Menu

Material priorities

Our material priorities are those factors most likely to influence the conclusions of stakeholders when assessing the Group's ability to create sustainable value over time.

In determining if a factor is material, we consider its potential to impact strategy (opportunity and risk), performance (financial and non-financial) and prospects in the short, medium, and longer-term, and ultimately our ability to create and sustain value, and limit its value erosion. In line with the six capitals model of value creation, which King IV endorses, the effectiveness with which we manage our material priorities is likely to influence the decisions of our stakeholders in relation to the capital inputs they provide, and the outcomes they expect in return.

Determining our material priorities

The following inputs informed the determination of the material priorities:

  • The annual strategy planning cycle and key issues managed by the board and leadership during the year.
  • Discussions to elicit and distil the views and concerns of leadership.
  • The material concerns of key stakeholder groups, including customers, business partners, OEMs, our people, financiers, and investors.
  • Top business risks.

Organising our material priorities

Our material priorities are those factors we can control, within the context of the uncontrollable factors in our operating environment.

They are grouped into three key themes, which represent the key drivers of value for the Group in view of current market conditions and our expectations for the short, medium, and longer-term trends shaping our markets. These material priorities are discussed throughout this integrated report and the ESG report, available online.

Resilience
Resilience
circle
1.
Sustain capital management discipline.
2.
Leverage competitive advantages to diversify and grow earnings streams.
3.
Accelerate the implementation of new ways of working and maintain agility to grow the business.
Relevance
Relevance
circle
1.
Deliver exceptional value to customers as their needs change.
2.
Remain the strategic partner of choice for OEMs and suppliers.
3.
Be an employer of choice in the automotive industry.
4.
Innovate practically and proactively.
5.
Use technology to sustain the business.
Responsibility
Responsibility
circle
1.
Demonstrate best-in-class governance.
2.
Proactively manage the ESG consequences of our activities.
3.
Consistently deliver on stakeholder expectations to protect our reputation.

Resilience

1 Sustain capital management discipline

Sub-issue
Strategic priorities
Align cost base to revenue and manage cash to enhance profitability.
  • Manage costs conservatively to maintain the Group's margins and manage cash utilisation to conserve liquidity. Maintain effective controls to monitor and manage currency risk, including the application of the hedging policy.
  • Manage capital allocation to organic and acquisitive growth strategies to achieve strategic objectives.
  • Achieve targeted revenue and income growth and maintain a sound liquidity position.
Maintain working capital management discipline.
  • Streamline procurement, logistics, and distribution (vehicles and parts) to manage inventory levels effectively.
  • Improve working capital management while containing costs in a recessionary economic environment.
  • Maintain healthy liquidity ratios.
Continue to optimise our portfolio to ensure appropriate capital allocation.
  • Exit or dispose of non-strategic dealerships and businesses that do not enhance competitive advantage or that deliver low return on effort.
  • Allocate more capital to digital projects that leverage our existing infrastructure and capability.
  • Invest in enhancing the functionality of our digital presence in all businesses.
  • Continue to invest in the multi-franchise dealership model.
  • Ensure a strong presence in chosen markets by investing in key regions.

2 Leverage competitive advantage to diversify and grow earnings streams

Sub-issue
Strategic priorities
Grow business segment profitability in line with new market realities.
  • Maximise the organic growth potential of each business segment in line with emerging opportunities.
  • Support affordability in a highly constrained consumer environment by offering cost-effective and competitive vehicles, parts, financial services, products, and product enhancements.
  • Continue to drive growth in each business segment through efficiencies and process improvements, including process automation.
  • Enable simpler, faster ways of working supported by digitisation.
  • Distribute and sell competitively priced vehicles and parts by leveraging the Group's buying power.
  • Drive defensive, annuity income streams from financial services and workshops, and well-sourced imports in the Aftermarket Parts business.
  • Capitalise on market shifts to pre-owned vehicles through expanded VAPS offerings and competitively priced booster products and offerings to entry level vehicle buyers.
  • Grow the distribution channel for financial services products by growing relationships with importer independent dealers.
  • Provide a range of products in the aftermarket parts space that meet customers' demands in all tiers of the pricing sectors.
Grow competitive market share by leveraging the integrated value chain.
  • Leverage scale and operational synergies across the integrated automotive value chain.
  • Enable value-led pricing rather than cost-pushed pricing to customers by leveraging the Group's scale and capabilities to create cost efficiencies.
  • Add value to customers, foster deeper customer loyalty, and attract new customers by creating differentiated digital platforms.
  • Continue to enhance the motus.cars platform, increasing customer visibility of inventory availability and functionality of the IT platform.
  • Increase the Motus team's collaboration and improve customer engagement by harnessing digital platforms and creating specialised digital channels.
  • Drive importer volumes to support parts sales, panel sales, workshop servicing, and financial services.
  • Provide superior market penetration opportunities through marketing excellence and well-developed distribution channels and retail footprint.
  • Grow the pre-owned vehicle market share through digital lead generation, improvement of inventory mix in line with market demand, and excellent customer service.
  • Extend reach into vehicle servicing beyond the OEM space through non-franchised dealerships and aftermarket brands.
  • Offer competitively priced vehicle rentals by leveraging the integrated value chain to procure vehicles.
Leverage data and expertise to drive responsiveness to customer needs and market trends.
  • Understand the disruptive impact of COVID-19 on customer preferences for automotive brands, particularly in relation to the current market trend of 'buying down'.
  • Develop innovative value-added products by extracting meaningful business insights from our customer and vehicle data.
  • Drive growth across the automotive value chain by unlocking efficiencies and customer potential through data analytics within existing and new channels.
  • Explore and develop new partnership opportunities, including opportunities to improve customer loyalty and build online customer platforms and portals.
Pursue highly selective strategic growth opportunities in international markets.
  • Diversify revenues and mitigate against a possible economic recession in South Africa by accelerating the planned expansion of the Aftermarket Parts operations outside of South Africa.
  • Explore acquisitions in selected international markets to protect our market positions and complement the existing dealership footprint.

3 Accelerate the implementation of new ways of working and maintain agility to grow the business

Sub-issue
Strategic priorities
Automate and optimise structures, systems, and processes to enable business agility.
  • Maintain a safe and supportive work environment to safeguard employee and customer health, productivity and engagement, particularly changes required by COVID-19.
  • Support efficiency, connectivity, and networking across the Group, and access across businesses by streamlining the IT architecture into appropriate shared services.
  • Drive a programme of continuous improvement in line with defined procedures and policies.
Become a digitally astute organisation by harnessing technology.
  • Accelerate the digitisation of key functions by applying learnings from COVID-19.
  • Leverage the Motus mx innovation platform to drive innovation and digitisation across the Group.
  • Explore ongoing opportunities to further digitise and enhance the customer experience, creating convenient and hassle-free channels for customers to transact with Motus as customer behaviour changes.
  • Investment in digital solutions that enhance our existing ability to efficiently and accurately price trade-in vehicles and leveraging data (acquisition of getWorth).
  • Increase customer engagements through investment in digital and online channels.
  • Utilise Motus data and data warehouses to create new revenue streams for Motus and enhance the quality of decision making across the business.
  • Unlock deeper business insights to create efficiencies and enhance business performance through investment and development of advanced data analytical solutions.
Leverage collective intelligence and entrepreneurial skill of a diverse workforce to drive competitiveness.
  • Drive resilience and agility by maintaining our entrepreneurial culture.
  • Safeguard a flat and transparent leadership structure to reduce the time between strategic decisions and execution to ensure responsiveness amid high uncertainty.
  • Equip leaders to effectively lead diverse teams and embed practices that facilitate a diverse and inclusive culture, driving business growth and performance.
  • Increased communication and sharing within and across divisions to ensure leverage pragmatic best practice.
Enforce sound internal process governance, risk management, and approval structures.
  • Embed robust policies and practices for an increasingly virtual work environment.
  • Embed flexible business continuity processes that can be reconfigured to adapt to emerging threats, for example, COVID-19 and socio-political unrest, without re-engineering or additional investment.
  • Continue to test and maintain business continuity and disaster recovery processes and ensure these remain relevant in light of other emerging threats.
  • Ensure operational governance standards are met, supported by a well-developed control environment, risk management, and deep expertise in finance, treasury, and accounting.
  • Continue to drive ongoing improvement in operational risk management practices in line with agreed governance expectations.
  • Ensure data security and proprietary systems are fit-for-purpose and that IT operational risk controls are effective to address evolving data security and cyber-related risks.
  • Embed risk management processes focusing on the risks and actions that are material in producing a positive outcome, where applicable.

Relevance

1 Deliver exceptional value to customers as their needs change

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Provide exceptional products and services at competitive prices across the automotive value chain.
  • Ensure service excellence at points of sale, rental, service, repair and maintenance.
  • Maintain high dealership standards by empowering Dealer Principals appropriately.
  • Provide a superior customer experience to increasingly well-informed and diverse customers by training and developing employees, particularly sales, aftersales, and online sales representatives.
  • Ensure high-quality workshop services and parts supplies for customers by continuing to deepen collaborative and supportive relationships with suppliers and stringently applying quality controls.
  • Attract prospective customers by leveraging our innovation capabilities and strategically aligning financial service offerings.
  • Actively manage our brand portfolio, increasing our focus on popular brands.
  • Become the preferred supplier of brands for which the Group does not hold exclusive distribution by continuing to build trust in the Motus brand.
  • Explore opportunities to expand the Aftermarket Parts offerings.

 

2 Remain the strategic partner of choice for OEMs and suppliers

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Deepen OEM and supplier partnerships, maintaining a superior route-to-market and strong brand positioning.
  • Preserve long-standing importer and retail partnerships with OEMs, providing market access through quality marketing, high levels of customer satisfaction and dealerships strategically located in growing urban areas.
  • Work with OEMs to ensure we offer the most relevant and competitive products.
  • Partner with OEMs on new ways of penetrating the market and realign route-to-market channels to match evolving customer expectations of product services and support.
  • Provide a digital platform to access an additional channel to market.
  • Extend financial services offerings to more dealers and improve lead generation processes by collaborating with independent dealers.
  • Deepen collaboration with local and international suppliers in our integrated parts supply chain.
Secure strategic partnerships to drive growth and competitiveness.
  • Ensure that our partners are aligned to our strategic objectives and complement our capabilities by proactively managing and deepening our strategic alliances.
  • Grow strategic partnerships with industry leaders to unlock new channels through tailored financial services products that benefit from access to their customer bases.
  • Offer relevant and innovative vehicle asset finance (VAF) and VAPS offerings to the customer bases of financial services partners with established channels to market by leveraging Motus' specialised expertise, data and product design ability.
  • Gain access to highly specialised skills and innovative thinking by partnering with technology developers and solution providers.
  • Enhance our competitive advantage in Aftermarket Parts procurement by partnering with selected international distributors and increasing buying power through the backward integration of the parts supply chain.

 

3 Be an employer of choice in the automotive industry

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Attract and retain high-calibre employees.
  • Implement best people practices across the Group while ensuring the necessary flexibility to enable practical and cost-effective delivery of human capital management in different business segments.
  • Ensure effective performance development, talent management and succession planning that aligns employee capabilities and expectations with business objectives and career opportunities.
  • Develop and empower employees through relevant training interventions, which also promote the mindset, skillset, flexibility and responsiveness required in times of change.
  • Embed inclusivity and collaboration within the Motus culture.
  • Maintain investment in skills development with a particular focus on increasing the number of learnerships and training for all our people.
Ensure a strong focus on transformation and diversity.
  • Deliver diversity training to managers and employees to create an environment in which everyone can perform to their full potential.
  • Implement targeted interventions to develop and promote internal candidates from designated groups (black people, women, and people living with disabilities) and strategically source external talent within these groups to drive transformation and diversity at management level.
  • Drive talent pipeline programmes at Group level to create a pool of entry level candidates from designated groups from which we are able to fill positions when they become available.
Support the wellbeing of our people.
  • Maintain a safe, sustainable and healthy environment that allows our employees to bring their best energy to the workplace.
  • Actively manage the current and long-term impact of COVID-19, including ensuring secure workplaces and employee wellbeing.
  • Embed the best safety practices and a safety mindset across the Group by enhancing our health and safety leadership and capabilities.
  • Continue to support employees experiencing financial and psychological difficulties due to COVID-19 by expanding our Group-wide Employee Assistance Programmes.

 

4 Innovate practically and proactively

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Accelerate agility and ability to adapt to market changes and drive innovation.
  • Leverage first-hand access to developments in different markets to assess the impact on business models and the expected timeframes to implement the necessary changes.
  • Continue to ensure executives understand new technological developments and their potential impact on markets.
  • Leverage IT solutions and data to drive innovation across the vehicle value chain, with the aim of securing higher market penetration in the medium term.
  • Identify opportunities to collaborate with key strategic partners to share intellectual property and drive innovation in line with the principles underpinning the 'open economy'.
  • Closely monitor and increase market intelligence on automotive trends that could disrupt our business, for example, connected or electric and hybrid vehicles, and broader innovation trends that add value to our business in the form of efficiencies, risk management, or new products and services, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, cloud computing, blockchain, and business process automation.
  • Commercialise mobility service solutions that attract new and non-traditional customers by identifying appropriate solutions.
  • Develop brand-agnostic buying tools, for example, Moov, leveraging off our broad brand representation, which allows us to fulfil almost any customer buying choice.

 

5 Use technology to sustain the business

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Optimise and evolve current business models and structures while designing new solutions and operating models.
  • Identify opportunities to accelerate innovation and digitisation as consumer habits and buying behaviour shift in favour of digital platforms. Align continuously with digital, mobility and automation trends and changing customer needs by working with OEMs to deliver innovative solutions and business model changes.
  • Use innovation centres and capabilities to facilitate innovation within all business segments.
  • Develop new products aligned to the vehicle to extract more meaningful data.
Continue to differentiate our offering through innovative VAF solutions, VAPS and mobility services offerings.
  • Deliver the most relevant, personalised, and competitive offerings that meet customer mobility needs by leveraging data analytics to monitor customer behaviour and understand customer preferences, increasing our understanding of OEM strategies and mobility-related technologies.
  • Ensure convenient, consolidated, and compelling access to all of the Group's offerings, by consolidating and improving Motus' online presence through the motus.cars and Motus Select platforms.
  • Develop a single view of the customer across all offerings by leveraging existing data warehouses and lakes, which support all direct marketing and customer relationship management initiatives across the value chain.
  • Deepen understanding of customer data to retain customers and expand market share of vehicle sales and VAPS.
  • Accelerate the use of technology, leveraging digitisation, big data and e-commerce platforms.
  • Develop a fully integrated parts e-commerce platform that enhances both our businesses and our franchisees.

 

Responsibility

1 Demonstrate best-in-class governance

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Establish a credible reputation for ethical, effective and independent leadership.
  • Demonstrate the independence, ethics and effectiveness of the board.
  • Tone at the top to be clear on the ethics of the business.
  • Regularly review the Group's management succession plans for the short and long term, including for the CEO, his direct reports, and other levels of senior management.
Maintain best governance practices.
  • Deepen application of King IV principles and recommendations.
  • Maintain and enhance robust control and risk management systems.
  • Embed effective reporting processes for board visibility.
  • Implement a Group-wide management tool for monitoring and reporting on the internal control environment that also allows for the alignment of first, second and third lines of defence responsibilities and drives improvements in combined assurance.
Comply with laws and regulations across multiple jurisdictions and maintain our moral compass.
  • Manage the complexity and cost impact of compliance with regulations and fiscal policy, including alignment with the new financial services regulatory landscape.
  • Proactively monitor and engage with regulators on emerging legislation.
  • Follow international trends to understand potential upcoming regulatory changes and how these can be used to enhance customer experiences.
  • Embed a strong culture of ethics and integrity, supported by the Code of Ethics, current ethical practices, and governance standards.

2 Proactively manage the economic, social and environmental consequences of our actions

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Maintain strong relationships with broader communities.
  • Achieve a Level 4 B-BBEE rating in 2021.
  • Increase the number of black people in management positions and develop the skills of black employees.
  • Direct more spend to B-BBEE-compliant businesses that fall within our controllable spend parameters (including exempt micro-enterprises and qualifying small enterprises).
  • Continue to deliver supplier and enterprise development initiatives, including training, mentoring, and financial assistance for black-owned small-, medium- and micro-enterprises.
  • Invest in corporate social investment programmes that support education, health, and road safety.
  • Participate where relevant in socio-economic drivers of the South African economy, for example youth unemployment.
Operate in an environmentally conscious and responsible manner.
  • Continue to improve our sustainability reporting to remain eligible for the FTSE4Good Index Series and obtain a CDP rating.
  • Achieve targets to install solar power where feasible.

3 Consistently deliver on stakeholder expectations to protect our reputation

Sub-issue Strategic priorities
Strengthen relationships with all key stakeholders.
  • Maintain high standards of accountability, transparency, and integrity in running the business and reporting to shareholders and other stakeholders.
  • Ensure responsiveness to the legitimate concerns of all stakeholders through accurate and transparent disclosures.
  • Continually improve the quality of our ESG reporting to stakeholders.
Retain current investors and attract new investors both locally and internationally.
  • Deliver on our vision, the related strategic objectives, and our investment proposition.
  • Defend and grow market share in South Africa, continue to grow annuity income streams, and grow in selected international markets.
  • Maintain strong free cash flows.
  • Deliver best-in-class earnings and targeted returns.
  • Maintain a dividend pay-out through the economic cycle.
Position Motus as a proudly South African market leader.
  • Develop and deploy a public relations strategy that reinforces Motus' agility, entrepreneurial innovation and relevance, developing our brand recognition and online presence.
  • Improve disclosure of our significant contribution to South Africa's socio-economic objectives, particularly in terms of fiscal contribution and people development and contributing to community-based projects.