In October 2002 contract food-services group, Compass SA, was some way down the track in a process that aimed to transform the company into a learning organisation. Compass management had embarked on the process in the belief that it was only as a learning organisation that the group would be able to survive in the current, changing business environment and achieve the benchmark turnover and profit figures required by its UK parent, Compass plc, figures that the South African subsidiary had never before achieved. Some progress had been made in the transformation process, but Compass CEO, André Du Chenne, knew that the changes now needed to be embedded in the organisation as a whole and that the change process itself needed to be synchronised. The question was: how should this best be done?

No. Pages: 33 

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Robert Shaw, CEO of Constantia Insurance Company Ltd, had a tough decision to make. Margaret Townsend, his senior administrative director, had just left his office, having confessed to breaking company policy. She had a long record of good service with the company. Now, however, she had informed him that she had been involved in a car accident on her way home the previous evening and, because “it was an emergency”, she had made use of her corporate credit card. Relatively few staff had corporate credit cards and the company policy was very clear on their usage: under no circumstances, nor in any position whatsoever, were company credit cards to be used for private use. Constantia Insurance was very strict in enforcing its policies. Shaw regarded this as critical to business success. What should he do?

No. Pages: 8 

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In September 2012, IT firm Dimension Data paid out R1.26 billion to the various participants in a broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) deal that the company had signed eight years earlier. When Dimension Data had first embarked on its empowerment journey, legislated BEE in South Africa had been in its fledgling stages and, to a large extent, companies such as Dimension Data had to write their own rules. On the eve of the payout, Jeremy Ord, Dimension Data’s executive chairman, reflected on the outcomes of the deal, including the successful growth of the company’s Middle East and Africa (MEA) division. He wondered, too, what he would do differently, if he had to do it all over again.

No of pages:  18

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It was June 2003 and just over a year-and-a-half since First National Bank (FNB) Metro (a division of FNB Retail) had completed the first stage of an organisational transformation initiative aimed at changing FNB Metro’s culture into one that was based on a shared vision and values, and appreciated diversity and embraced personal empowerment. The first part of the initiative had been a resounding success. 

There was greater racial harmony and a new unity at FNB Metro, as well as a common commitment to the company’s vision. The bank’s results had improved, as had its service levels. The second part of the initiative, which was intended to institutionalise the new culture, had met with patchy success. It hinged on establishing regular, values-based, non-hierarchical meetings throughout the bank, to which staff were encouraged to bring issues of importance to the branch for discussion. Peet van der Walt, the chief operating officer of FNB Metro, wondered what could be done to embed the new culture in the organisation.

No. Pages: 26 

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Foschini Group’s (FOS) Shani Naidoo was in excellent spirits when she walked out of a two-day group strategy meeting in October 2009. As managing director for group human resources (HR) since 2005, it was evident that the changes that she and her team had implemented had successfully made HR a critical part of Foschini’s overall business strategy. In pursuit of their vision to get rid of the company’s silo mentality, the HR team had introduced a totally new, centralised HR model. Despite the shake-up, Naidoo believed there was still a great deal more that needed to change. She did wonder, however, if she might have gone too far.

No.of pages: 18

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Johan Blignaut, the managing partner of Grant Thornton Kessel Feinstein Pretoria had worked hard to turn the partnership around and create a culture that was conducive to success. His efforts appeared to have been successful. The partnership had been dogged by in-fighting, bickering and power struggles. Now it was characterised by unity and mutual respect. But an ethnographic organisational culture survey had shown up a fundamental difference between the perceptions of the audit and other staff about the firm’s culture. The audit staff seemed to be deeply unhappy with the way things worked, and this both surprised and concerned him deeply. Would he and the partners have to change their approach?

No. Pages: 28 

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In 1998/1999, the Legal Aid Board faced closure because of a contingent liability of more than R600 million for legal services delivered by private practitioners to the organisation’s clients. Since then, through three phases of transformation, under two board chairmen and three chief executive officers, the Legal Aid Board has turned itself around. It has received unqualified audit reports from the office of the Auditor General since 2002 and it has extended its services to represent the accused in approximately 400 000 matters per year.

Now, in 2008, the organisation is ready for its next challenges: improving employee morale, expanding access to justice for all and working with stakeholders to instil confidence in South Africa’s legal system. The challenge for the board is to identify the right approach to taking the organisation into the next phase.

No.of pages: 7

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In February 2015, Llewellyn Walters, CEO of Massbuild, the building products division of Massmart, a warehouse retail organisation, was perplexed by the results of the 2014 employee engagement survey. The survey showed that employee engagement had continued to decline for a third year. Walters reflected on his decision in 2009 to work on the adage “culture will eat strategy for breakfast” and initiate a culture change process as a means of ensuring that Massbuild achieved its strategic objectives. The decision to go the culture route had not only led to better results, but also facilitated decisions regarding the division’s brands and resulted in renewed customer focus. He wondered what more the organisation could do to reinforce its culture.

No of Pages:  31

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Massbuild is the building products division of Massmart, a South African-based warehouse retail organisation that Walmart acquired in 2012. The details in this case span a period from 2009 (prior to the acquisition by Walmart) to 2015.

No of Pages:  6

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In July 2002 banking group, Nedcor had purchased another banking group, BOE and decided to use this purchase as an opportunity, not only to integrate BOE into Nedcor, but also two other banks that had operated within the group. In typical fashion, the treasuries had raced ahead of the rest ob the group, but appeared to have achieved the impossible: a complex integration in record time, with no fall-out for the bank. The rest of the group’s integration process was still under way and would probably only be finished at the end of 2004. Was there anything that the other divisions in the bank could learn from the integration experience at the treasury? How much of what the division had achieved had been good judgement and how much had simply been good luck?

No. Pages: 17 

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It was September 2008 and Ravi Teja, associate vice president and head of enterprise transformation at the global consulting company, Nihilent, was waiting to meet with his team to review their progress on The Banking Association South Africa project. His team included Prabith Kalathil, Shane Perrier, Pooja Bal, Gaurav Joshi and Saurabh Bali. They had completed their analysis of the situation at The Banking Association, and the results clearly showed that there was a need to restructure the organisation and that an effective performance management system should be put in place to enable The Banking Association to achieve its objectives. The challenge was how to do this without unnecessarily alienating The Banking Association employees, and this was one of the key points on their agenda for discussion.

No.of Pages: case (A) 8 and case (B) 14

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External changes in the banking environment, coupled with an increasing number of consumer complaints, prompted the need for new systems within the Office of the Banking Adjudicator. Neville Melville, who was appointed as the Banking Adjudicator in May 2000, had implemented fairly far-reaching changes to the office in order to comply with its new rules of procedure and to increase its capacity. Two years later, Melville wondered whether he had done enough to create an organisation that was as good as the best internationally. His aim was to build an office that would act as a catalyst for proactive change within the banking system, particularly in areas of customer service and market conduct.

No. Pages: 22 

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PPC today is a professionally run company with motivated and dedicated people. This is reflected in the total shareholders’ returns achieved over the past few years and the increase in the market capitalisation of the company.” This was how John Gomersall, chief executive officer of Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC), concluded his review in PPC’s Annual Report 2003.

Rod Burn, organisational performance director of PPC, read these words with some satisfaction. The change was in part due to the Kambuku Process, an organisational transformation initiative that PPC had instigated in 2000. Its aim had been to mobilise the talent and energy of PPC’s people so that they would work with PPC in achieving the demanding cash flow return on investment (CFROI) targets that it had set as part of a value-based management (VBM) strategy embarked on late in 1999.

No. Pages: 26 

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In February 2000, the Kambuku team of Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) got together in the Kambuku “war room” to plan the way forward for the project. Rod Burn, PPC’s director of organisational performance, had appointed them to work on finding a way to get more out of PPC’s people so that the company could reach the taxing cash flow targets that chief operating officer (COO) John Blackbeard had set. PPC’s performance over the preceding five years had been dismal and the company was feeling the heat of competition from two major international competitors. Achieving the turnaround targets set by Blackbeard would not be possible without the buy-in of the people. Burn had asked the Kambuku team to design a system that would have this as the output. But what were the components of this system?

No. Pages: 13 

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Rod Burn, organisational performance director of PPC, looked back over the past four years with some satisfaction. Since 2000, when PPC had instigated an organisational transformation initiative known as the Kambuku Process, shareholder returns had improved, as had market capitalisation. The management culture had changed completely and there was a new level of energy in the organisation, with people at all levels taking pride in their work. But Burn did not want to take it for granted that this success would continue. It had taken hard work to get the Kambuku process to this point. It would take more hard work to maintain and improve it. Thinking in terms of a simple SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, what were the factors that he had to watch out for and what were those that he could build on to ensure that the process did not lose momentum?

No. Pages: 22 

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It was a Sunday evening in March 2004 and Sagie Pillay, chief executive officer of the Johannesburg Hospital, was reflecting on the progress he had made since his appointment in 2000. He had been instrumental in crafting the Hospital Strategy Project for the National Department of Health. He had been appointed to transform the Johannesburg Hospital in accordance with this strategy. Now, in 2004, he was as supportive of health and public sector policies as he had been when he took over as CEO, but had experienced the reality of implementation.

Every decision was a balancing act between the priorities of the national and provincial governments, health policy, accountability for public funds, constitutional rights and providing the best possible care for each patient. In addition, he was confronted daily with public service organisational culture, a shrinking budget allocation and the increasing number of South Africans being driven from private health care to the more affordable public health care facilities.

He had made some progress, but it had been an uphill battle. How could he or any future CEO take the hospital forward and achieve the goals of a National Health System?

No. Pages: 40 

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A few days before the JSE Limited (JSE) and the Bond Exchange of South Africa Limited (BESA) merged on 22 June 2009, Nicky Newton-King, deputy CEO of the JSE, –who had been tasked with leading the integration of the two organisations – reviewed what she had done so far and the plans she had put in place to ensure a smooth integration. A great deal of time and work had been invested in planning and organising the merger, and she did not want a misstep in the integration process to derail the entire merger. She wondered if she had done enough to ensure a smooth integration.

No.of pages: 25

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Matome Modipa, executive chairman and founder of the Sebata Group of technical engineering and management consultants, enjoyed coming to work. His offices in Midrand, near Johannesburg, had an open and friendly feel, and the pervading ethos reflected the African philosophies of ubuntu and letsema that he had worked hard to instil in the organisation. Sebata had enjoyed steady growth since its inception in 2006. Now, in October 2013, the company was on the cusp of further expansion, and Modipa wondered how he was going to keep these philosophies alive at Sebata.

No of Pages: 19

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Ever since she had started Umsinsi Health Care (Pty) Ltd in South Africa in November 2008, Amanda Wilde’s vision had been to place the company, which distributed medical devices, in a trust for all of her employees. When this happened, they would become full partners in the company. However, by August 2013, Wilde was still the sole guardian of the Umsinsi Partnership Trust. She had postponed transferring the trust to her employees until the business was financially stable. With financial stability achieved, Wilde was now concerned whether her employees were ready to take on the responsibilities that came with the benefits of being full partners.

No of pages: 22

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