On the 22nd of April 2020, Africa.com conducted the second session of the four-part webinar series on Crisis Management for African Business Leaders in collaboration with Harvard University.

During the second session titled “Liquidity – Managing Cash Flow When Revenue and Funding Dry Up,” a live poll was conducted which resulted in about 70 percent of participants predicting an over 10 percent decrease in business revenue by May, 2020. 47 percent of the participants indicated the possibility of over 25 percent decrease in revenue by May, while 24 percent of the participants indicated an expected 50 percent decrease in revenue by May. Only 20 percent of the participants indicated that revenue would increase or remain static.

About 1500 business leaders from 41 African countries participated in the poll. The largest representation was from Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia respectively. 60% of the participants have one of the following titles: CEO, managing director, president, principal, partner, CFO, chair, chief, director, executive director, group head, general manager, or manager. The remaining 40% were mostly made up of analysts and consultants.

The largest sectors represented are financial services and professional services, followed by energy and manufacturing. A smaller tier consisted of real estate, health care, agriculture, health care, and media, arts & entertainment.

The Africa.com Chair and CEO Teresa Clarke commented on the polls saying, “the poll results are supported by the qualitative data we collected from the 10,000 registrants for the webinar series. We asked registrants what their greatest concern is with respect to COVID-19. Responses were open ended, and we received 10,000 responses ranging from 10-100 words. By far, the greatest concern expressed was reduction in revenue. But interestingly, many commented that while they were concerned about revenues, it was because they were concerned about being able to pay their employees. One respondent commented, ‘In Africa, we care more about people than profits.’”

After the live poll, Kunle Elebute, Chair, KPMG, moderated the panel discussion on Liquidity – Managing Cash Flow When Sources of Revenue and Funding Dry Up. He led the discussion with a well selected panel of business leaders: Welela Dawit, CFO, GE; Admassu Tadesse, President and Chief Executive of the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB); and Sim Tshabalala, Chief Executive, Standard Bank Group.

The panel discussion is part of a four-part series on crisis management developed by Africa.com and three faculty members from Harvard Business School. The next webinar discussion will take place on Wednesday, April 29, and is moderated by Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Chair of FSDH Merchant Bank and Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. That webinar is entitled “This isn’t the West – How Africa’s Informal Sector Reacts to COVID-19.”

Click here to register for free.

About Africa.com

Africa.com is a media holding company with an extensive array of platforms that reach a global audience interested in African content and community. Africa.com’s interests include a business publisher’s ad network, content syndication, the website at www.iafrica.com, email newsletters, various social media platforms, and internet domain names ending with the “.africa.com” extension. Africa.com operates from Johannesburg, Lagos, and New York, and has a presence in Cape Town and Nairobi.