An application of corporate turnaround strategies to overturn the declining business in sugar industry: a case study of a factory in Central Mozambique.

Abstract

Abstract Sugar industry is one of those traditional industries which have antiquated strategies to conduct business. These strategies are however narrow as they tend to focus on one problem at a time. They lack multi-dimension and often consume time and resources. Business turnaround is a multi-disciplinary or functional approach which has a global view into the whole situation. This approach has been in existence for many decades. Literature has however showed no evidence of it being formally applied in sugar industry in Southern Africa. The study addresses the literature gap on turnaround strategies in sugar industry. It also provides a diversified approach and flexibility in problem solving for the industry. This study was looking at testing the impact of corporate turnaround strategies in sugar industry. An opportunity presented itself to the researcher to apply turnaround strategies to upturn the declining performance of one of the factories in a sugar manufacturing organisation. After application of turnaround strategies an evaluation was done to measure the impact on performance and quality. An experiment research strategy was used to test the cause and effect of turnaround strategies on both factory performance and product quality. This quantitative study used the secondary data of quality and factory performance parameters to test hypothesis. A comparison of data for seasons before and after turnaround project was done using statistics analysis tools to measure significance. Testing causal effect was the first objective of the research. The results of the statistical analysis showed a null hypothesis in 3 out of 5 tested parameters. This study was done while the last part of the project was being commissioned. That could be the contributing factor to the results, of which the literature suggests that some organisational turnarounds can take even years before yielding positive results. Season to season comparison showed positive trends of change. It was therefore recommended that this project should be given time and re-evaluated after few seasons. After the cause and effect test, a turnaround model was developed for the use by any other factory which might experience multi-effect problems and that was the second objective. Based on the available literature and the experiment, a suggestion was made on when to embark into turnaround strategies in a sugar factory as a third objective. This study presented opportunities for future work. There are 4 recommended future studies that can be expanded in relation to this study.