Tag: DigitalTransformation

South African businesses are not in the habit of replacing their hardware every year, nor should they be. While IT has evolved into a much more critical component of the modern enterprise, most businesses still have to reconcile their infrastructure needs with the capital they can allocate to it.

As a society, we are rightly asking some important questions about the future of our world. Some of the most important questions relate to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it could impact our lives and livelihoods. They also concern whom and what we trust. Other important questions arise from the changing geopolitical order.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved quickly from novelty to everyday business infrastructure. It now sits inside email platforms, document systems, customer service channels, finance tools and analytics environments, influencing how decisions are prepared and how work gets done.

Liverpool Football Club (FC) plays in a stadium that holds just over 60,000 people, but its fan base runs into the hundreds of millions. That gap creates a problem the club cannot solve through football alone. While a crowd in a stadium moves together, a global following does not. It spreads across time zones, devices, habits and local gatherings. Each supporter experiences the club in a different way.

If connectivity is now only a fraction of a viable Internet Service Provider (ISP)’s revenue, where does the business go from here, and what should companies be changing to ensure they remain relevant to South Africans? Over the past few years, mobile and fixed connectivity have delivered low to moderate growth for most ISPs.

Financial leaders are now being asked to fund Artificial Intelligence (AI), govern it, and explain the value it creates. This isn't a simple technology question. In banking, it is becoming a test of leadership. AI is starting to influence decisions at the core of the business. These include credit, fraud, pricing, collections, customer engagement, compliance and operational resilience. These decisions affect customers, regulators, shareholders, employees and the institution’s ability to compete.

In June, Meta experienced a global outage that disrupted Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services for users worldwide. The outage left many businesses temporarily unable to connect with customers through some of their most important digital channels. While the disruption was temporary, it highlighted the risks associated with relying too heavily on a single digital platform.

If there is one thing organisations know well, it is that disputes are expensive. The expense extends beyond legal fees. It also includes management time, damaged relationships and strategic distraction. A supplier dispute that should take weeks can consume months of senior attention. For multinationals juggling cross-jurisdictional matters, the logistical burden alone can dwarf the value of the underlying claim.

We have concluded a first-of-its-kind benchmark study focused on how employees experience technology across eight major institutions in the Financial Services Industry (FSI). The Employee Technology Experience Index (TEXI) measured employee sentiment across eight core technology categories. It used a standardised scoring methodology. The findings reveal the scale of the cost.

Read our exclusive cover story titled Mission focus – does AI enable strategy or create distraction? by Steven Ambrose, CEO, Strategy Worx Consulting, plus a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics.