Abstract
M.Comm.
The environment in which a South African business operates are distinguished by change. Businesses must on a continuous basis adopt to the demands of change in their environment. This study focus on the unseen or invisible components of a business, such as the structure, culture, leadership and human resource compliment, which enable the business to implement the formalised strategy, which in turn assist the business in adopting to the change in environment. Chapter two contains a short summary of strategy formulation and implementation. As soon as the strategy has been formalised and implementation of strategy must take place, the emphasised is moved to the unseen components of business. From Chapter three to six a iscussion on the resources required to support and manage the implementation of strategy, follows. In these chapters the following is raised: the structure that is required to ensure that strategy objectives are achieved; the required leadership, with emphasis on the role of leaders vs managers in a business; the relationship of strategy and culture; and the optimal composition of the human resource complement to ensure the
implementation of the strategy. A summary of the recommendations of the study are the following: develop a suitable structure to support the strategy of business and tend to move to flatter organisational structures; obtain and develop leaders in the business; build and encourage a strong corporate culture; and Top Management must ensure and commit them to obtain the required human resource compliment in the business. In conclusion a recipe to the successful implementation of a strategy "Be customer focused and get the basis right.