’s strategic objective was the transfer of state power into the hands of the democratic majority. The phrase ‘radical economic transformation (RET) has entered South Africa’s daily lexicon in 2017 with medias, academics and even using the concept for new measures used by the African National Congress to uplift the poor of the poors in South Africa. But what is RET from agricultural perspective? Does it mean taking from the haves and giving it to the have nots Mugabe style, or is it simply a synonym for inclusive growth? According to Van Zyl (2017), Radical economic transformation means an economy in which: 1. Goods and property cannot be confiscated for political purposes and citizens are secure in the knowledge that their property is safe. 2. Taxes are low and are not used to fund massive bureaucracies. Citizens are allowed to keep the more of the money they earn. 3. Buyers and sellers trading freely in an open ma...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019

Many empirical studies have been conducted on factors influencing the effectiveness of inventory ... more Many empirical studies have been conducted on factors influencing the effectiveness of inventory management in organizations. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on factors influencing the effectiveness of inventory management in organizations with the focus on Africa in general and Cameroon in particular. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify the problem of inventory management faced by Cameroonian enterprises in the Douala metropolitan area and also to determine the factors that will influence the effectiveness of inventory management. In order to achieve the above, 50 employees were purposely selected and asked to complete the questionnaires with regard inventory management. The findings of this research has revealed that poor inventory management was faced by companies based in Douala on a regular basis. Amongst those was considerable lead time of material delivery, non-reconciliation of physical and theoretical stocks, stock shortages, over and under production.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

Throughout history, the creation of any country’s wealth and economic dynamism depends upon the c... more Throughout history, the creation of any country’s wealth and economic dynamism depends upon the competitiveness of its organisations and this, in turn, relies fundamentally on the capabilities of its entrepreneurs, who are either owners or corporate. As it is developed in the literature, any individual entrepreneur detects or creates business opportunities that he or she then exploits through small and medium-sized firms. This paper is about farmers who decide to use their entrepreneurial skills to make their organisation viable and sustainable over time. Here comes the concept of agripreneurship which is the combination of agriculture (agri) and entrepreneurship (preneurship). Thus, an agripreneur is an entrepreneur in agriculture, and agripreneurship is the process thereof.The paper unpack this concept of agripreneurship in light with the agriculture of second generation that is transforming the lives of stricken farmers in developing countries.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in hi... more Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in higher levels of uncertainty and unpredictability for organizations. In order for organizations to cope with the uncertain and fast changing economic and business environment, these organizations need to innovate in order to achieve flexibility. In simple terms, the organizations must develop strategies leading to the ability of these organizations to provide horizontal information connections across the supply chain to create and deliver products that meet customer needs, by synchronization of customer demands with product creation. The generated information will create efficiency and effectiveness throughout the whole supply chain regarding production, storage and distribution, as well as eliminating redundant activities and reduction in response time. In an integrated supply chain, spanning activities include coordination with distributors and suppliers. This paper explains how through postponement strategies, flexibility can be achieved in an organization. In order to achieve the above, a thorough literature review was conducted via the search of online websites that contains material from scientific journal data-bases, articles and textbooks on the subject of postponement and flexibility. The findings of the research are found in the last part of the paper. The first part introduces the concept of postponement and its importance in supply chain management. The second part of the paper provides the methodology used in the process of writing the paper.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

The Volkswagen saga with its consequences of the rigged emissions scandal unearthed has stunning ... more The Volkswagen saga with its consequences of the rigged emissions scandal unearthed has stunning implications, namely the probability of potentially affecting people’s health, the environment, the reputation of the industry and even Germany, and more importantly the company image. In fact, Volkswagen wanted to make more profits through deceptive and illegal practices that misrepresented its cars to millions of consumers and regulators, but will be obliged to pay more than US 20 billion in the united Stated alone.Ndedi, Yota, Mua and Kouwos (2015) recommend that the current Volkswagen situation requires an overhaul of the regulatory structure, business ethics, corporate culture, and also engineering education within Volkswagen and other companies involved in identical unethical behaviours. According to the authors, laws in business ethics and their enforcement need to be tightened so that people have something to fear within Volkswagen. With regard to capacity building, business and corporate ethics programmes are needed to capacitate the company’s workers. These programmes could then more clearly outline consequences of ethics violations, criminal charges and prison sentences; and finally unethical behaviours even when they are hidden will be punished sooner or later. In addition, there is a need for a new leadership with a different way of looking at the reality, different way of thinking and different preferences. According to the authors, this new blood strengthens the overall company gene pool by adding new mindsets and new personalities.What about the image that has been tainted? The current paper is written to answer to this question.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

For decades with the beginning of competition, many organisations compete on the basis of low pri... more For decades with the beginning of competition, many organisations compete on the basis of low prices. Price wars, however, represent a fundamentally different dynamic than simply trying to get an edge on price. They begin when competitors aggressively and repeatedly set prices below established sustainable levels. In some cases, organisations that initiate price wars engage in self-destructive behaviour, which leads to downward pricing spirals that alter industry structures. In theory, there are no winners in price wars: The losers of these brutal competitions are often forced out of business, and the survivors have been known to suffer a long-term squeeze in profitability. Research suggest that in price wars that took place between 1980 and 2013 in industries including airlines, telecoms and financial services, price wars were invariably linked with serious drops in financial performance. Indeed, when price wars erupted, most companies found themselves in commodity traps: Profits narrowed considerably, and weak competitors had difficulty staying in business. The common view in economics and strategy is that a company’s ability to win a price war hinges on having a superior cost structure. However, research demonstrates that this is not the only way to gain the upper hand. Contrary to most studies, under the right circumstances, it’s possible for a company to win a price war by leveraging a specific set of strategic capabilities. Specifically, these include the ability to read the business context and how things are changing, the skills to analyze the market data to identify trends and opportunities, and the pragmatic wherewithal to implement organizational changes both internally and across the value chain. In short, recent research showed that winning a price war can have as much to do with a company’s strategic capabilities and skills as its relative cost position. This new move provokes new thinking on how companies can influence price war outcomes, suggesting that other companies might be able to achieve success by establishing five rules of engagement. The rules will help managers frame the contextual, analytical and pragmatic capabilities by helping them 1) affirm the need, 2) pick the battlefield, 3) pick the target, 4) stay under the radar and 5) align revenues with cost structures and rally support needed to succeed. This paper discusses the foundations of fighting and winning a price war.

Despite limited research into postponement strategy in the supply chain as customer’s satisfactio... more Despite limited research into postponement strategy in the supply chain as customer’s satisfaction enablers, there has been significant interest from the role players in adopting postponement strategy especially in the automotive industry. The digital age and the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution has change the business landscape substantially. Customers are more demanding and their demands are growing exponentially with technological advancement and globalization. Those changes has constrained business to compete over supply chain, which is the heart of many successful business strategic decision. As South Africa desperately need economic growth to curb the high unemployment (30%). As a major contributor to the GDP and employing up to 457 000 (Smith; 2019) people in South Africa, increasing the current market share and ensuring customer retention and loyalty is crucial in achieving these objective. This paper explore how customers satisfaction can be enhance by using their i...

Polycarpe Feussi, 2018

Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in hi... more Globalization, technological and customer increasing changes, amongst other drivers, result in higher levels of uncertainty and unpredictability for organizations. In order for organizations to cope with the uncertain and fast changing economic and business environment, these organizations need to innovate in order to achieve flexibility. In simple terms, the organizations must develop strategies leading to the ability of these organizations to provide horizontal information connections across the supply chain to create and deliver products that meet customer needs, by synchronization of customer demands with product creation. The generated information will create efficiency and effectiveness throughout the whole supply chain regarding production, storage and distribution, as well as eliminating redundant activities and reduction in response time.
In an integrated supply chain, spanning activities include coordination with distributors and suppliers. This paper explains how through postponement strategies, flexibility can be achieved in an organization. In order to achieve the above, a thorough literature review was conducted via the search of online websites that contains material from scientific journal data-bases, articles and textbooks on the subject of postponement and flexibility. The findings of the research are found in the last part of the paper. The first part introduces the concept of postponement and its importance in supply chain management. The second part of the paper provides the methodology used in the process of writing the paper.

Polycarpe Feussi Independent Date Written: December 23, 2015 Abstract As a fast growing proper... more Polycarpe Feussi

Independent

Date Written: December 23, 2015
Abstract

As a fast growing property management company in South Africa, City Property Administration (CPA) requires a skilled workforce to retain its leadership position in the market. Among the required skills, property managers have been the most difficult to find and to retain by the organisation. Being at the core of the operation and viewed as a critical skill, no property management enterprise can operate without property managers who are by default the operation managers. It is therefore imperative for CPA to explore new ways to retain its talented property manager and attract more. This implies that CPA should position itself as the employer of choice.

Even though the South African national skill scarce skills survey of 2014 does not directly list property management as one of the sought-after skills, it encompasses the people skill, which is on the list of the top 100 scarce skills. City Property has suffered and continued to suffer as many property managers’ positions remain vacant for months and yet some incumbent found the job very challenging. The heavy workload, which is a direct result of resignation and insufficient numbers of property managers has negatively affected the talent and if not resolved will hamper the brand. Stress-overloaded workers have embarked on an exit or resignation, citing poor work life balance, growing the ratio of voluntary turnover within the organisation.

This research aims to explore the available retention enablers as well as the removal or lessening of barriers to property managers, as a scare talent source to help CPA living it dream of addressing the future.

This research has used a mixed-method approach which is an integration of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, with the aim to complement and fill the gap that each method has.

The results show that the main concern centres on the adequacy of reward and recognition, whereas barriers are a lack of career development opportunities and promotion, lack of flexible work schedule and poor financial compensation. The leadership is advised to take appropriate measures to remove the barriers, to enhance the enablers so that CPA can enjoy a dedicated workforce that is committed to its values, working towards its visions by achieving mission milestones efficiently.

Suggested Citation:

Ndedi , Alain and Feussi, Polycarpe, Retention Enablers and Barriers at City Property in South Africa (December 23, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2707620