MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN
As Chairman of the Board, it is my pleasure to present our eighth annual sustainable business report. As this report describes, we continue to frame sustainability as a business response to the challenges we face as a society, and as a central facet of our purpose: to transform lives. In FY19 we sharpened our focus on the customer, providing affordable products and services, segmenting our product offering, innovation and development, and delivering our SDG related commitments.
CHANGES IN OUR OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
By many accounts, last year was a challenging period for our business. While the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, like other sectors, had anticipated an economic turnaround after the prolonged electioneering period, depressed credit growth and strained consumer budgets made real recovery challenging.
Several external economic, political and regulatory issues had a significant impact on the company and, in turn, a knock-on effect on progress towards achieving both our business and sustainability objectives.
Increased taxes, especially those on mobile phone services, affected our customers’ ability to consume our products and services. The drought and rising infl ation depressed discretionary spending among our customer base. The recovery of the tourism sector and governance issues in both the private and public sectors also had their effects. Nonetheless, our inclusive approach not only helped propel our sustainability agenda forward, but also enabled us to strengthen partnerships and deepen community engagement, which in turn contributed towards keeping the business steady in a challenging operating environment.
