Tag: Intellectual Property (IP)

South African enterprise is no stranger to the phenomenon of cybercrime. In light of numerous high-profile data breaches, it is evident that digital espionage is on the rise. In fact, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) estimates that South Africans lose R2.2bn to internet fraud and phishing attacks annually.

Technology enabled Local Marketing Strategies (LMS) help leading franchises grow at a rate three times faster than competitors. One of the great challenges facing franchise businesses is to maintain their group brand identity while enabling LMS at branch level. Those that do, grow at a rate of about three times than that of their competitors.

Businesses are putting themselves at increased risk of losing data, by not curbing the actions of current and former employees. 25% of workers in South Africa still have access to files and documents from a previous employer, putting the integrity of data and company livelihood at risk, finds new research ‘Sorting out digital clutter in business’.

When boards of directors gather to discuss the top risks of an organisation, it may entail matters such as structurally high unemployment, labour unrest, exchange rate volatility, political uncertainty, unmanageable fraud and corruption, threats of new market entrants or even product stagnation. Whilst there are indeed many more topical risks that may be relevant to the nature of the organisation’s business and immediate environment, it is not common for a board to include the threat of their innovation and intellectual property (IP) being marginalised or lost.