In This Issue

Corruption has become as much a part of the South African identity as Seven Colour Sundays or biltong. Eradicating something that is woven into our nation’s fabric seems like an impossible task, and is a possibility only if whistleblowers are prepared to take a stand.

South Africa’s current woes are in large part a result of a large-scale breakdown in ethics (both personal and professional) and good governance practices. One only needs to look at the goings-on at Steinhoff, KPMG, Eskom, SARS and VBS Bank to see the impact that unethical behaviour, large scale looting and unchecked business practices have had on the South African economy and on South Africans, whose confidence in the leadership of this country and those in business is at an all-time low.

Read our exclusive cover story entitled WHISTLEBLOWING | THE COST OF COURAGE! by David Loxton, Head, Africa Forensics & Cyber, as well a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the February/March 2019 edition of BusinessBrief.

The Council of Higher Education (CHE) has established itself as South Africa’s primary protector of the Holy Grail of Higher Education Qualifications - at the cost of the dignity of our working citizens.

Cyber-attacks are increasingly becoming more and more sophisticated, and the magnitude of their impact across all industries globally is at an all-time high. A number of reports in the last two years revealed that the BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) were found to be amongst the largest victims of cybercrime. According to VM Advisory*, South Africa is listed as one of the ten globally most vulnerable countries to cyberattacks.

Mobbing is ‘bullying on steroids’, a horrifying new trend where a bully enlists co-workers to collude in a relentless campaign of psychological terror against a hapless target. (This is different to flash mobbing in a workplace which can be a form of a strike where employees do something collectively to draw attention to an issue).

The amendments to the Competition Act, 1998, which introduce criminal liability for cartel conduct, came into effect on 1 May 2016.

On a daily basis we deal with graduates who are not able to find work despite impressive sounding qualifications. Some qualifications sound very glamorous, but only return value after a person has reached a Master or Doctorate Level.

853,000,000 results pop up when you google SUCCESS - tips to achieving anything, traits of successful leaders, steps to launching your million-dollar startup, even how to become the next Mark Zuckerberg. Most people tend to think the most successful entrepreneurs, business owners and CEOs we read about just got lucky. That the key to their success was the sum of the perfect equation of entrepreneurial traits, skills, money and background. Some magic formula the rest don’t have access to.

Businesses are, for a large part, uninformed and risk averse towards securing IoT. Enterprise, industrial and commercial IoT is a sticking point for business, particularly in South Africa, where boards of directors and senior executives are not yet knowledgeable about the benefits. This causes them to be exceptionally averse to risk, but this is changing as younger and more informed ‘tech-savvy’ executives are being appointed to boards.