Dr Reuel Khoza, Chairman of the Nedbank Group, shared the group’s valuable rules for managing a bank in difficult times in an MBA lecture on the Bloemfontein Campus. Dr Khoza is a visiting professor at the UFS Business School.

He focused in the lecture on the group’s business and leadership model and highlighted some do’s and don’ts:

• Do not surprise your stakeholders on the downside – communicate transparently, particularly when there is bad news.
• Retrenching staff to contain costs should be a last resort – the damage to corporate culture from retrenchments is immense. Follow and support your customers – get as close to them as possible because business changes slowly, but customer behaviour can change in an instant.
• Integrated central capital and funding management.
• Entrench well-established reporting, KPIs and measurement systems.
• Ensure strong independent risk management.
• Manage your cost base – anticipate downturns and re-base your costs to avoid crisis-cost management.
• Take advantage of opportunities – an economic downturn creates a situation where valuations fall and assets are sold off, which can be a great opportunity for acquisitions.
• Keep innovating – innovation does not have to be a costly exercise, as the right culture can promote and encourage experimentation and collaboration.
• Whatever you do – avoid a price war, as expedient pricing decisions may hurt the business in the longer term.