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We had the pleasure of attending the 40th Annual Sapics conference this week in Cape Town, and what an incredible; inspiring time it was. The conference started with Justice Malala, who had a very hopeful message to share with the people of South Africa. I recall Justice speaking at the annual conference 2 years before, at the time; his speech left me feeling despondent and frankly created a feeling of impending doom. Although Justice is an incredible speaker, the image that he painted of our country was not one that I felt inspired and excited to live in. This year, however, Justice painted a picture of a hopeful South Africa that set the stage for what was to be a conference filled with optimism for not only our country, but also our people, and the supply chain community. He reminded me that when you become a leader, you lose the right to be pessimistic. Justice eluded to the fact that this new hopeful South Africa is the result of the "Cyril effect”, however I believe that this hope comes from the growing trust that we have in our new government and people.

For so long I have been preparing my kids for the global stage, because I did not have hope in our Africa and its journey. However, engaging with some of the executive leaders from Transnet at the executive summit this week has really restored my faith in our South African organisations. Transnet and their aspirations for growing our future economy through road to railway, whilst creating jobs across our country is a vision that I buy in to. A CPO from a multination organisation shared this sentiment with me a few months back, that by helping Transnet to leapfrog this macro level transformation, we are ultimately helping our country and our people leapfrog. This truly put me into contemplation, as for so many years I have been cautious about engaging with government because of the often-negative things stories we exposed too. However, Transnet and their success, makes me hopeful for a South Africa that my grandkids could grow up in, because if Transnet wins, South Africa wins.

This concept of trust was not only a highlight from Justice’s speech, but was emphasised by many of the supply chain leaders at the Executive dinner. In our individual groups, we had very high-level discussions around the biggest challenges that we as a country and the global world are facing around growth; and although we were expecting strategies around profits and investments, what we got was at the fundamental root of all our challenges is TRUST. Companies like Pep and Capitec beautifully executed this value in their business models, and have subsequently taken them to great heights. One of Capitec’s fundamentals was that they wanted to create a bank that was transparent and considered every South Africa’s needs. At the start of Capitec’ s business, they took the time to physically walk the streets and ask South African’s what they wanted/needed to shatter the idea of them as a service, but rather looking at their bank as a partnership. By doing so, they have put people at the core of their business. We see a very similar theme with Pep, who strives to be inclusive and consider every South African regarding of class or status. What this proves is that people are still at the core of what makes us successful.

Along with this theme of trust, came many important discussions around humanitarian initiatives, and how we as Supply Chain professionals can help to drive this agenda. I realised that we have so much knowledge that we are not imparting onto the next generations or initiatives. We saw this same concept discussed in the Women in Supply Chain panel, that although we as woman are fighting the battle of getting a seat at the executive table, we are not doing our part to bring other young women with us. We were also very inspired by ARC (African Resource Centre) and all the organisations that have given their time to finding solutions within the public health sector of Africa. ARC in their last mile project, aims to improve the availability of medicines and health products to every African country. Organisations across Africa has given their time and resources to help achieve this goal, and it truly moves me to see such self-less collaboration from not only companies but people who are working to build a better Africa. Movements and projects such as ARC makes me proud to be part of this supply chain community, because at the heart of it all it is about making the world better.

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