Online grocery shopping and two-sided platform businesses are on the rise in South Africa. In 2020, shortly before South Africa went into lockdown as a result of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sadaf Vahedna established a digital venture called Hoodgoods with seven cofounders. As the company name suggests, the business aimed to connect customers with small retail businesses around their neighbourhoods. Three years later, the cofounders faced the dilemma of whether to try to relaunch the platform business or sell it to a potential buyer. On what basis should they anchor their decision? If they decide to relaunch Hoodgoods, what aspects of the business should they try to improve, and how should they go about doing so? If they decide to sell the business, which nonfinancial factors should they take into consideration?
The case looks at an organisation called CSG Group (CSG), which successfully diversified over the span of several years to become an integrated facilities management and talent services provider. Along their journey of diversification, they acquired a business which had misrepresented its finances – however this was only discovered after the sale had gone through. The financially distressed acquisition threatened the future viability of the company and required a swift turnaround in order for the organisation to remain afloat. Many varying turnaround strategies were implemented, and the division ended up successful. During the turnaround, the protagonist took the opportunity to restructure the divisions and merge multiple businesses inside
Fundrr was a South Africa-based alternative funding business that launched in 2018. The business’s goal had been to disrupt the South African business lending landscape, specifically at the small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) level where the majority (about 71 per cent) of SMEs generated annual revenues of less than R200,000 and employed between two and five people. Reflecting on the company’s journey in October 2021, the company’s founders realized that Fundrr had weathered the COVID-19 storm and had grown 630 per cent between September 2020 and September 30, 2021. However, there was a discrepancy between their current client base and the founders’ vision for the company as a disruptive, innovative, entrepreneurship-friendly alternative funder seeking to offer financial backing options independent of those granted by traditional banking institutions. The typical Fundrr client was usually in their fifties and male. Operating on a continent with the youngest population in the world, what did this say about their marketing and brand positioning? How could they apply the same resourcefulness and relevance to position the business into the future?
In mid-2019, the chief regions and markets officer of the Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE (AGCS) insurance company was wondering how to grow the company’s innovation culture, and how to manage resistance from other areas of the business. AGCS was part of Allianz SE, a European multinational financial services company whose core businesses were insurance and asset management. Recent changes in the global landscape had been driven by technological advancements, and market leaders would need to consider using new methods and innovation. AGCS had set up a new corporate incubator to accelerate digital innovation. However, the digital innovation incubator's journey was not without challenges and learning curve issues, especially during its initial stages. Within 18 months, the new corporate incubator was fully entrenched within AGCS. The next steps involved finding the right key stakeholders and strategic thrust to help it thrive.
Peter Alkema, chief information officer of Business Banking at First National Bank in Johannesburg, was puzzling over ways to ensure that codeFest, the event he had inaugurated, would continue to thrive beyond 2018 without his direct involvement. His brainchild had begun in 2015 as a one-day hackathon with 100 participants. Three years later, it had grown to become a six-day coding and innovation extravaganza. Now, in May 2018, Alkema wondered what features of codeFest should continue into the future. What should be improved upon? And what novelties should be injected to take the event to the next level?