Phumlaphi Rita Zwane, founder of Busy Corner, a thriving Shisanyama (African barbeque) business in Thembisa, South Africa, faced a pivotal decision amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Motivated by aspirations for business expansion and the pursuit of new opportunities, Zwane established a company-owned restaurant in the Mall of Thembisa. However, insufficient consideration of crucial factors during the decision-making process led to an alarming debt of $825,971, as of February 18, 2023, posing a significant threat to the business's survival. At this juncture, Zwane grappled with the dilemma of whether to close, sell, or franchise the Thembisa Busy Corner location, underscoring the critical need for a strategic resolution to secure the future of her entrepreneurial venture.
Refiloe Molefe, affectionately known as Mama Fifi, was a humane agripreneur running an urban organic vegetable farm, Fifi’s Veggie Farm (Bertrams Inner City Farm), in Johannesburg, South Africa. Molefe’s vision was to empower the nearby urban communities and ensure food security by selling fresh vegetables, teaching the community how to plant organically, and employing community members to work on the farm. She successfully implemented farming activities through partnerships with various governmental institutions, companies, and universities. Many organizations recognized her work on the farm, which received donations, won competitions, and obtained multiple awards.<br><br>Around 2019, while Molefe’s agribusiness was gaining momentum in the area and beyond, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality was planning to build a multipurpose centre on the farm premises as part of its strategic objectives. In early May 2022, she was invited to discuss the demolition of the building and the municipality’s decision to move her to a new place in Eikenhof, on the city’s outskirts. Molefe was informed that, on May 26, 2022, the mayor would be handing over the premises to the contractors, and she would have to move to the new location. The new site did not have adequate infrastructure to support organic farming practices and would require her to share the location with farmers who used chemicals, potentially contaminating the soil and endangering her organic farming practices. Not wanting to depend on the government, she was weighing another option: to operate at a local church south of Johannesburg. She had to decide whether to accept the municipality’s offer, use the local church premises, or buy land she could own for a more sustainable future.
In February 2020, the president of South African Chefs Association was exploring ways to ensure a sustained revenue stream for the association, which relied primarily on membership fees for survival. As a non-profit organization, South African Chefs Association had a rich history of representing chefs, enabling them to compete on the international stage, supporting their training and education, and providing members with networking opportunities and a community. The association faced several challenges; most notably, it needed to find an innovative solution to sustainable growth in terms of both membership and revenue numbers and the value created for members. The association’s president needed to establish a sense of relevance and community for its members through a range of strategic partnerships and innovative value contributions, ensure its leadership reflected the racial makeup of the country, and reconsider its structure and purpose.
A social entrepreneur running a business in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, South Africa, made and distributed healthy bread-based products for consumers in a poor community through his social enterprise, the Spinach King. His aim was to improve consumers’ eating habits and help them improve their health. In early 2014, after facing and overcoming many difficulties related to starting this social enterprise start-up in a resource-constrained context, this entrepreneur had a successful business. The business model had evolved over time, and while it was still small in scale, the owner was convinced that it was ready to scale. He needed to determine what business model would be most appropriate going forward and how he could implement it.
On September 30, 2017, the general manager (GM) of Uber Technologies Inc. (Uber) for sub-Saharan Africa, arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, and paid for his Uber service with cash. This functionality of the Uber app represented a new business model for Uber. The GM had to convince global management of the business case for offering cash payment options in Africa; he did so by conducting experiments and showing data that indicated rider numbers had tripled with adoption of the cash payment option. Uber’s driver-partners were concerned about safety when they transported passengers who paid by cash, both because credit card payments offered Uber rider identification and because the driver-partners were concerned about driving around with large amounts of cash. In spite of their concerns, the rationale for introducing a cash payment option was relevant, and it had to be considered carefully in the context of African locations with high crime rates. The GM considered various initiatives for utilizing data from their technology platform to safeguard their riders and drivers. They needed to address local needs in Africa while adhering to global Uber standards.