Factors affecting consumer behaviour in a black box products in South Africa: particularly in the telematics industry
- Authors: Sebate, Othusitse Ronny
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Consumer behavior , Marketing research Telecommunication -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/43435 , vital:36881
- Description: Crime has given rise to the telematics market in South Africa, however, not much is known about this industry. The telematics products, or vehicle tracking products, have to be installed in vehicles in such a way that the criminals, let alone the owners, will not be able to find it. It is a “black box” product that it is not known what is inside, and it is not to be seen. This then posed a question of how then does one choose one telematics product over the other. This study was aimed at finding out what influences consumer behaviour in the South African telematics market. This study specifically looked at various factors such as understanding of deeper customer insights, operational excellence, readiness, predictive maintenance, new digital services and marketing mix on how they influence consumer behaviour. An empirical study using online survey was conducted amongst 98 respondents who own or rent a telematics product from various telematics companies in South Africa. The key findings indicated that most important atributes to influencing consumers in the telematics industry were operational excellence, response readiness, and the marketing mix. Recommendations were then given that although other atributes that were investigated such as understanding deeper customer insights, predictive maintenance, and new digital services are important, they will not bear much fruit for any organisation if the basics of operational excellence, response readiness, and marketing mix are not mastered.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Factors influencing parents’ decisions when choosing a private school
- Authors: Arendse, David
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: School choice -- South Africa -- Case studies , Competition -- South Africa , Private schools -- South Africa , Consumer behavior , VRIO framework (Valuable, Rare, Imitable and Organized) , St. Stithians College
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92628 , vital:30738
- Description: Purpose: Consumers make decisions based on multiple factors that influence their decision-making process. These decisions can be influenced by deep personal reflection to the simple impulsive purchase done to fulfil a need or want. This research study explored the relationship between the resource-based view and the factors considered by parents when selecting a school for their child/children. The Valuable, Rare, Imitable and Organized (VRIO) framework as developed by Barney, J. (1991) outlines the framework through which an organisations resources can be assessed in terms of their potential competitive advantage. The research study was interested in understanding how an educational institution can identify and then leverage its resources to create a competitive advantage. Methodology: Each family that has one or more child enrolled at St Stithians College, which is a private school in Gauteng, South Africa, was invited to participate in the study. This represented a potential population size of 1 700 families, however a sample of 334 was used. The educational institution caters to both boys and girls from Grade R to 12 (Matric). Each family was requested to participate in the study as they had already chosen to have at least one child enrolled. A self-administered close-ended questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection and the questionnaire was broken into two sections. Section A focused on building a profile of the respondent while section B assessed the level of influence the factors had on a parent’s decision. Section B’s questions were structured as Likert-Scale questions requiring a response between 1 and 5, with 5 being the highest influence, and 1 being the lowest. The responses to the questions were then grouped into the factors they spoke to and the average results per factor were assessed via an ANOVA table to test the null hypothesis that parents do not consider factors when choosing a school for their children. Findings: As a paper, this study set out to discover what the competitive advantage was of a private education institution in South Africa. It did so by identifying what the key factors were when parents selected the school of their choice and then analysed these findings against the resources of the given institution. The ANOVA table analysis of the responses identified that parents do consider factors and that the factor that they were most influenced by was convenience factor, represented by location of the institution and the distance to it. While there are multiple private education suppliers in South Africa, no other provider has the location that St Stithians College has, and as such, its location is its competitive advantage. Significant: This research study will expand the existing but limited competitive advantage body of knowledge in the South African education sector. South African educational institutions will be able to develop similar studies which will then assist in identifying their own competitive advantages. This can better enable education providers to entice consumers to their education services.
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- Date Issued: 2019