Page 87 - Risk Report 2024

7. Energy 8. Logistics

Volatile energy supply cripples the sector through large- Geopolitical tensions and trade-wars affect sourcing of critical
scale communication services outages, degraded service infrastructure and input materials (e.g. chipsets), limit the flow
quality, increased maintenance cost, and reduced voice and of best-of-breed technology into the region, impact competitive
data revenue, with a knock-on effect on other sectors relying pricing, and create international compliance risks. The sector
on communication and digital services. The sector invests continues to enhance internal compliance programs, adopt
in backup generators, additional batteries, alarm systems, multi-vendor strategies, increase local sourcing, diversify
physical deterrents, renewable energy solutions, and innovative suppliers, and monitor supply chain threats, such as vendor
private-public energy partnerships, at a heavy cost burden and quality and concentration.
additional exposure to theft in the absence of high-voltage
protection. The aforementioned diverts resources away from
business expansion projects to grow the economy.

9. Food Security 10. Climate Change
While indirectly impacting the sector, disruptions in food Climate change induced extreme weather events damage
security affect employees’ well-being, and ultimately social infrastructure, property, retail stock, and network equipment,
ills like increased healthcare costs, reduced productivity, and and cause service outages. Adaptation efforts and resources are
slowed economic growth. Indirect impacts include reduced likely to be overstretched by the scale and intensity of climate
discretionary consumer spend on communication services. related events and insurers are likely to be overwhelmed,
leading to withdrawal of certain covers for the sector. Sector
responses include region-specific climate/weather forecasting
for infrastructure locations, climate friendly power to reduce
emissions at data and switch centres, increasing energy
efficiencies across networks, net-zero target setting, and
developing more robust disaster recovery plans.

11. Technology 12. Skills

Faster and more complex AI-driven cybersecurity threats, Technical (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
increasing organised illicit acts, and rapidly developing and leadership talent shortages, skills migration to more
emerging disruptive technologies (AI, metaverse, blockchain) attractive regions, an aging skilled workforce, and large-scale
all represent risks and opportunities for the sector. However, youth unemployment affect the sector’s ability to drive complex
the sector is hampered by a lack of resources and skills to strategies to respond to 5G, IoT, cloud computing, machine
manage and leverage them for operational efficiencies and learning, AI, and fintech developments and opportunities.
to enhance customer value propositions on a mass scale. Globalisation of the workforce, enabled by remote working
Increased investment in security infrastructure, heavy focus technologies, resulted in SA Telcos competing against offshore
on development of future fit skills, and digitalisation will companies for SA based technical skills. Sector responses
enable the sector to meet the demand created by penetration include partnering with educational institutions, enhancing
of function-rich smartphones, AI powered solutions, IoT, and employee value propositions, and outsourcing of certain skills.
fintech. A potential disruptor into the next decade is low earth However, to remain sustainable, Telcos will need to develop
orbit satellites and the promise of ubiquitous connectivity, internal future fit technical talent. Competition for talent in the
requiring partnerships with low earth orbit satellite companies sector will continue to intensify while the talent pool shrinks.
to explore potential use cases. Technology innovations will also
increase cyber and information privacy risks, while powerful
generative-AI solutions will challenge current data governance
frameworks, based on a pre-AI world. The sector will be greatly
challenged to protect personal data and secure their operations
against disruption, unauthorised access and interference.