On Thursday, 2 April,聽CFO South Africa聽hosted its first ever online summit with more than 40 finance executives in attendance. The summit was originally scheduled to be held in Cape Town, but since聽President Cyril Ramaphosa聽announced a 21-day lockdown because of the spread of Covid-19, CFO South Africa has been exploring new ways of bringing the CFO community together.
CFO South Africa MD聽Jo毛l Roerig聽welcomed the finance executives in attendance, noting that the occasion was historic. 鈥淣ever before have we come together in an online setting like this.鈥�
He went on to thank the CFO South Africa鈥檚 partners who are committed to supporting the CFO community. This event was supported by principal partners聽Deloitte聽and聽Standard Bank, executive partners聽51风流Concur聽and聽Workday, and associate partners聽Clarkhouse Human Capital,聽Jaguar Land Rover,聽Coupa聽and聽Transparent.
Jo毛l then introduced Deloitte chief digital and innovation officer聽Valter Ad茫o, who kicked off conversations around how Covid-19 has accelerated global business into what has become the new normal.
Valter discussed three steps leaders will have to go through in this time of drastic change: respond, recover and thrive. 鈥淭he response speaks to what we had to do in the days leading up to lockdown, as well as when we come out of lockdown. Then we have to move rapidly into a recover and a thrive mode in order sustain ourselves into the future.鈥�
He also referred to聽Youtube,聽Dropbox,聽Whatsapp,聽Tinder聽and聽Skype聽鈥� companies that are increasingly outperforming others, saying these businesses are already fit for the kind of environment we are currently operating in. 鈥淭hese businesses operate 24/7 and without geographic constraints. So it certainly challenges the traditional business paradigm.鈥�
However, Valter says that it鈥檚 not necessarily technology that are making these businesses phenomenal, it鈥檚 what leaders are doing with their technology that is allowing them to unlock this value. As a result, a lot of the disruption or change that is allowing companies to thrive in these difficult environments are businesses that have:
- Dematerialised: They鈥檝e reduced their reliance on infrastructure.
- Demonetised: They鈥檝e changed their business model.
- Democratised: They use data to develop hypotheses for running their businesses as opposed to the other way around where businesses develop hypotheses and input data to make key decisions.
鈥淭he other side of the digital economy and technology is that we鈥檙e getting a rapid learning in this regard,鈥� Valter adds.
鈥淒igital is more than just technology, it鈥檚 changing our physical, biological and chemical world. It鈥檚 changed how we live, work and communicate with each other and having a tremendous impact on our businesses, industries and economies. It鈥檚 also created awareness around the social change that we have to drive in our environment and it鈥檚 empowered us as individuals in organisation to participate in that social change.鈥�
He unpacked some of the principles and philosophies leaderships need to tap into in this time of change:
- Unprecedented metabolic rate of change: This is the challenge that, as a CFO, you need to lead your business into the unknown. It also describes the adoption of these new solutions by customers. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 when disruption starts happening.鈥�
- Lawson effect: This is when companies are innovating vigorously in the wrong direction or becoming so comfortable with something that they break it. 鈥淵ou have to identify these Lawson moments in your organisation and stop them. Make sure your efforts around innovation are focused on something that will make your business stronger and is relevant to the market.鈥�
- Resource allocation: You have to distinguish what the right things are to invest into and what the wrong things are. You have to look for evidence of where the capex of a new digital solution is lower than the opex of how things were done before. You also have to ensure that you can unlock exponential growth, improved productivity and improved experience from these solutions.
- New age of the ecosystem: 鈥淲e鈥檝e now been thrust into that. In the last seven days, all our companies that are working remotely are all becoming platforms.鈥� In order to adjust to this new workforce ecosystem, leaders have to bring in experts and expertise into your business. 鈥淚f we create the right ecosystems of expertise, we can progress.鈥� Overnight, everyone is now in a symbiotic relationship, competitors, different industries and companies are working together to move into a new ecosystem.
Others revealed that the situation is pushing them to start thinking about the future of work 鈥� and whether they really need all that floorspace, while others said they were trying to identify new, pandemic-proof income streams.
The participants even took the opportunity to share their frustrations at having to manage their children’s distance learning, in addition to working from home themselves 鈥� adding that sharing these frustrations with others on their teams helped to reduce the stress.
When attendees were brought back into the main session, Valter said he felt incredibly proud to listen to a group of South African CFOs responding so aggressively and positively to a very challenging environment, and playing such a critical role in driving change.
He left CFOs inspired, saying this year is going to be the greatest leadership challenge ever. 鈥淲e have to become very open-minded to new ways of doing things. People work best under pressure. We get far more creative in finding solutions to progress. And the last week is evidence of that. Use the crisis to make significant jumps forward.鈥�
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