Management

When you stand at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) to discuss transformation, something clarifies. Not because the room is clever, although it often is. Instead, the building reflects the behaviour of markets. Capital gets priced there every day. Narratives do not move tickers; performance does. When performance disappoints, the market responds immediately. It marks you down and moves on.

Most mid-market businesses in South Africa have technology budgets that look reasonable on paper. They allocate spending to infrastructure. They refresh devices on schedule. More so, they account for software licences and they implement some form of security. As a result, nothing appears obviously broken. However, this is often where technology budget misalignment begins.

New global research reveals a critical gap in corporate restructuring. It shows that 83% of business restructuring leaders arrive too late to save value. Therefore, organisations must shift from reactive crisis repair to proactive strategic resilience.

South African organisations are moving quickly from Artificial Intelligence (AI) experimentation to deployment. The latest South African Generative AI Roadmap 2025 highlights this shift. It found that 67% of respondents reported current GenAI adoption. This figure is up from 45% in 2024. Therefore, organisations are moving from planning to active use.

In the pursuit of digital transformation, South African businesses often highlight their cutting-edge applications, multi-cloud strategies, or latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) models. Yet behind each of these advancements lies a powerful, unseen engine. The enterprise storage platform has quietly evolved from a simple data repository into a dynamic force for innovation.

In South Africa’s evolving corporate landscape, the role of the Non-Executive Director is undergoing a quiet but significant transformation. Increasingly, the expanding role of the Non-Executive Director reflects this shift. Previously, organisations primarily tasked Non-Executive Directors with oversight and compliance. Today, however, they expect Non-Executive Directors to contribute meaningfully to strategy, risk navigation and long-term value creation.

One of the single scariest challenges for a growth business is when they must make the calls to “level-up” on their talent within their organisation. The standard monthly cost for an experienced Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is between R2m and R5m per annum. Gulp. For a growth business this represents a very significant investment. Not only are you bringing in an expensive resource, but this is also a person who will interrogate your business in a way that your current bookkeeper or accountant never has.

African managers and executives often set their sights on multinational contexts. Others expand their companies beyond their home markets. However, they operate in environments where success is not determined by market dynamics alone. International business sits at the intersection of state policy, foreign direct investment, political economy and corporate control.

In my experience, leadership has often been treated as a function of certainty. Experience is expected to provide answers. Structure is expected to deliver control. Leadership itself centres on directing, deciding and maintaining order. However, that model is under strain.

Let’s clear something up straight away. There is no such thing as overnight success. This is where the overnight success myth begins. It’s an impressive phrase. However, it belongs in the same category as “instant legacy” or “effortless empire”. In fact, the overnight success myth is catchy and marketable, but largely fiction.