Why are you in business AT ALL?

If there was ever a time for mindful business, now is the time. KZN companies, like firms around the world, are reeling in response to the lockdown and global economic contraction. They will do well to remember that good people and good companies are ennobled by a challenge

Textbook answers and business clichés ring hollow when workers and company owners are left aghast at the scenes unfolding. How should local business respond? The panorama of the pandemic might not be as bleak as you imagined and, as poet Alexander Pope wrote, hope springs eternal in the human breast.

This was the upshot of the first Virtual Vega Talks, hosted in collaboration with KZN INVEST and moderated by Durban Vega campus navigator, Naretha Pretorius.

Panellists Ian Gourley and Wendy Mahoney considered the issues and hinged their presentations around innovation. Mahoney heads up consulting group Newmella Holdings, and Gourley is the Group Creative Director at Barrows, a global retail company headquartered in Durban.

The incentive to innovate, Gourley said, was survival. Most businesses faced with the threat of closure battened down the hatches and regrouped. The crisis forced many companies to do what they ought to do routinely: clearly articulate their challenges.

Innovation, he added, was a process framed by hope. “Imagining our future lifts us up ... it outlines the change that we can become and it inspires us. Hope is an elixir that helps us press on.”

Gourley said businesses could draw strength from inspirational leaders like South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, both of whom inspired confidence and provided thought leadership and clarity.

Reimagining was fundamental to innovation and required expansive thinking, Gourley said. He quoted Cuomo who said he was tired of being asked what New York was going to look like when “things get back to normal”.

“Cuomo said we will never return to the past. We will never turn back. We have to reimagine everything: travel, communication, all sorts of engagement.” Tragedies like the pandemic and the 911 disaster often had the consequence of improving things and benefitting civilisation, however painful the process was.

“I think what we should do is reimagine things better. Humans want to make it better. I hope we look back on this as a time where innovation surged and that we don’t go back to our old ways when the tragedy wanes.”

Gourley suggested businesses document this time. Innovation helped create new neural pathways and fostered a new, unrivalled sense of collaboration. “It is fantastic. We must learn and continue to learn.” In response to the pandemic, people engaged and shared innovations on open platforms, lifting humanity.

At first, social distancing put the brake on innovation. People needed to interact and engage and felt disconnected, as though they were operating in a vacuum. Conversation was critical to most businesses. But, people realised innovation wasn’t always a brainstorming session. It was based on what people were hearing, seeing and thinking. Businesses could refuel their innovation engines by better understanding changes in the world around them.

Gourley said he was encouraged by the buoyancy of the human spirit, and acknowledged that while he was an eternal optimist, he felt “terrified and overwhelmed” at times because the pace of change was unprecedented.

“It’s unbelievable. What were five-year plans are now one-year plans. We are in warp speed and we are jumping to remodel and restructure. This demands new skills and thrusts new processes on us. We have been disrupted by a common enemy – not a competitor – and it means accelerated processes.

“My heart goes out to businesses that have to make difficult decisions as a result of this.”

Gourley said Barrows had a reputation for being able to “pivot fast”. It had retained some of its traditional point-of sale lines but had also remodelled in response to the crisis. The company had made screens to separate supermarket cashiers from shoppers. It was making foot-operated hand sanitiser pumps because “safety is the new experience”.

Wendy Mahoney said innovation had moved from a “future aspiration to a current necessity”. She quoted Charles Darwin who said it is not the strongest of the species that survives, it is the one most adaptable to change.

Those struggling with innovation needed to remember their “golden compass” was their customer. Innovation conceptualised an idea into a product or service of value to your customer. It is rooted in empathy and required inspiration and creativity aimed at solving a problem.

“Innovation requires that we look outside of ourselves. We don’t know what the future looks like, but we have a connection with our stakeholders. We can help them avoid a pain or access a gain. That’s the starting point of innovation. What does your stakeholder value? The value you offer determines their loyalty to you. Businesses that truly understand what their customers need will survive.”

Innovation was a constant process, Mahoney said, not something episodic. It meant businesses had to evolve, create prototypes, test them out and in doing so, respond to customer pain points.

Mahoney and Gourley said a key element to survival was socially responsible companies.

“I think we owe it to the people who have died that they did not die in vain,” Gourley said. “We need to make sure we apply what we are learning, to make the world a better place. We all have the opportunity to do this and companies that don’t take a social stance will be judged.”

Mahoney said the world was seeing a shift from capitalism to “conscious capitalism” and companies were mindful of moving from “net profit to net positive impact or net value”.

Profit, she predicted, would be overtaken by purpose as defined by human and planetary sustainability.

Gourley said companies would be publicly shamed if they capitalized on the pandemic. This demanded transparency around business and integrity of supply chains. “Do your due diligence and play by your values ... people value integrity more than price.”

Mahoney said integrity underpinned innovation. “Companies now more than ever need to review their purpose for innovating and the values that support them, as their key drivers in current times. People will judge the intent behind your action more than your action. The authenticity of intent is something at the moment that is differentiating companies.”

Gourley and Mahoney said the pandemic presented businesses with the opportunity to reimagine, and that companies would do well to look at what was in their asset box and repurpose around two new big issues: savings and safety.

“More people are listening than ever before,” Gourley said. “Start something, do it, put yourself out there. There are changes in consumer behaviour, there is no whimsical or impulse purchasing. People are more careful with their money.”

Vega Talks navigator, Naretha Pretorius, said the discussion emphasised the need for businesses to reimagine, to be humancentric and live their brand promise. “This is an opportunity to show up. To honestly assess what value you add.”