Innovation, technology are key

THESE three pillars — innovation, science and technology — are an integral part of Zimbabwe’s developmental aspirations. Vision 2030, which seeks to create an upper middle-income economy by year 2030, is anchored on an innovation and technology-driven industrialisation policy thrust.

If Education 5.0 is fully implemented, a technologically sophisticated national industry that creates jobs and opportunities for the youth while alleviating poverty will follow.

As the world moves towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution — innovation, science, and information communication technologies (ICTs) have become indispensable to our daily lives.

Zimbabwe cannot achieve its Vision 2030 without investing significant financial and human capital resources in transformative innovative technologies.

As we battle to fight the coronavirus pandemic, innovation, science and technology have potential to solve our problems in a short space of time and bring about the socioeconomic transformation we desire even in these extraordinary and difficult situations.

Post the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses that invest in online platforms and e-commerce — allowing people to work, shop, eat, learn, worship, and watch sports from home — will thrive.

Post-Covid-19 era

Businesses are the engines and drivers of economic development and social transformation. Businesses should support Government programmes such as Education 5.0 to ensure the country develops robust transformative technologies that spur the country’s industrialisation agenda. In the long term, businesses will benefit from human capital development and technologies being developed from incubation hubs housed in state universities and colleges dotted all over the country.

For any modern-day business to stay agile, relevant, competitive and profitable, it has to invest in innovative technologies as part of its business strategy. The costs of investing in innovative technology are far exceeded by the long term benefits to the sustainability of businesses.

For businesses, big or small, to compete and survive in the post Covid-19 era, they will need to invest significant financial and human capital resources in ICT-driven innovative technologies.

ICT governance

In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, it will not be business as usual in most organisations, be they for profit or non-profit.

All attention in organisations will shift to digital technologies and ICT governance. ICT will come to the forefront as business processes shift from being manual towards ICT-driven solutions as people operate from the comfort of their homes.

Government, through the Public Service Commission, will have to invest more resources in revamping the national systems of public administration and management.

This involves investment in innovative e-government systems, as we drift into an era where people prefer to access Government services from home instead of taking an expensive bus ride or drive a car to physical offices.

Post Covid-19, ICT governance, more than before, will emerge as a bread and butter issue for businesses, and an integral part of corporate governance.

The emerging trend is that ICT governance now constitutes a key component of corporate governance and every company’s strategic plan. Going forward, every board will be forced to have a standing committee that deals with ICT governance. Consequently, ICT governance will become a standing agenda item at all board meetings.

Risk

ICT systems, e-commerce and e-government — despite their advantages, have also brought with them a lot of operational risks which Government and company boards will have to deal with.

Cyber security is going to be a key element in ICT governance going forward as businesses transform their processes from manual or semi-automated processes into completely digitised formats.

Digitised online systems are fraught with operational risks, which will require businesses to invest in robust internal control systems, integrated within these digitised systems, as a way to manage such risks.

Section 283 of the Zimbabwe National Code on Corporate Governance (ZimCode) provides that “the board must ensure that an information security management system (ISMS) is developed, implemented and recorded in an appropriate and applicable information security framework”.

Training

Innovation and ICT can no longer be considered as “technical issues” and “out of bounds” for the board of directors as these areas impact on company performance.

Post Covid-19, directors, company secretaries and executive management, will have to undergo rigorous training and re-orientation to ensure that they are up to speed with innovative digital technology, platforms and systems.

Convening board meetings via remote digital tools such as video conferencing and other technologies, will be the norm. This will be a radical shift from physical board meetings. Printed and bound board packs will soon disappear and replaced by digital folders and other online tools.

Zim-Code

ZIM-CODE already addresses the importance of ICT governance. Chapter 5 of ZimCode recognises ICT as an integral part of every business and its risk management process.

The board of every company should have an understanding of the company’s business, its processes and requirements. This will enable it to give strategic guidance to management for ensuring that there is a robust ICT governance and risk management framework in place.

Directors should ensure that ICT governance is not isolated but is part of overall corporate governance systems within a company. Directors should have an appreciation for and an in-depth understanding of ICT and the risks and opportunities associated with it for them to be effective in giving direction and guidance on ICT governance.

Challenge

The challenge for businesses in Zimbabwe is to invest in innovative transformative technologies to enhance efficiency, product quality and service delivery.

Without robust investments in innovation, science and technology, Vision 2030’s objective of industrialisation and creation of an upper middle-income economy in Zimbabwe by year 2030 will be difficult to attain.