Alternation Special Edition 4 (2011) 306 – 333 ISSN 1023-1757 306 Strategic Planning for Digital Convergence in South African Businesses Kiru J. Pillay Manoj S. Maharaj Abstract Findings generated from a study that looked at the benefits and barriers that organisations anticipate, experience and plan for when considering a strategic implementation of convergence initiatives are presented. The study focused on the strategic planning aspects of convergence in South African organisations and analysed the sophistication of these plans. The paper presents a discussion of three phases within the process: The first phase interrogates the planning process and reveals that the organisations under study did not adopt a formal approach to planning, and at best relied on a semi-formal approach. The second phase investigates the planning steps for convergence, which show that the majority of organisations do follow a step- by-step approach and make deliberate attempts to identify the benefits of and barriers to their convergence initiatives. An expanded model incorporating these planning steps is proposed with additional steps extrapolated from the research findings and the literature review. Lastly an in investigation of the benefits and barriers anticipated and experienced reveals that the benefits anticipated from a convergence initiative show a clear expectation of lower management and service costs. Keywords: Digital Convergence, Strategic Planning. Introduction There has been much written about convergence in the past few decades, so much so that it has become increasingly difficult to separate hype from