Governments worldwide are stepping up and playing a crucial role in enabling innovation in their parts of the world. Our leaders can and should do as much as possible to help small businesses, start ups and innovators succeed. These entrepreneurs are the life blood of our future economy.
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Disruption is fast becoming a concept that traditional industries need to embrace. But as efforts to foster innovation and create new profit centres emerge, many established businesses run into organisational inertia and resistance from stakeholders, who often balk at ideas that challenge the “status quo.”
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In the 1940s at the height of World War II, with a shortage of materials available, substitute components were sought out, often at a cost-saving. Quality was sacrificed for survival, ironically, at all costs. American engineers at General Electric were called upon to address the challenges, crafting the concept of modern-day value engineering.
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In the world of high-tech and innovative startups, venture capitalists have long been considered the guardians, or judicious meritocrats, directing funding to shape the industries of the future. WeWork, Uber and Theranos are just a few of the ‘visionary’ companies that promised to transform everything, from the way we work, to urban mobility, and even the future of healthcare. But the reality of such enterprises proved very different, and the venture capitalists of today are facing…
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Like all countries, the United Arab Emirates is not immune to the impact of the virus, and based on Ministry of Health and Prevention statistics, the UAE saw a peak rate of infection of over 4000 cases per day, at one point registering a Level 4 on the CDC infection ranking.
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Virtual reality and mixed reality are transforming how we work, how we live, and how we play.
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In 2012, a young and energetic engineer took over a small South African company called Prommac. Over the next 9 years, the business would go from humble beginnings in the oil and gas sector, to becoming a major player in the delivery of maintenance, projects, shutdown and drone solutions across Africa. Their success was driven in part by a crack team put together and led by Jason English, a South African entrepreneur with a unique purpose-driven approach to business, that helped transform Prommac from a small market player to the major powerhouse it is today.
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You might not be familiar with the name Niall Carroll. Still, as a highly successful South African businessman and a shrewd investor, Carroll has been involved in shaking up established industries for decades. Carroll has cultivated a distinguished career. This is all by identifying opportunities and solving problems, plying his trade with Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, and the Royal Bafokeng Nation.
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The nature of work is rapidly changing. As more companies embrace the ‘new normal,’ the shift from traditional office paradigms to remote working models is swiftly taking shape around the globe. While this fast-emerging trend has been on the horizon for some time, the movement has reached critical mass in the last 12 months, accelerating the need for leaders who understand how best to navigate this new digital workforce.
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While virtual reality has been around for some time, recent events have catapulted the technology to the forefront of many people’s imaginations, and we’re not just talking about those who are into gaming anymore. As the world transitions to a new way of living, many are looking to VR technology to solve real-life challenges, including things like remote work, learning, training and even entertainment.
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Top South African Investor Niall Carroll on the Best Bets To Place In 2021
For most businesses, 2021 will be a year of continued transition and will afford many the opportunity to forever reshape the way in which their markets and industries operate. Those that are successful will have a clear and focused investment strategy, as well as a fine grip on future technologies. As we look ahead, the pertinent question for most multinational companies and investors around the globe will be what businesses or industries are worth betting on in 2021.
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Over the past twelve months the COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of our lives. As businesses look to the future, many corporations are taking the lessons learned during this time and using them to rethink traditional archetypes surrounding the ways in which we work. With stay-at-home orders still in effect across many parts of the globe, more people than ever before are now officially working from home, and it’s a trend that looks set to continue well after the pandemic ends.
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The future of work is changing, and the global pandemic has only accelerated the process. As more workforces switched to remote setups in 2020, digital platforms such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, and GoToMeeting quickly saw their user numbers soar. With the imminent arrival of COVID-19 vaccine, there is hope our world might be returning to some semblance of normality in the near future, but the trend of remote working looks set to continue well into the next decade.
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, millions of office workers have been working remotely from home, their only contact with colleagues and managers through emails, daily Zoom meetings, and conference calls. As much as employees initially welcomed the freedoms remote work afforded, such as relaxed clothing during meetings or spending more time with family, many now find themselves missing a physical space with their colleagues.
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As companies grapple with vexing questions related to the future of work during and after a pandemic, it has exceedingly become apparent that relying solely on video-conferencing tools is not a solution, with growing calls by employees to include immersive and inspirational components. In that vein, a number of virtual reality startups, with CG Tech’s The Virtulab as part of this burgeoning wave, seek to up-end traditional remote meeting applications by developing avatar-based virtual reality environments in response to these market demands.
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When faced with challenging decisions in times of high uncertainty, most leaders defer to considering the ‘traditional’ levers and metrics of business success; corporate strategy, risk management, marketing, finances; while ignoring the most essential element of any organisation – its people.
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Among the various crises facing humanity today, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change top the list, begging for solutions. While the pandemic’s onslaught necessitated immediate changes to how people live and work, climate change’s impact will likely be more profound in the near future. Virtuworx, an increasingly popular digital solution to remote working and collaboration developed by CG Tech’s The Virtulab, may be the answer companies are looking for.
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CEO of Prommac, Dany de Barros, & CEO of CG Tech, Jason English, recently attended YPO Innovation Week, a summit dedicated to emerging technologies and breakthrough innovations.
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42 years, Jason English has already had a career that, for most of us, would constitute a lifetime of achievement. The South African entrepreneur and business magnate has launched and scaled some of the most innovative businesses in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the UAE, along with a great deal of philanthropy in South Africa.
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Uncertainty is rife in today’s business world. With changing market dynamics and customer behaviours diverging wildly from the norm, the pandemic is revealing the business world’s winners and losers; those whose business models fell on the right side of the pandemic and became even more relevant, and those whose business models have been driven out of existence.
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There’s never been a time in history that has experienced this much disruption. Technological advancements are literally changing the way we work, drive, do business and access healthcare. With technology advancing at such a rapid rate, even markets that have been stable for decades are experiencing major uncertainty.
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For modern entrepreneurs in today’s ever-changing market environment, it has never been more vital to understand the difference between a startup and a scaleup business. The core challenge is being able to decipher when you’re best positioned to begin transferring from the previous to the latter, and how to successfully cross Geoffrey Moore’s chasm from the early adopters – your most ardent fans – to the early majority segment of the market.
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The collection of business within the CG Tech group allows us to share learnings and ideas with each other, sparking collective investments into research and development of new products and services which would not normally have been created.
The technology arm of the CG Tech group, The Virtulab, has allowed me to grow the reputation of Prommac as a digital business in a traditional industry, and we have been able to transform at a fraction of the cost of outsourcing these services.
As the youngest leader in the group, the collective knowledge of leadership has helped me grow personally by engaging with great business leaders who have been there, done that and have shared their experiences with me.
The CG Tech team has helped us raise capital and fund growth using the know how and experience of the collective group. The spread of skill sets between Accountants, M&A Experts, Operational Specialists, Metallurgy Specialists has helped me shape my business for the future.
