Consumer Trendz

As Euromonitor’s Global Consumer Trends (GCTs) 2021 show, Coronavirus (COVID-19) has forced a reimagining and redesign of processes, products, physical spaces and human interaction. Although the pandemic is driving global trends, the responses of consumers to those trends have often conformed to regional patterns and individual country conditions. Our team of specialists in Cape Town have identified two of Euromonitor’s Global Consumer Trends which are having the biggest impact on Sub-Saharan African (SSA).

Workplaces in New Spaces: the omnipresent office

Prior to COVID-19, remote work in SSA was underdeveloped due to low internet penetration - just 25% of SSA households have internet access - and expensive data plans. Another reason was the widespread notion that productivity is synonymous with employees’ physical presence in brick-and-mortar offices. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has changed this, for both employers and employees.

Suddenly, unprepared employers scrambled to equip their workers with internet/mobile support in their homes; where it was essential for workers to be in the office, people started to work shifts, on rotation and/or shorter workdays due to lockdown, while those already supporting remote work (e.g. one day per week) simply implemented processes to ensure longer-term efficiency out of office.