How brands can lead into a new era by Abey Mokgwatsane

HOW BRANDS CAN LEAD IN A NEW ERA

BY ABEY MOKGWATSANE

We have a new time stamp: Before Corona and After Corona. Covid-19 has created fundamental changes to the way we live, work and think.

Two significant implications come to mind for brands in this new era: a requirement to drive purpose-led organisations, and accelerated digital transformation. Humanity has been dealt a body blow, leaving us feeling vulnerable and anxious, questioning the very core of our personal existence. This creates an opportunity for brands to step up and provide utility, assurance and hope. It is done through aligning an organisation with an ambition beyond profit to one that creates shared value by making the world a better place. This builds customer trust, which is in deficit at the moment. Digital transformation is now no longer an option as customers’ requirements to trade and engage seamlessly at any time and from anywhere becomes a reality. How then, do brands navigate this time? The anchor for any brand should be its organisational purpose. Good organisations know WHAT they do, great organisations know HOW to do it, but the best organisations know WHY they do what they do. Even better is when that WHY is inextricably linked to creating a more sustainable world. Google’s purpose is to organise the world’s information; Nike wants to bring out the athlete in all of us. At Vodacom we use our technology to connect customers to create a better future. Purpose helps steer organisations in times of crisis. In chaos, the speed of decisions and alignment are critical. Organisations that do not have the North Star that purpose provides will find themselves Vodacom’s purpose is using its technology to connect customers to create a better future. Image: Nadine Hutton/Bloomberg via Getty Images

with decision bottlenecks, unable to execute effectively. Why is this important for brands? Brands ultimately have to build trust by ensuring that communication and customer experience are congruent. Having a clear purpose safeguards this congruency as everyone is singing from the same proverbial hymn sheet. Many initiatives born of Vodacom’s purpose have met fundamental needs at this time. Our free digital school platform, e-School, which gives access to the entire

public school syllabus, from grades R to 12, now has more than 1-million registered users. Another example of purpose in action is that Vodacom made a decision a few months ago to consolidate all free services into one social compact platform to make it easier for customers to understand and get access to these services. ConnectU now has over 500,000 daily unique visitors accessing services such as zero-rated education, health, job and government function sites. This initiative would have been necessitated by Covid-19, but was already in the pipeline to manifest purpose. This segues into the matter of digital transformation. Who is driving your organisation’s digital transformation? Your CEO? The CTO? Or Covid-19? I suspect for many organisations Covid-19 has accelerated the digital evolution of the enterprise. Customers who have sidestepped digital channels now have no choice but to adopt them to get access to services. My mother is now shopping online from two different retailers for weekly groceries and I doubt she will ever default to driving to the shops for everything again.