As Covid-19 restrictions and fear put a strain on businesses and the economy, management consulting firm Kearney Africa MD Theo Sibiya believes the survival of many companies is going to depend on their capacity to build resilience in order to remain sustainable.

In its sixth week of lockdown, he says South African businesses and citizens are demonstrating that they are up to the challenge, displaying resilience, resourcefulness, dynamism and social solidarity.

“As a result of this, they are able to offer services that have new-found value in the current reality.”

Sibiya points out two Cape Town-based examples of businesses that have been able to adapt to the current times, both being textile manufacturing companies that have teamed up to convert their factories to produce face masks for public use.

In doing so, he says the companies can contribute to the national coronavirus pandemic response, while maintaining solvency and preserving jobs.

Meanwhile, other local companies have been “plunged squarely into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)”, he notes, saying that both government and business have demonstrated foresight in establishing electronic platforms that communicate complex epidemiological data in user-friendly and engaging ways.

However, for South Africa, this shift towards the 4IR demonstrates the reality of the digital divide where huge swathes of society’s most vulnerable are at risk of being left behind.

Sibiya believes this presents an opportunity for forward-thinking enterprises, including government, to roll out new social development programmes that ensure every South African has access to telecommunications technology for learning and working.

He notes that government is also calling for industry collaboration to meet the demands of the current moment. For example, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has issued a call for proposals to assist in the national ventilator project to produce 10 000 ventilators by the end of June.

This project, Sibiya points out, will see key State-owned entities and heavyweight industry players working in partnership to design a non-invasive ventilator solution that does not require electricity.

Realistically, he states that a "seismic shock like this" is bound to transform how people think and work. Sibiya points out that, from the insights Kearney has gathered from overseas partners, businesses will need to embrace certain key attributes in a post-Covid-19 economy. One of these is resilience – “the need for resilience over enhanced efficiency will shape how value chains are constructed and measured”.

Another of these attributes is sentience. “We comfort ourselves by thinking of Covid-19 as a ‘black swan’ event, when it is not,” he says, adding that it was easily predictable given the Ebola, SARS, MERS, and avian flu epidemics.

“Some agencies such as the World Health Organisation had playbooks to deal with such situations.”

Distribution of information is another key attribute companies will need to embrace, post Covid-19. Sibiya says telecommuting is well on its way to becoming the normal for many digital workforces, but has been relatively new for the rest.

Applications such as Microsoft Teams, for example, have seen a 500% increase in use in March, he points out.

Businesses will also need to embrace “purpose”, he says, noting that Covid-19 has laid bare society’s mutual dependency on each other as individuals and countries. “A more compassionate work culture, coupled with greater corporate investment and accountability for the environment and society, would be an incredible positive to emerge.”

However, Sibiya says that, while it might have been hoped that the disruptions wrought by Covid-19 were a once-in-a-life-time cataclysm, it was increasingly clear that the effects of environmental change on people’s health and the economy mean that people's ability to respond and adapt to such shifts stands us in good stead.