Dr Megan Vercueil, Head of Mobility, MTN Business

The hardest part of a CIO’s role is managing the demand for innovation through new, game-changing technologies while retaining the value of existing investments. Technology leaders in smaller businesses may have smaller budgets than their enterprise counterparts, but they often have far more freedom to innovate with the tools they already have.

Most South African SMEs are the embodiment of the adage: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Following two years of business interruption and rapid modernisation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, small and medium businesses are now having to navigate an increasingly constrained economy and yet more disruption as a result of loadshedding.