Tag: digitalisation

If South Africa is to successfully drive job creation and achieve sustainable economic growth, the key is to enable large corporate support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The small business sector is instrumental to creating an inclusive economy and a better life for the previously marginalised.

At the dawn of computer security in the late 1980s, antivirus software emerged as a response to the first malware. Since then, the industry has been playing catch-up, and the challenge for cyber-defence solutions has been to recognise new malware and techniques as quickly as possible and offer the appropriate protection.

Payroll solutions in South Africa must be modernised to benefit from the likes of cloud computing, robotic process automation (RPA), and artificial intelligence. If companies are to effectively contend with evolving payroll legislation in the country, they need to embrace these technologies and transform into digitally driven organisations.

As global governments seek to lead the way in building back stronger, more resilient and interconnected economies, facilitating accelerated digitalisation for business will be mission critical. The pace of evolution as necessitated by the events of 2020 provided a glimpse of what is possible - we now stand at a critical juncture, with the available tools to truly revitalise and reimagine vital industries.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation and now industry is leaning into technology that increasingly automates, integrates and harnesses collaboration between disparate business operations. As it does, IT leaders are putting Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) firmly back on the boardroom table in large enterprises.

Most African business leaders are more optimistic about the strength of the global economy and their organisations’ ability to grow revenues in the next 12 months than they were a year ago. Although CEOs’ confidence in their own company’s revenue prospects has rebounded, they are anxious, too: policy uncertainty, tax policy, cyber threats and over-regulation are keeping them awake at night.

Downsizing, remote working and interacting with customers online have become part of the daily grind. And with the Third Wave of infections upon us, those organisations who have not yet modernised their technology environments will find it increasingly difficult to survive.

Cybersecurity for small business has come to the fore as more Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) shifted towards digitalisation to survive in the unstable by COVID-19 circumstances. Yet, shockingly, according to research from IBM and the Ponemon Institute released in 2020, a whopping two out of five companies in the United States and the United Kingdom with 50 or fewer employees do not have any type of cybersecurity defence plan in place.

Digitalisation is impacting nearly every single aspect of our lives. There is not only a rapid adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, but everyone is becoming more dependent on software, hardware and cloud infrastructure.

Business school leaders have shown their schools to have been both pragmatic and agile in the face of 2020’s disruption, according to the AMBA & BGA Education Technology Research, in association with Barco. The 216 decision makers at international business schools who completed AMBA & BGA’s research demonstrated that while, initially, they have all been reactive to the need for to adopt tech rapidly in the face of social distancing.