CEO Today Africa Awards

47 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today Africa Awards 2017 SOUTH AFRICA To make matters worse, the country’s household savings rate as a percentage of GDP is low relative to its peer groups in the BRICS group. Household indebtedness is also high, based on the household debt to disposable income ration of just over 76%. In short, Alexander Forbes believes a new thinking is needed to address the financial well-being of its clients to avoid a worsening situation where many people will retire into poverty, Darfoor says. Under “Ambition 2022” therefore, Alexander Forbes sees itself as more of a partner than just a financial advisor to its clients. Darfoor says the partnership is like a journey, where Alexander Forbes wants to understand the unique challenges facing its clients, and coming up with sustainable and practical financial and savings solutions to help clients achieve and sustain financial well-being into their retirement. “This means partnering with them in a relationship of financial support, advice and counselling at every stage of our clients’ life journey, for the duration of their lifetime,” Darfoor says. Aligned with this strategy is developing and launching innovative products and solutions, and also focusing on customer care and retention. Darfoor says a strategy is as good as its implementation; therefore Alexander Forbes will focus on improving execution delivery and using technology to achieve the desired outcome of “Ambition 2022”. Such is the importance Alexander Forbes attaches to innovation that the company recently approved its largest ever modernisation project to get the best integrated system to enable it to achieve the objective of growing a customer- centric financial services and solutions company. The project, being supported by Nasdaq-listed Sapiens International, will entail the implementation of the core systems that will provide end-to-end, integrated digital capabilities across all lines of business. “Sapiens’ comprehensive, innovative and digitally rich solutions and services portfolio is the right fit for our organization,” he says. Darfoor is not under any illusion about the challenges facing Alexander Forbes. Neither is he not under-estimating the competitive landscape in sub-Saharan Africa, where Alexander Forbes already has businesses in six countries and is exploring opportunities in West and North Africa among other regions. Darfoor says Alexander Forbes has appetite for both organic and acquisitive growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, the company is considering opportunities in the rest of Africa, while investing in expanding its businesses in countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Is he worried about cyclical economic performances in South Africa and in Sub-Saharan Africa? Darfoor says investing and running a business in Africa means one has to be prepared for periods of boom and depression. The key is how a company operates through any economic cycle. In Alexander Forbes’ case, Darfoor says the company is a highly cash generative business in strong structural sectors of long and short-term insurance, investments, pensions. “This is the best place to be because with such cash generation capabilities, we can withstand and deal with any cyclical economic performance, whether in South Africa or other markets where we have businesses,” he says. “But this does not mean that we should be complacent or rest on our laurels. A business that does not respond to changing economic and competitive cycles will not survive nor grow. That is why under Ambition 2022, we will continue to invest in innovative financial solutions with the aim of not only better serving our clients, but also grow shareholder value while contributing to the economic growth and success of the markets in which we are invested,” he says.