Developing Resources And Capabilities Of The Company

Developing Resources and Capabilities The company has a plan of policy which they intend to use in the quest to achieve their objectives. These objectives include customer satisfaction by ensuring timely delivery and also increasing the number of products required for sales and thus quench the increased demand for online products (Kotler et al, 2015). Strategy formulation has certain features which need to be put in place so as to ensure that the laid down action plan succeeds. These include: Goals should be the simple, consistent and long term. The strategies agreed upon should be easy to comprehend, and also they should present minimum or no difficulty in their implementation (Kotler et al, 2015). The action plan should also be uniform such that no unnecessary measures will be taken, or inappropriate decisions are made. The warehouse to be used to store the products should be easy to access at any given time. It should also be situated in a location that can be relied upon to be se cure and can give room for expansion if need be. The additional employees who will be hired should be carefully vetted so as to ensure they will adapt to the organizational culture and structure (Kotler et al, 2015). They should be able to consistently provide the best output for a long time. The transportation option for the products should also be simple to work with and also reliable. In the strategy making process, the co-owners should have intense understanding of the competitiveShow MoreRelatedAdvantages and Challenges of Developing a Strategy for Competitive Advantage Based on Resources and Capabilities1064 Words   |  5 PagesExamine the advantages and challenges of developing a strategy for competitive advantage based on resources and capabilities. Illustrate your answer with appropriate examples. 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Long Walk to Freedom Analysis free essay sample

The path that lead Nelson Mandela to violence and the effects of his decision Aside from his loose Communist ties, Nelson Mandela’s use of violence was the only internationally questioned aspect of his struggle for freedom in South Africa. Most modern societies, Americans in particular, view acts of violence as inherently evil. They look to leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King who brought change through nonviolent protest.However, the governments these leaders fought against had rights for citizens and thus the government did not outright murder the protestors. Nelson Mandela performed nonviolent protests for a decade in South Africa while the government violently attacked and killed his protestors. With a government who fights nonviolence with violence, and raises inequality instead of lowering it, Nelson Mandela only saw one solution – armed struggle. His decision brought both condemnation and praise but ultimately brought international attention to the inequality in South Africa. This led to international sanctions against South Africa and eventually forced the white supremacist government to form an equal South Africa. Growing up in small villages of Mvezo and Qunu, Mandela lived a simple egalitarian life and it was not until he moved into Mqhekezweni that he began to see the real world. Mandela said that before coming to Mqhekezweni he â€Å"had no thought of money, or class, or fame, or power† (Mandela, 16).Raised under the privileged environment of the Regent, Mandela was able to attend the best schools and only saw parts of the inequality existing in his country. However, it was not until his running away from the Regent to Johannesburg that Mandela was truly able to see the depths of racial oppression in South Africa. None can doubt the steadily increasing repression of nonwhites in South Africa that lead Mandela to the freedom struggle after he arrived in Johannesburg in 1941. One can mark the start of inequality in South Africa with the creation of the new Union of South Africa under British Colonial rule in 1910. Shortly after in 1913, the government passed the Land Act, which deprived Africans of 87% of the land. Then in 1923, the Urban Areas Act created slums for Africans near cities to supply cheap labor for the white owned businesses. This was followed by the 1926 Color Bar Act, which banned Africans from practicing skilled trades, and then the 1927 Native Administration Act, which made the British Crown the supreme ruler over African areas.Lastly, in 1936 the Representation of Natives Act removed the African vote in the cape. It was this climate of oppression in which Mandela entered Johannesburg in 1941. However, it was not just this repressive legislation that drove Mandela to politics: I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremember ed moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned me. Mandela, 95) The climate in Johannesburg of young freedom fighters gave Mandela an outlet to fight repression: â€Å"I discovered for the first time people of my own age firmly aligned with the liberation struggle, who were prepared, despite their relative privilege; to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the oppressed† (Mandela, 92).After a few years in Johannesburg, Mandela knew he wanted to fight inequality but he had yet to develop his method: â€Å"No one had ever suggested to me how to go about removing the evils of racial prejudice, and I had to learn by trial and error† (Mandela, 89). During his first years in Johannesburg, several key events shaped Mandela’s views on how to remove racial prejudice. The first of which was the August 1943 Alexandria Bus Boycott in which Mandela took an active role in the struggle for the first time.The boycott was a resounding success in that it prevented an increase in the bus fare. The success encouraged Mandela and h e created the ANC Youth League as a more active political organization than their parent group the ANC: â€Å"African nationalism was our battle cry, and our creed was the creation of one nation out of many tribes, the overthrow of white supremacy, and the establishment of a truly democratic form of government† (Mandela, 99).Then the 1946 mineworkers strike showed Mandela the ruthlessness of his government when the police killed 12 miners and arrested leaders to prevent a march. The final event in 1946 that greatly shaped Mandela’s politics was the overwhelming reaction of South African Indians to the Asiatic Land Tenure Act. The Asiatic Land Tenure Act limited the movement of Indians and the areas in which they could live. Through massive marches and boycotts, the Indian population demonstrated resistance on a new scale.Mandela noted that, â€Å"They reminded us that the freedom struggle was not merely a question of making speeches, holding meetings, passing resolutions, and sending deputations, but of meticulous organization, militant mass action, and, above all, the willingness to suffer and sacrifice† (Mandela, 104). For the next decade, Mandela would model his protests after this Gandhian style of passive and nonviolent resistance. However, for the rest of his life he would maintain their meticulous organization and militant mass action.The government met the nonviolent campaign of Mandela and the ANC with ruthless violence, arrests, and new legislation. The victory of the National Party in 1949 stripped the Africans of their remaining rights under apartheid: â€Å"The often haphazard segregation of the past three hundred years was to be consolidated into a monolithic system that was diabolical in its detail, inescapable in its reach, and overwhelming in its power† (Mandela, 111).With the oncoming apartheid legislation, the ANC began for the first time to plan illegal acts such as boycotts, strikes, stay-at-homes, and demonstrations. Their first general strike on May 1 was peaceful but police attacked and opened fire killing 18 demonstrators and wounding many others. Instead of apologizing for their slaughter, the government tightened the screws by creating the Suppression of Communism Act. This act essentially made any civil disobedience illegal.Despite the government’s violent reaction, Mandela and the ANC still stuck to their course of nonviolence and planned the massive 1952 passive defiance campaign: No matt er what the authorities did, the volunteers could not retaliate, otherwise they would undermine the value of the entire enterprise. The must respond to violence with nonviolence; discipline must be maintained at all cost. (Mandela, 127). Fortunately, the defiance campaign went off without government violence but resulted in the banning and arrest of many members of the ANC.It was becoming clear that the government intended to squash passive resistance with an iron first. Through the government violence, arrests, and dismissal of demands it was becoming obvious that in a nation where Africans have no rights, nonviolent protest becomes an ineffective weapon to promote change. However, Mandela had already accepted that nonviolence was only one of several options at his disposal: I saw nonviolence in the Gandhian model not as an inviolable principle but as a tactic to be used as the situation demanded.This principle was not so important that the strategy should be used even when it was self-defeating, as Gandhi himself believed. † (Mandela, 128) In 1953, dismayed by the lack of progress, Mandela begins to reject nonviolence as a useless strategy and to see violence as the only method capable of bringing change in South Africa. After the arrests at the Odin Cinema speech, Mandela spoke to the crowd: The time for passive resistance had ended, that nonviolence was a useless strategy and could never overturn a white minority regime bent on retaining its power at any cost.At the end of the day†¦ violence was the only weapon that would destroy apartheid and we must be prepared, in the near future, to use that weapon. (Mandela, 157) Although Mandela felt violence was the answer his statements were not approved by the ANC as their campaign was still centered on nonviolent passive resistance. Despite their condemnation of his speech and again without ANC approval, Mandela advised Walter to attempt to obtain weapons from China for an armed revolt. Mandela was becoming â€Å"frustrated with the immorality of apartheid and the ruthlessness of the state in protecting it. (Mandela 159). However, Walter’s attempt failed since China felt the struggle was not yet ready for armed revolt. This showed China’s disapproval of their use of violence. The Sophiatown antiremoval campaign marks another turning point in the nonviolent versus violent debate. The Sophiatown antiremoval campaign urged residents to resist the government from moving them out of Sophiatown under the slogan â€Å"Over our dead bodies. † The campaign gained massive support but was an enormous failure when the ANC took no further action than protests.The people had taken the slogan to heart and truly wanted to defend their community, but the ANC insisted on passivity. Mandela realized the people must fight back, â€Å"The lesson I took away from the [Sophiatown] campaign was that in the end, we had no alternative to armed and violent resistance†¦At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire† (Mandela, 166). From this point on Mandela was convinced the ultimate strategy would be armed revolt and was intent on gaining ANC support. The Sharpeville Massacre of 1959 caused many ANC members to realize nonviolence had failed.During a peaceful antipass campaign in Sharpeville the police killed sixty-nine and wounded more than four hundred unarmed Africans, most of which were shot in the back while fleeing. This was the first time that events in South Africa gained international attention. The American State Department and the U. N. Security Council both protested and urged for change in South Africa. The country suffered economically as well when the South African Stock Exchange plummeted and capital pored out of South Africa. Riots broke out and the government declared a State of Emergency and suspended habeas corpus. The freedom struggle was gaining the international interest in South African inequality that it needed to begin an armed revolt. Canon Burgess Carr later said that Sharpeville was, â€Å"the watershed which spurred the outpour of revolutionary struggle against white minority rule and colonialism throughout southern Africa† (Sharpeville Day commemoration speech, Nairobi, March 1972). In light of the Sharpeville Massacre and government oppression, Mandela decided to push the ANC towards a strategy of violence.While in hiding, Mandela succeffuly planned and executed the May 1961 stay-at-home, after which he reported to the press without ANC knowledge: â€Å"If the government reaction is to crush by naked force our nonviolent struggle, we will have to reconsider our tactics. In my mind we are closing a chapter on this question of a nonviolent policy† (Mandela, 270). Mandela had bec ome frustrated with the lack of progress in the nonviolent campaign of the ANC. His reasoning for moving ahead of the ANC was simple: â€Å"Sometimes one must go public with an idea to push a reluctant organization in the direction you want it to go† (Mandela, 270).Mandela then raised the question of armed struggle in committee meeting in June 1961 but Moses Kotane shot down the proposal. Later in a private meeting, Kotane said he felt it was not yet time, which Mandela rebuffed, â€Å"If you wait for textbook conditions, they will never occur† (Mandela, 271). Mandela convinced Kotane to allow him to revisit the issue of armed struggle in the next meeting in which he explained, Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we save lives by ttacking symbols of oppression, and not people? (Mandela, 272) Finally, the ANC stamped their approval on the use of violence and the military branch of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), was born. Mandela created M K to use violence as a means to bring the government to negotiations: â€Å"[MK] would not only hamper the military effectiveness of the state, but frighten National Party supporters, scare away foreign capital, and weaken the economy. This we hoped would bring the government to the bargaining table† (Mandela, 283). Their plan was to start with sabotage without loss of human life and escalate to guerrilla warfare when necessary. MK’s first bombing was electric power stations and government offices. After these bombings, MK released its first statement: â€Å"We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defense of our people, our future and our freedom† (Mandela, 285). In his decade of nonviolent struggle, it is clear that Mandela had exhausted all the possibilities of passive resistance.The demands of the ANC were not only ignored but their passive gatherings were dispersed by police violence. As well all forms of civil disobedience were now illegal under the Suppression of Communism act. Since the passive resistance campaign lost its effectiveness and no foreign nation imposed economic sanctions, the government had no incentive to negotiate equality with the freedom fighters. The only remaining method for the freedom fighters to affect the government was violence.Mandela used Clausewitz’s On War, which argues that war is a continuation of diplomacy by other means, as explanation of the need to begin armed struggle. Mandela’s use of violence also gained him support during his trip through Africa to the Pan African Freedom Movement Conference. The elevation to armed struggle showed African nations that the ANC was committed to freedom. As well many of the Nations had won their own freedom through armed struggle and this spirit of revolution was still strong. This is evident when the chief minister of Uganda yelled, â€Å"Give it to them again! during Mandela’s description of his acts of violence on the government (Mandela, 295). During this trip, Mandela received funding and training from numerous African nations for the coming armed revolt. The major benefit of MK’s violence was that it brought world attention to South African inequality. During Mandela’s twenty-seven year prison sentence, MK continued its sabotage and eventually escalated to guerilla warfare. The Luthuli Detachment was the first guerilla group and although it was defeated, it marked the beginning of the guerrilla warfare stage of the struggle.After the mostly dormant 1960’s, the spirit of revolution awakened in the 1970’s resulting in a declaration of emergency in South Africa starting in 1976. In May 1983, MK exploded their first car bomb killing 19 people, to which Mandela remarked, â€Å"As disturbed as I was by these casualties, I knew that such accidents were the inevitable consequence of the decision to embark on a military struggle† (Mandela, 518). Mandela clearly understands the gravity of embarking on armed struggle but is determined to gain freedom.By 1984, South Africa was erupting with violence and as a r esult, international sanctions finally began against South Africa demanding the end of apartheid. Mandela had won his second and very important bargaining chip for equality negotiations through violence, the ultimate vindication of his methods. With international sanctions in place and the armed struggle at its peak, Mandela decided the government would finally negotiate: â€Å"I had concluded that the time had come when the struggle could best be pushed forward through negotiations† (Mandela, 525).Mandela was then able to suspend the MK’s violence with the Pretoria Minute as a gesture of good will to promote the negotiations. However, this was only because he still had the sanctions to keep the government in check. This is precisely the reason that Mandela continued to push for sanctions from other countries while still negotiating peace at home: â€Å"While we were mindful of what Mr. de Klerk had done, in our view sanctions remained the best lever to force him to do more. † (Mandela, 582). It was this negotiation environment, created by the armed struggle, which gave both sides equal footing to negotiate a new democratic South Africa. There were downsides to Mandela’s switch from nonviolence to violence. The most obvious of which is the loss of human life on both sides. Violence prevented any aid from organizations such as amnesty international and deterred aid from countries who felt nonviolence was not thoroughly tested. President Bush was one world leader who disagreed with Mandela’s use of violence thus causing delays in sanctions.As well, the U. K. delayed its use of sanctions due to the violence on both sides of the struggle. Lastly, resorting to armed struggle created the possibility of a civil war: â€Å"With civil war racial peace would be more difficult than ever to achieve. † (Mandela, 365). Mandela had to carefully balance his use of violence to ensure enough violence to bring the government to negotiations but not excessive violence to create a civil war. Violence was Nelson Mandela’s last choice to force a racist government to negotiate equality.Mandela had joined the freedom struggle because of the â€Å"thousand indignities† he experienced through his early life driving him to fight for a better life for his people. Mandela began his protest with nonviolent and passive resistance, to which the government replied with violence and further legislation. With the Suppression of Communism Act preventing any demonstrations and the government slaughtering unarmed protestors, violence was Mandela’s only remaining option.By creating fear of civil war and attracting international attention to gain sanctions against South Africa, violence proved successful: â€Å"It was the reality and the threat of the armed struggle that had brought the government to the verge of negotiations. † Through these negotiations, Mandela was finally able to create a democratic South Africa where all citizens had equal rights and Mandela was able to cast the first vote of his life.