Business activism, focused on finding solutions to the pressing social and economic challenges in our country, is no longer a matter of choice.
Standing up and taking action now as a business community is an imperative if we are to save much-needed investments and jobs in the Bay.
Public infrastructure has severely deteriorated across all key enablers for doing business — electricity availability and infrastructure, water and sanitation, ports and logistics, safety and security.
The result is not only extremely challenging circumstances in which to keep a business going but also uncertainty, locally and in the global arena.
And uncertainty is something that the global investment community does not like.
The business case for investment now in SA is weakening, and there is a growing shift from our country to other places on this continent such as East Africa as the gateway into Africa or a more businessfriendly environment such as Morocco.
It is worth remembering that the investment decisions of the many multinationals operating in SA — expansions, new plants, whether to stay or go — are not made here.
They are made in headquarters in Europe, the US or Asia, where the South African operation must compete for attention and business against a company’s plants in other parts of the world, and productivity and profitability are key.
The only interest in those boardrooms is where the company will get the best returns, not whether they “like” a country or feel sorry for it.
These points were made strongly by Business Leadership SA (BLSA) chief executive Busi Mavuso at our annual Business Chamber Ladies Breakfast last week.
As she points out, this is not about business “propping up” or taking over the work of a dysfunctional government.
Rather, it is about working with the government — using our muscle in terms of investment and employment to push and prod where necessary, and sharing our expertise to develop mutually workable solutions and support their implementation.
As business, we operate in an environment which has provided opportunities and sustained us, albeit not optimally, and the reality is that if business does not intervene with fresh thinking and innovative solutions (something that business tends to do better than governments), then the spectre of a failed state becomes reality.
In Mavuso’s view, business thus has an obligation to save SA, in our own interests and those of our employees, suppliers and the country as a whole.
As she puts it: “Complaining is not enough. We are called leaders for a reason; it is our job to come up with solutions and intervene meaningfully.
“We choose to stay in SA for a reason, and so we should make our presence here count, stand up and make a difference in our country.”
And business is in fact standing up and taking action.
For example, the recent signing of a pledge by over 120 CEOs — representing companies that collectively employ 1.2-million people, with a combined market value of R11-trillion — to help the country resolve the pressing challenges holding our economy back and undermining prospects of inclusive economic growth.
The pledge is part of a partnership between the government and business through Business for SA, focused on implementing practical interventions and solutions in energy, transport and logistics, and crime and corruption.
Business Unity SA vicepresident and Discovery CEO Adrian Gore, a signatory to the pledge, has emphasised that it is not just a symbolic gesture but “a concrete commitment to drive change in key sectors that are essential for our economic recovery”.
As Mavuso points out, the initiative has the commitment, stature and ability to marshal resources, and has set up operational and governance structures to drive implementation in a structured way.
The business activism approach we are seeing nationally through organisations like BLSA and BUSA, with business stepping up to play a much stronger and more meaningful societal leadership role, aligns very much with our thinking — and action over the past two years — as the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber.
It is encouraging to see the growing numbers of local business embracing our more action-orientated and activist stance, volunteering time and resources to find and implement innovative solutions to our local challenges, willing to collaborate with government to get our metro working again.
We have had strong buy-in, and made a real difference, with out-of-the-box solutions like adopting substations, schools and leaks to an innovative 24-hour load-shedding schedule to enable production continuity for large manufacturers.
Businesses in seven geographic clusters are actively working together to resolve challenges in their areas, and our renewable energy cluster is far advanced with a shared renewable energy independent power generation facility for the Bay.
There is more to come, but a key focus now must also be to ensure the sustainability of this collective willingness and action at both national and local level — and we explored this in discussions last week with Mavuso, on synergies between our efforts, and how to reinforce and sustain them.
An activist is a person compelled to act, to drive change in the circumstances around them.
By its very nature, activism operates from a position of optimism, from a belief that things CAN change, and the knowledge that complaining changes nothing.
In the face of a weak business case for SA, there is a strong case for business activism.