Tag: COVID-19

As many small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa reel from the financial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, it is important that they embrace technologies that will help them overcome current challenges and ready themselves for a ‘new normal’.

Renewed emphasis on digitalisation as a key strategy for sustainability is placing pressure on CIOs to ensure corporate systems are resilient. One certainty that has emerged from the COVID-19 crisis is that organisations embarking on digitalisation were better prepared to respond to the crisis.

Consumer concerns related to COVID-19 including fears of being infected by the coronavirus while attending to their banking matters and stress related to debt issues have come to our attention. In response to President Ramaphosa’s address on the measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus, we urge consumers to remain calm and to follow the stringent measures in place to protect both themselves and their families. 

Nationally, on 1 May 2020, South Africa will move from its current position at level 5 to level 4. This means that all essential services will be able to continue operating together with the following additional sectors: food retail stores will be permitted to sell full line of products, agriculture, forestry, mining, financial and professional services, postal and telecommunications services, information technology services and formal waste recycling services.

Our world has changed. The aspects that we have accepted as daily occurrences, and those that we have taken for granted, are no longer possible.

Many companies will have to go into recovery mode once the lockdown and the restrictive measures that were put in place are officially lifted. With industries already burdened by the instability of our economy, many will have to look into ways that can help market and position their businesses as crucial entities to the masses.

With the payment of the first COVID-19 Temporary Employee / Employer Relief Scheme (TERS) benefits, various misunderstandings have come to the forefront.

Prior to the pandemic we were seeing the usual scams impersonating banks, telcos, and shipping companies but now a portion of them have switched to using the pandemic, the World Health Organisation, the American Centers for Disease Control and various international and local charitable organisations as bait.

The ongoing developments around Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) globally have led to many governments and authorities implement stringent safety measures to tackle its impact. Measures such as increased travel restrictions and, in most countries, complete travel bans restricting all international travel, have created a seismic shift in the tourism and travel supply chain.

South African investors are still absorbing the twin blows of being downgraded by Moody’s into junk territory and, just four days later, the expected Fitch decision to take the South African sovereign debt rating down a further notch into junk territory.