Tag: agility

At the beginning of every year, a barrage of trend think pieces flood our favourite news sites and inboxes, courtesy of whatever newsletter we don’t remember subscribing to – from the useful; “Three factors influencing your investments this year” to the downright absurd; “Why that cuddly kitty of yours is a killer.” And no, we didn’t make that last one up – it’s a bona fide New York Times article!

We all know the enthusiasm of making ambitious New Year's resolutions each January - get fit! Save money! Spend less screen time! But while our personal goals often fall by the wayside, setting professional resolutions can be genuinely transformative. That's why I recommend starting the year by relooking your corporate travel game.

Spurred on by unpredictable market trends, changing customer behaviours, and the rise of e-commerce, businesses are having to redefine their operations. One industry in particular feeling the weight of this change is retail.

With its two-tiered, highly unequal healthcare system, only 14.86% of South Africa’s population can currently afford private healthcare, and rising costs are making it difficult for many to keep paying their monthly medical aid premiums.

Although technologies such as artificial intelligence, business process automation and machine learning have developed at a rate faster than we could have imagined, we’re not yet at a point where we can say with certainty that machines are going to replace all humans in the workplace any time soon.

In recent years many more organisations have embraced Software as a Service (SaaS), particularly Backup as a Service (BaaS) as more and more workloads have migrated into the cloud. In Africa, this migration to the cloud is being led by smaller enterprises without the legacy infrastructure and investment, whereas the larger businesses have shifted critical workloads in order to gain agility advantages.

Why do some states thrive, grow their economies and uplift their people while others, facing similar challenges, slide into low growth, social dysfunction and failure? After decades of work on the ground in states in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, bestselling author Greg Mills seeks to provide answers in Rich State, Poor State.

Business leaders are not always willing or able to take on the challenge of transforming the existing operating model. They face resistance due to turf wars, internal bureaucracy, legacy working methods, technology debt and corporate politics. In fact, over 31% of business leaders consider resistance to change within their organisation a pivotal barrier to redesigning the operating model.

In the vast expanses of the African continent, a beacon of entrepreneurship and innovation shines brightly. Nestled at its southernmost tip, South Africa is not just a country, it's a dynamic marketplace brimming with potential. Yet, it's not just the sprawling savannahs or the captivating cultural heritage that make this nation remarkable.

When you think of the cloud, don’t simply think of it as a technology concept. It’s much more than that. The cloud is an innovative business model that has rapidly reshaped our ways of working - and continues to do so. It’s a whole new way of buying and using IT infrastructure, platforms and applications that enables us to become faster, more flexible and efficient than we could be when we needed to own all of our hardware and software.