EDITOR’S COMMENT

Adaptability versus bad news opinions and conspiracy theories.

Just like every other month in South Africa, and this July in particular, there’s no shortage of news. The country is literally bursting at the seams with all the goings-on, not least of these being the pandemic, incidents of violent unrest and looting, the incarceration of ex-president Jacob Zuma and the POPI Act.

And, news just in: loadshedding is starting again, according to my trusty app. Everyone has an opinion, and the conspiracists are having a ball. There’s one particular quote about current circumstances by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that pops up in my head from time to time and always makes me laugh out loud, and while I won’t share it here, there’s something to be said for a good chuckle even in the toughest times.

Far more useful is this quote by Louisiana State University business professor and author Leon C. Megginson: “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” That we’re living in a changed world is indisputable. So much of what was familiar is gone – for now at least. What interests me is how some of us are not only surviving but thriving, and I’m not lying when I say that the word ‘adaptability’ has been buzzing around in my head for the last couple of days. So, I was delighted to find an article ‘3 ways to be more adaptable in difficult times’, published on LinkedIn1 by Heidi Hanna, author, researcher and speaker, who talks about the importance of adaptability: “in times like these, where we face daily uncertainty and elevated levels of stress, discomfort, and disorder.” She goes on to discuss the need to reframe the way in which we look at challenges, along with the importance of being flexible.

Who among us South Africans is doing this, I wondered while reading her article? I turned to Google then, as one does, and it seems like quite a few people and companies are turning chaos into opportunity. Some have started new businesses in areas as diverse as social media, food, cleaning services, tutoring and even insurance. Fairly new start-up Naked Insurance has taken on the traditional insurance giants, telling Business Insider2 that “The people that were going to meet the changing consumer needs were going to be new players.” The article quotes Naked co-founder Alex Thomson, further: “We haven’t sold a single policy over the phone, made a single outbound call, and haven’t sent a single sales SMS... And, in a year when insurance companies were the worst offenders when it came to spam phone calls in South Africa, Naked has instead grown “more than three times” this year alone, in a more organic fashion – via word-of-mouth, and with an Uber-like incentive scheme for getting your friends on board.”

Doing business in a new way is proving fundamental to current and long-term success. Yebo Fresh3 was a new start-up when Covid-19 hit South Africa. Committed to supplying township families and other clients with food, simply and safely, the company focused on partnering with NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and community action networks, with the result that its volumes reportedly grew by “thirty times, almost overnight”. Attributing its success in part to mobile technology, smart backend systems, extensive data analysis and a constant drive to optimise its performance, its business model may be extrapolated to other sectors, security included.

Winner of the Aim Virtual Startup Pitch Competition 2020, Kudoti was launched as a tech-driven platform to add value to South Africa’s ‘untapped’ waste and recycling sector. Co-founder Gift Lubele, as quoted in VentureBurn4 says that the company uses hardware and software technology to collect data, improve logistics and processing in an industry where the main challenges include highly inefficient paper-based processes and wasted manual resources that could easily be automated.

While the businesses differ enormously in terms of what they do, there are some common threads such as using technology to streamline processes, reduce costs and improve efficiency.

It may not seem like the ideal time to start a new business, says The Workspace5, but entrepreneurs see the “environment of rapid change, uncertainty and new needs” as an opportunity for innovation to come to the fore. “That’s where entrepreneurs thrive!” it avers.

To wrap, I want to share these do-able steps from an article written by Mike Anderson, founder and CEO of South Africa’s National Small Business Chamber (NSBC) and published on BizTrends6

• Keep up with business trends which will put you in a stronger position to boost sales, operate more effectively, reduce expenses, market to your target audience, elevate your customers’ experience and build a loyal customer base.

• Have a professional online presence. Pay, if you have to for a website, and utilise social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Also ensure you have a professional email signature (all in compliance with the newly implemented POPI Act, of course).

• If you sell products, you need to add an ecommerce component to your business – people aren’t going into stores in the numbers they used to as we all know.

• Accept that remote work – or at least a hybridised new work model – is the way of the future and restructure if you have to. (You could end up saving a lot of money on rent and traveling time.)

• Embrace mobile communication, which must be responsive from a client’s viewing and engagement point of view and a key tool for connecting with your work-from-home employees at the same time.

• Make it possible and easy for people to do digital payments – there’s more and more talk of a cashless future.

• Business continuity: cut out unnecessary spending and reduce debt, so you can weather the next storm while building a sustainable legacy if that’s important to you.

Last bit of advice: go easy on the bad news. I’ve figured out that checking the news in the morning, the afternoon and then a quick last-check before I finish work for the day is a lot better for my state of mind than being constantly connected.

Wishing you success and safety.

Be safe.

Ingrid Olivier, Editor

ingridolivier@idotwrite.co.za

1. https://www.linkedin.com/business/learning/blog/ career-success-tips/3-ways-to-be-more-adaptableduring-difficult-times

2. https://www.businessinsider.co.za/how-nakedplans-to-disrupt-the-insurance-industry-withoutspam-and-call-centre-tricks-2020-12

3. https://www.yebofresh.co.za/about/

4. ˇhttps://ventureburn.com/2020/07/kudoti-crownedsas-startup-champion-for-2020/

5 https://www.theworkspace.co.za/blog/12-southafrican-entrepreneurs-to-watch-in-2021/

6. https://www.thesmallbusinesssite. co.za/2021/01/11/biztrends2021-6-key-trends-forsmall-businesses-in-2021-and-beyond/