South Africa News Archives - Page 24 of 72

Pre-employment background checks – essential in verifying job candidates are who they claim to be

20Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Business, South Africa News

Pre-employment background checks – essential in verifying job candidates are who they claim to be

Background checks reduce a company’s risk for reputational damage and criminal activities such as fraud and theft. They can also verify information on an applicant's resume and assist HR professionals in determining whether an individual is the right fit for the job description says Sameer Kumandan, Managing Director of SearchWorks, South Africa’s largest and most innovative data aggregation platform. Finding and managing talent for an organisation is a responsibility that is both time and resource intensive. So it makes sense to do your due diligence before bringing a new hire into the fold. First order of business? Making sure the candidate is exactly who they claim to be. This involves verifying all of the information contained on their CV - checking everything from education to work e...

20Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Main, South Africa News

Local is really lekker: The secret to streaming success is authentically African content

Ever think that a series shot in Korean and overlaid with questionable dubbing – with no famous actors to speak off – would achieve global cult status and go on to become one of Netflix’s most-watched shows ever? Well, that is exactly what happened in the case of Squid Games, Netflix’s 2021 series about a fatal contest centred around popular children’s games such as Red Light, Green Light. Leslie Adams, Sales Director at Reach Africa, says that the tale resonated with both a local and international audience facing a turbulent post-pandemic global economy, which served to ratify Netflix’s strategy of investing in local content. While the massive global success of local content, as in the case of Squid Games, is admittedly rare, he highlights that for advertisers, local content creates a p...

20Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Energy, South Africa News

Energy Entrepreneur Flies South Africa’s Flag High In Prestigious French Think Tank Listing

Linda Mabhena-Olagunju, founder and CEO of DLO Energy Resources Group whose company owns the largest wind farm in South Africa has been ranked 7th out of 100 in the prestigious Choiseul 100 Africa listing making her the only South African on the list and 1 of 4 women included in this ranking. It is also her 5 consecutive listings since 2018. Mabhena-Olagunju is listed in the top 10 alongside formidable and phenomenal women such as Leila Bouamatou, Managing Director & Board Member of Générale de Banque de Mauritanie, Amrote Abdella, General Manager for Amazon Web Service in Sub-Saharan Africa and Anta Babacar Ngom Diack, Managing Director of Sedima Group. The Institut Choiseul was founded in 2010 and it is a highly influential body acting as an independent think-tank focusing on econ...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

South Africa News, Startups, Tech

Digital security for entrepreneurs: How to protect your online business

As South Africa’s entrepreneurial spirit blossoms, digital security is more important than ever, warns Steve Flynn, Sales and Marketing Director at ESET Southern Africa. The pandemic fundamentally changed the working world forever. Not only are more employees working remotely, but more people are starting their own businesses – often from home. There has been a significant increase in new entrepreneurial activity amongst working age South Africans, from 10.8% in 2019 to 17.5% in 2021, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report 2021/2022 released by Stellenbosch Business School. The digital work landscape also looks very different today. With affordable, high bandwidth connectivity more readily available in South Africa, we are now more marketable than ever before to ta...

Dashpay Donations Terminals rolled out to support organisations across SA

14Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

South Africa News

Dashpay Donations Terminals rolled out to support organisations across SA

The most recent crime statistics released in South Africa tell a horrific story – particularly for women and children. 392 children in South Africa were killed in just 90 days last year, with another 394 surviving attempted murder. 2 048 additional children were victims of physical assault in the same period. With police services overwhelmed by a tsunami of criminal activity, it falls to civil society to help tackle major social challenges in the country – and Women & Men Against Child Abuse (WMACA) - is at the forefront of fighting for the rights of the child and ending the abuse of children in South Africa through a multifaceted, dynamic and aggressive offensive against any form of abuse and gender violence. Every fight needs support – with financial assistance at the forefront fo...

12Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Business, South Africa News

How useful is Google Trends for Digital Marketing?

Jacques Du Bruyn, Managing Director, Flume In South Africa, 94% of online information searches are made via Google, meaning that the data gleaned by the platform is an incredibly accurate measure of what South Africans are searching for – as well as when and possibly why. That information can be accessed via Google Trends, and used as a powerful tool for digital marketing. Targeting and Testing The challenge at the start of any campaign is deciding who it is targeted at. Marketers can put in a few geographic locations, target specific devices and add some demographic and psychographic targets like age groups and interests. That’s quite broad – which is where Google Trends really comes into its own. It allows digital marketers the opportunity to look at information around specific sear...

To build trust, payment providers need to ensure they are compliant and follow standards

12Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Fintech, South Africa News

To build trust, payment providers need to ensure they are compliant and follow standards

By Thabiso Serake: Information Security Officer at Pay@ October is Cyber Security Awareness month and is observed globally to help individuals protect themselves online as threats to technology and confidential data become more common. Former South African finance minister Tito Mboweni recently made headlines when his bank account was hacked, and a large sum of money was stolen1 from him. Earlier this year, pharmacy retail giant Dis-Chem fell victim to a cyber-attack, resulting in data of over 3.6 million South Africans being compromised2. This goes to show that South Africans need to be more vigilant when protecting their data on the internet and organisations must take into consideration all types of security measures to keep everyone protected. Cyber-attacks on organisations such as ...

12Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Fintech, South Africa News, Tech

The short answer to long passwords

Our digital world has become increasingly risky where hackers access personal data and steal identities with little effort. It’s said that nearly half of all South African consumers have either been a victim of ID theft, or know someone who has, costing in the region of R1 billion a year to the economy. Identity theft is big business – where a fake ID can cost just R3000 on the dark web or in the dark alleys of the city. But are longer, more complicated passwords and security measures the answer for South Africans? A recent Google survey revealed that more than half of the respondents admitted to reusing the same password for multiple accounts. Around 80% of hacking breaches can be attributed to reused or stolen credentials. Pan-African fintech innovator, iiDENTIFii, however, has develop...

8Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

South Africa News, Tech

As SA’s ICT sector looks to globalise, employers and practitioners are in search of the right skills

The number of South African employers reporting they are recruiting ICT skills overseas has increased dramatically in the past year – up from 38% to over 50%. This is a key finding in the 2022 JCSE-IITPSA ICT Skills Survey – the 12th to carried out by Wits University’s Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) in partnership with the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA), with the support of the Information Technology Association (ITA). The study’s authors, Adrian Schofield, production consultant at the IITPSA, and Professor Barry Dwolatzky, Director of the JCSE, describe the growing trend to recruit foreign skills as “disturbing, given the continuing high levels of unemployment in South Africa”. With pressures on business margins making emplo...

7Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Kenya News, Nigeria News, South Africa News, Tech

E-commerce app marketers are spending billions of dollars on user acquisition, according to a new report from AppsFlyer

AppsFlyer, the global marketing measurement leader, has released the 2022 edition of its State of eCommerce App Marketing report. Within the report, AppsFlyer outlines key global trends, guiding marketers in building a mobile-first experience that will drive engagement and sales for the upcoming holiday season. Following the past few years of significant e-commerce growth resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, e-commerce in general and app marketing, in particular, have entered into a natural slowdown. In 2022, e-commerce is no longer attracting the same volume of new users, and rising prices are starting to take their toll on marketing budgets and planning. Heading into the holiday season marked by an economic downturn, supply disruptions, and continuing privacy changes and data restricti...