Reference no: EM133171129

Business Management 621, Read the case study below and answer ALL the questions that follow.

How the business environment is influencing De Beers De Beers was established in 1888 as a joint venture between Cecil John Rhodes and Barney Barnato, who was instrumental in the development of the South African diamond industry. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer started the Anglo-American Corporation in 1917 to develop the gold mining industry in South Africa. In 1926 he was elected to the De Beers board after Anglo American Corporation became a major shareholder in De Beers. Two generations of Oppenheimer's followed suit to manage the business to become one of the world's biggest diamond suppliers with a monopoly on the extraction and selling of diamonds. In 2012 Anglo American bought out the Oppenheimer family's share of De Beers, making it the majority shareholder with the remaining shares being held by the Botswana government.

Today De Beers is an international corporation with a diverse portfolio which can be seen as a vertical integration process. It focusses on diamond exploration (finding new sources of diamonds), diamond extraction through the mining of diamonds in various parts of the world through open-pit mining, finding alluvial diamonds in coastal waters, and through deep sea extraction, the trading of diamonds on wholesale level, the selling of diamonds through its own and other diamond retail outlets, as well as manufacturing industrial diamonds for industrial use. De Beers remains one of the leading diamond companies in the world, with a diversified portfolio of mines in different parts of the world. In South Africa the Venetia open pit mine near Mussina is one of the prime suppliers of diamonds in South Africa. This open pit mine will also, in future, delve deeper, developing an underground mine below the Venetia open pit area. In Botswana, De Beers has four open pit mines, namely Jwaneng, Orapa, Letlhakane and Damtshaa.