All of Alan's Musings and Other Sea, R, A, P.

Table of Contents Durban: CAG Executive Question of the Week Before you automate another task, have you asked whether that task should exist at all? A Finance Manager spends three hours every Friday combining information from several spreadsheets. Operations sends its figures in one format. Sales uses another. Someone manually checks the totals, corrects missing information and produces a management report. Then somebody suggests AI. “Can’t we automate this?” Probably. But that may be the wrong … [Read more...] about Are You Automating Work That Should Not Exist?

The way South Africans look things up is changing: instead of typing into a search bar, many now put their questions straight to an AI assistant. Johannesburg agency Top Click has responded by building a dedicated answer engine optimisation service, designed to get local businesses recommended inside platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. The habits behind search are moving. Rather than scanning a page of links, buyers now ask an … [Read more...] about Top Click Helps South African Brands Get Cited in AI Search Answers

Not every agency that markets itself well can actually move the needle, and in a market as saturated as South Africa’s digital space, telling the two apart is hard. So we built our ranking on the single metric a client can independently confirm: genuine Google reviews, weighed together with breadth of services, track record and standing in the market. For each name on the list, you’ll find its current Google rating and total review count, giving you a clear view of which firms South … [Read more...] about The Top 10 Digital Marketing Agencies in South Africa (2026)

Small business owners now have a new place to learn digital marketing on demand: Josh Maraney has launched a free online library holding more than 700 short-form videos on SEO, Google Ads and Answer Engine Optimization, aimed at owners, freelancers and marketers. Pulling together years of Josh Maraney’s daily short-form clips into a single, fully searchable hub, the library lets anyone enter a topic and immediately surface a clear, practical answer. Rather than scrolling social feeds and … [Read more...] about Josh Maraney Launches a Free, Searchable Library of More Than 700 Short-Form Videos

South Africans came together to honour the legacy of Nelson Mandela as FirstRand Volunteers (FRV) successfully mobilised 2,500 employees across all nine provinces in a major Mandela Month volunteer activation focused on food security, sustainability, and community support.Working alongside long-standing community partner Meals on Wheels, FirstRand employees packed 2,500 nutritious food parcels for vulnerable families and created food-producing garden planters for schools, early childhood … [Read more...] about FirstRand Volunteers Mobilised 2,500 Employees Nationwide to Honour Mandela’s Legacy Through Action

Sandton: Every month it happens again.Finance teams stay late. Managers wait for reports. Someone discovers a broken formula. Another employee is reconciling figures from multiple spreadsheets while executives delay important decisions because they are still waiting for trusted information. Month-end has become a fire drill. The surprising part is that most organisations believe this is simply part of running a business. It isn’t. In many organisations, the real problem is not the finance … [Read more...] about Why Is Month-End Still a Fire Drill?

South Africa’s pork market has undergone a dramatic reversal in recent months, with fears of shortages giving way to a significant oversupply that is driving wholesale prices sharply lower and bringing relief to consumers.According to Eskort CEO Arnold Prinsloo, wholesale pork prices have fallen from around R40/kg to approximately R30/kg, after earlier outbreaks of African Swine Fever (ASF) and Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) temporarily disrupted supply and triggered precautionary imports. Earlier … [Read more...] about South Africa’s Pork Market Swings From Shortage to Surplus as Prices Fall

Table of Contents Johannesburg, July 21, 2026 – As South Africa records close to 2,000 truck hijackings a year — roughly 30 to 35 every week, with business-owned vehicles far more likely to be targeted than private ones — DigitFMS has launched the Digit D-Cam AD Plus 2.0, an AI video telematics system built on a deliberately different premise: that the highest-value intelligence in any fleet is happening inside the cab, not just on the road ahead. Most dashcams look outward. This one looks in. … [Read more...] about DigitFMS D-Cam AD Plus 2.0: the Dashcam That Looks Inward

Table of Contents Johannesburg, July 21, 2026 – With roughly 85 vehicles reported stolen every day in South Africa, and countless unpowered assets — trailers, generators, plant and bulk-fuel equipment — moving between sites with no eyes on them at all, DigitFMS has launched the Digit D-Pod (Model PB705): a compact, magnetic, self-contained tracking device that deploys in seconds, hides in plain sight, and reports location without a SIM card, wiring or any visible infrastructure. The message … [Read more...] about DigitFMS Launches D-Pod: a Covert, No-SIM Asset Tracker

Johannesburg, South Africa: Every organisation has repetitive work. Employees copy data between systems, rewrite the same emails, search for information, update multiple spreadsheets and manually prepare reports. These activities often become accepted as “just part of the job”, yet they represent one of the biggest hidden costs in business.While many organisations are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, the greatest productivity gains frequently come from understanding how work … [Read more...] about What Is the Real Cost of Repetitive Work?