The South African Post Office’s (SAPO)

 The dwindling volume of mail due to usage of the Internet and through competition from private couriers poses a threat to the South African Post Office’s (SAPO) long-term survival. As a consultant specialising in turning businesses around you have been assigned to resuscitate the once glorified SAPO business operation.

Answer ALL the questions in this section.

Question 1 (25 Marks)

 Porter’s Five Forces is an analytical model that will help you as a strategist to look at the ‘balance of power’ in the market between different competing firms and to analyse the attractiveness and potential profitability of an industry. Use Porter’s Five Forces model to assess SAPO’s current competitive position versus its current competitors.

Question 2

A thorough understanding of the current business operations is necessary before contemplating on a strategy to resuscitate the SAPO operations.

2.1 In preparation for choosing a suitable offensive strategy, perform a SWOT analysis on SAPO. (16 marks)

2.2 The SAPO can benefit from forging a business collaboration with a suitable existing local company. Business collaborations or strategic alliances take different formats and may include partnerships, joint ventures, synergic alliances, distributorships, mergers, or agencies. Guided by your SWOT analysis, identify and justify a suitable business collaboration arrangement for SAPO. (9 marks)

Question 3 (25 Marks)

Examine the prospects of related diversification as a strategy to revitalise SAPO operations. Enrich your discussion by incorporating researched ideas from at least TWO (2) international post office operations of your choice. (Evidence of research must be provided.)

Question 4 (25 Marks)

Has the life of post offices come to an end? React to the foregoing statement with the aid of a suitable and researched industry life cycle theory/model. Be sure to capture the main purpose of the post office in your introduction.

Answers to Above Questions

Answer 1: Every business operates in an environment that is constantly changing. It is important for businesses to make changes to their activities in order to survive in the changing business environment condition. Businesses that fail to make regular changes to their way of operation may find it difficult for their long-term survival. For example, Kodak and Nokia are examples whereby these businesses failed to make changes to their products on time, and they have therefore lost their leadership position which they have acquired once during their operation. Porter five forces model is an important tool to analyse the external environment, and it provides good insight with respect to the changes required to be made in business practices in order to survive. With respect to South African Post Office (SAPO) the business is facing significant challenges because of rising use of the internet and competition from private couriers in South Africa. An analysis of SAPO using porter 5 forces analysis is performed in this section….