The final segment of a four-part digitised series by the Johannesburg Business School in partnership with Business Day SME MattersIn the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic everything from education to doctors’ visits went online, forcing companies to use technology to reimagine almost every aspect of their business. There is no doubt that digital technology, our lifeline in surviving the pandemic, will be the medium that aids rapid and smart recovery.
It’s impossible to function without technology, said Stuff magazine editor-in-chief and publisher Toby Shapshack. His advice to SMEs was to give a wide berth to flashy and unnecessary technology and instead invest in technology that can make a real difference to a business. It’s not just the technology you choose to invest in that counts, but how you use it that makes the difference.
SMEs are particularly vulnerable to the digital divide compared with larger corporates who have IT departments at their disposal to build technological capacity, said Alistair Mokoena, SA country director of Google. Lyndsay Duff, senior lead at social impact business what3words, says the Covid-19 lockdown forced many companies to speed up their digital integration to gain access to markets.