Blog
Other service activitiesSouth Africa
The Test Of Time
A colleague recently pointed out that First National Bank’s registration number shows that it was registered in 1929 (as Barclays South Africa), just as the world entered the great depression....
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Global Disruptors
I recently paged through the December 2019 copy of the Economist’s The World in 2020 edition, which makes predictions for the year ahead, and while no mention was made of...
Other service activitiesSouth Africa
Pockets of Excellence
Under the circumstances, it is easy to be pessimistic, but South African society has backbone and we should take pride in our many pockets of excellence. My wife and I...
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Disruptors
Disruptors present both threats and opportunities and are largely driven by three things; changes in consumer tastes, changes in law and technological innovation. Ostrich feathers were highly fashionable in the...
Other service activitiesSouth Africa
Less is more
According the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa there is no set rule, but the guideline is that one person ought not to hold more than five posts as non-executive...
Covid19Other service activities
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
My wife and I recently drove through the Overberg in the Western cape and were treated to a view of lush rolling wheat and canola fields merging with the snow-capped...
Covid19Other service activities
The Impact of Covid on Individual Industries
The move to lock down level two brings with it some hope that our economy will gain a fresh momentum to recovery. The WOW industry reports researched since the beginning of lock down have covered the direct impact of the pandemic on various industries. These are some of the observations: Online retail Prior to the corona virus pandemic, online retail sales grew by 20% in 2019, but still accounted for less than 2% of South Africa’s R1-trillion overall retail trade. This compares with ecommerce penetration of 13% to 20% in relatively mature markets in Europe, the US, and China.
Covid19Other service activities
Sectors To Watch Post-Covid
In the light of the president’s commitment to a social compact on July 23rd we have examined the economic strategy documents recently published by Business for SA, the ANC’s Economic Transformation Committee and re-visited the sadly neglected National Development Plan and identified (with some assumptions) the twenty one sectors targeted for growth which are common to these documents.
