Good day, Read through the attached "Henley Business Case Study Maponya" for a business owned by Richard Maponya before answering the following questions: 1. For each of the nine questions on page 5 o

Henley Business School

Post Graduate Diploma in Management Practice (PGDip)

Shared value exam

Preamble

The exam date has been set and confirmed for 25 October 2019, 9:00am-12:00pm. The intent of this note is to give adequate pointers to help you prepare yourself for this important milestone in your personal road of development and rediscovery.

What is an Open Book Exam?

To help you answer the exam questions you are allowed to bring any material or notes that you have of your own or any source reference material from lectures and/ or your own personal research. You may refer to this material in assisting you to put forth your answer. However, any reference or excerpts you use should be written onto your answer paper and argued accordingly. To refer to material without synthesising for the examiner or an independent reader would not suffice. Obviously you would be best placed to have revised your source material and summarised it into buckets that you can easily make reference to. To attempt to bring large box files or text books into the exam period may actually work against you. Your own summary notes would do you good. Please note that you may not bring or use any electronic devise into the exam room.

The Structure of the Exam

The Exam will consist of two (2) compulsory questions. One choice question and the three questions will be answered over a 180 min (3 hour) max period. You will be expected to hand write your answer onto A4 foolscap lined paper. If you do not answer three questions you will be penalised. You must attempt three! Two questions will carry 40 marks and the third will carry the balance of 20 points. Ensure you write your name and details on the cover page.

How to use your time in the Exam

• Use the first 15 minutes to read the exam paper carefully and to select the questions that you are going to answer.

• Allocate 60 minutes to each of the first two questions (40 points each).

• Allocate 30 minutes to the final question (20 points).

• Use the final 15 minutes of the exam to do a final review of your paper before submission.

Exam Scope

The exam questions will be a test of your understanding of theory and practice of what you have learned. In particular it is not to test you on how well you may memorise material but rather the application in real practical business situations.

The exam is set to examine the following outcomes of the Innovative Wealth Creation module of the Post Graduate Diploma in Management Practice (NQF level 8), with emphasis on the outcomes in bold letters:

1. Understanding how value is measured in organisations and understand how the decisions made influence this value - in this way to make better and more informed business decisions; 

2. Describe, analyse and evaluate the design or organisational delivery systems and processes using relevant models and frameworks; and evaluate performance; 

3. Understand the budgeting process as well as its limitations;

4. Better understand customers and stakeholders for optimal business performance; 

5. Identify the nature of financial information, its purpose and the context of its use in organisations and have the ability, therefore, to take financial criterial and consequences into account in decision-making and problem-solving;

6. Define types of financial information and techniques to be used in planning, controlling and making informed decisions, hence creating value; 

7.  Understand the relationship between financing and investment; and 

8. Follow the financial performance of their organisation.  

Shared Value will be a core concept and lens for investigation and interrogation in your preparation for this exam.

The exam will cover all elements of shared value including the basic principles of shared value as well as arguments for and against the usage of these principles in strategic design. Your focus should be on models and frameworks that allow you the latitude to argue your position or demonstrate competence in understanding of these frameworks. The key should be the logic or rationale. The scope of your preparation is discussed in more detail below.

Key pointers to success

• Use diagrams and charts, keep your answer to brief paragraphs and make use of bullet points. You can use a pen to draw your charts clearly but it is not an art exam!

• Your revision notes should be in bullet form with charts, arranged in an order that works for you.

• Give each question only the time it requires.

Background to the questions (2 readings)

READING 1: Henley Business Case Maponya

READING 2: Three reasons why your company should aim to tackle social issues. (Source: Community Coordinator at Shared Value Initiative | June 21st, 2016)

While the Great Recession put a dent in the public’s trust in corporations, faith in business is now gradually on the rise. According to the 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer, no other institution recorded a larger gain in trust among the general population last year than corporations. In the same survey, 80% of respondents agreed companies should take the lead on solving the world’s most pressing social problems.

Amidst this climate, Fortune Managing Editor Alan Murray took the stage at last month’s Shared Value Leadership Summit to interview four company leaders who featured in a new ranking last year: The Change the World List, which spotlights 50 companies who address major social problems as a core part of their business strategy and innovation.

In the interview, senior representatives from the “Change the World” companies – MasterCard (#11), Novo Nordisk (#18), Ayala (#29), and CVS (#31) – discussed how purpose and social issues are affecting their core models, their brand power, and growing into new markets. Here are the three biggest benefits they found in tying profits to purpose:

1. Your business will be more viable in the long term.

In all of these companies, social purpose drives business decision-making – and it’s delivering for the bottom line. “I wasn't approaching this from a shared value perspective,” said CVS Health EVP Helena Foulkes in regards to the CVS Health rebrand. “It was a practical issue for us at the time.” The rebrand was one way to unify the organizational structure, which housed both CVS Pharmacy and Caremark. As CVS started to use their defined purpose – helping people on their pathway to better health – as a filter for business decisions, it became clear that the only way of communicating that externally was to stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products. That official 2014 decision meant immediately giving up $2B in annual revenue, but according to Foulkes “it has paid off” in the long term with new business, rising stock prices, and increased customer loyalty.

Ed Brandt, EVP at MasterCard, described a similar journey, starting 5 years ago: “Our long-term growth is going to be dependent on global prosperity,” he said. “We need the economy to be able to grow in developing countries.” As regulation escalated after the financial crisis, increasingly the company partnered with local governments to increase financial access to emerging markets and their “huge growth potential,” he said.

Triple Bottom Line Head Jakob Riis at diabetes care company Novo Nordisk agrees that a long-term mindset shift is necessary: “If we don't have a model that's sustainable in the long run, we don't do it,” he said. In a world where only half of 420 million diabetics are diagnosed, Novo works to train primary care physicians globally to detect and care for diabetes – which in turn creates demand for their products. Riis also mentioned that Novo is developing new employee incentives to deliver on patient outcomes rather than products sold.

1. Employees and customers will value your brand

The research is out there: There’s a new generation of employees and customers who want to work for and buy from purpose-driven companies. The panel universally agreed that their employees were more excited and engaged once the company more effectively communicated its purpose for good. “To the employees of MasterCard, nothing was more impactful than being on that [Fortune] list,” Brandt mentioned off-hand. Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, CEO of Ayala, also marvelled at how engaged his employees have been once the company began dovetailing business objectives to societal needs.

For CVS Health, the shift meant prioritizing culture change – constantly earning employees’ trust. “It's so critical that we [as business leaders] make purpose-driven decisions,” said Foulkes. “Sometimes those decisions are good for the bottom line, sometimes they're not. But when people see you doing that as a business leader they start to think about it differently.” She added that the company measures culture rigorously and leaders are rewarded by how connected their people feel to the company.

1. You’ll find new market opportunities (and innovate to get there)

With shared value approaches, these companies are finding that emerging markets represent a huge opportunity because they are very often untapped markets. The Fortune list highlighted Ayala’s work in privatizing and distributing municipal water in the Philippines, which they had to approach with a completely different model – billing communities instead of individuals. Before Ayala stepped in, “60% of the water in Manila was not reaching end clients,” Zobel described, “I'd like to think that a for-profit model began to address that while bringing prices down substantially.” Murray added that Fortune confirmed Ayala has the metrics to prove it.

However, you need to approach these markets with different solutions and with the help of partners. “We know the Bottom of the Pyramid is a very different service model,” said Brandt, which meant a move toward mobile services to reach those living in rural areas on less than $2.50 a day. To tackle this problem MasterCard hired new people – not from banks, but from governments, NGOs, and development agencies – to complete this work on the front lines of business development and product design. For example, Brandt mentioned the company is working with Mercy Corps and others to expand digital aid distribution services to rural communities in Philippines, Yemen, and other countries.

One common thread among all these companies is that they’re applying business innovation to solve social problems – and in that way, their business is more sustainable in the long run.

The question

You work for Maponya. You have been appointed by your company to head up their team on Leadership Skills/Qualities, Personal Resilience and Shared Value having recently completed your course with Henley Business School and your organisation is keen to get value from your insights. Your job is to argue a position paper on how Leadership Skills/Qualities, Personal Resilience and Shared Value contribute value to the organisations by answering various questions. You are expected to demonstrate use of relevant tools and techniques you have recently learned and the application of theoretical concepts in a practical way to the problems posed to you.

Questions to help you prepare

1. In a succinct and precise manner describe the vision for Maponya. Where do you see them (in which areas)? How will they measure success? How does that compare with where they are presently represented? What hurdles do they need to navigate? How is the environment looking i.e. the playing field? How are they likely to get to where they want to go?

2. Describe the role that leadership skills and qualities play in the success of Maponya.

3. Describe how personal resilience support the business success experienced by Maponya.

4. What core competencies and capabilities do you believe Maponya and his companies possess and which are crucial to develop in order to succeed on the path they have set forth in 1 above and why?

5. Who do you believe are their key internal and external stakeholders and how will they manage their expectations? What processes will they create to enable this?

6. What “shared value” can Maponya provide in their ecosystems that serve customers? Discuss this concept by referring to shared value principles. Discuss if and how their view on value should be tailored to their local markets.

7. Discuss why shared value is important. Discuss how Maponya can address shared value with reference to “employee value” and the company’s culture and values.

8. Compare and contrast the approach taken by Maponya’s top three competitors in creating and establishing their competitive advantage by using or not using the concepts of shared value. What are the advantages and disadvantages of their respective stance on the design on their competitive advantage?

9. Analyse Maponya’s approach to shared value and stakeholder management from an ethical perspective.

The intent is not a theoretical discourse of generic issues but almost a bullet point clear synthesis of the what, why, when and how.

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