In March 2012, Mark Taylor, managing executive for Online and Vodacom m-pesa, reflected on the 19 months since the launch of m-pesa, Vodacom’s mobile payment platform. M-pesa was a partnership between the South African mobile telecommunications company, the Vodacom Group, and the Nedbank Group Limited.

After Lotto,the South African national lottery,was launched on 2 March 2000 with 6000 outlets selling lottery tickets,both the press and the public had not spared the role players their criticism.From day one,the national lottery was the target of,in some instances,an ill-informed public.One example was the general belief by the public in the early days that all the monies allocated for good causes were for charity only.In addition,nobody knew,until much later,how small the percentage earmarked for charity really was.These and other issues continually evoked emaotional response and ensured

It was September 2001, and that time of year again: performance appraisal and salary review time.  Nadia Strom, the new branch manager at the Pentlands branch of Barrows Bank, had one of her most difficult appraisals coming up the next day.  Michael Nyageri, the branch accountant, was a marginal performer.  He was a valued member of staff, but among other things, he had been six months late in submitting the annual budget, he was not appraising the staff under him on a quarterly basis, and he was not controlling the amount of overtime his staff worked.  All of these were

In early January 2013, Adrian Miller, principal of the Laudare School, situated close to the inner-city in the lower-income suburb of Belmont in Johannesburg, was reading through the results of a recent customer satisfaction survey. While the feedback from parents and pupils was generally positive, it also highlighted some areas that needed attention, particularly the challenges of running a private school in an inner-city environment. Furthermore, with scarce resources it was difficult to grow and develop the school into one that offered an excellent educational experience.

It was July 2008 and the Tour de France had just finished. Barloworld Ltd, an industrial brand management company, had sponsored one of the teams that took part – named Team Barloworld. It was a team that had proven extraordinarily successful in 2007, earning the Barloworld brand significant global brand awareness and publicity. However, one of the Team Barloworld cyclists in the 2008 Tour de France had tested positive for doping, potentially compromising two of the Barloworld brand values, namely honesty and integrity.

When Marisa Torrani took a brief moment to relax in one of the elegant armchairs in her book emporium, Skoobs Theatre of Books, she drank in the scene with satisfaction. It was 6pm on a Friday in June 2012, 18 months since Skoobs had opened in one of South Africa’s premier entertainment and gaming complexes, Montecasino, north of Johannesburg. The store was filling up with customers, many of them straight from work and looking for a place to unwind and, as she watched, she couldn’t help wondering what it was, exactly, that drew people to Skoobs.

By 2003, Quadrem, a global e-marketplace that facilitated electronic transactions between buyers and suppliers from the mining, metals and minerals industry, was in its third year of operation. While some of the regions such as North America, Australasia and South Africa managed to operate profitably on a regional level, Quadrem as a whole was not yet profitable mainly because of its high fixed centralised costs. The shareholders however, expected Quadrem to break even by the end of quarter two in 2004.

Since 2000, manufacturer of high-performance sports footwear and apparel, New Balance SA, had grown its market share substantially. Now, in 2006, the general manager of New Balance South Africa, Gary van Rooyen, considered the company’s future direction. In line with worldwide trends, opposition companies, such as Nike, had started to move into retail by establishing their own chain of stores.

Josi McKenzie, marketing director of fast food chain, Nando’s International, considered the development of Nando’s International since its inception as a South African fast food organisation 16 years previously. By the end of 2003, there were a total of 450 stores throughout the world, 186 of them being in South Africa. McKenzie felt good about this record, but she felt that there was enough potential in the company to perform even better on a global basis in 2004.

On 17 April 2005 African cellular telecommunications company MTN finally launched its new ‘everywhere you go’ pay-off line across all of its African operations. Three months later, with the rush over, MTN’s group executive director: marketing, Santie Botha, reflected on the company’s two-year journey towards adopting a global brand identity with locally relevant communication – the so-called ‘glocal’ approach.