Author: Parisi, Rosetta
Supervisor: Professor Erik Schmikl
Date: September 2010

Eskom’s Distribution division centrally formulates strategy at executive level and then cascades it to its six decentralized regions, called Northern, Eastern, Western, North-West, Central and Southern region. This study of the Southern region, explores whether, in the absence of a structured system to manage and implement, initiatives were fruitful and the resultant potential benefits were tracked and realized. The research was conducted using a structured questionnaire and indepth interviews. It centers on the business context, analyzing organizational structure, resources, leadership, governance structures, processes and procedures; to determine whether the necessary skills, capacity, and knowledge exists to use programme and project management as a structured approach to the implementation of business plans in the Southern region.

The main findings were that:  implementing a programme and project management approach facilitates delivery of operational business plans and culminates in the accrual of the intended business benefits; the appropriate organizational structure, usiness processes, resources and leadership support are important, if programme and project management is to be used as a structured methodology, for the implementation of business planning initiatives; respondents believed they stood to personally benefit from the introduction of such an approach.