Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa Real Estate Investor Magazine - October 2017 | Page 7

EDITORIAL VIEW
Staying
ahead
in rapidly
changing
times
I
n my recent interview with Robert
Kiyosaki, he described examples of
how the rich and powerful become
greedy and corrupt using their influ-
ence with money, banks, governments,
politicians, military leaders and influ-
ential companies and people to imple-
ment their plans. In fact we are seeing
it playing out today right here in SA
with all the political shenanigans, cor-
ruption and economic state capture re-
ports. The monetary and education sys-
tem was not designed for the ignorant
and uneducated. To counter this, an
entrepreneur needs to build his knowl-
edge continuously, build a trusted team
of advisors, staying abreast of the latest
tools and be technologically savvy.
The world is also moving incredibly
fast and technology is changing how
we make money and invest. It tends to
be developed by new players and entre-
preneurs and not by the current market
leaders. We are seeing disruptive tools
like we never have seen before. Today, we
are seeing online trading done in milli-
seconds; deals come and go in a matter
of minutes in stock and real estate mar-
kets. If investors and businesses are not
up to speed and don’t make quicker de-
cisions, opportunities will be lost if you
don’t seize them quick enough.
ALBERT
EINSTEIN
“
The measure of
intelligence is the ability
to change
More than 80% of the Forbes 500 com-
panies from 20 years ago are no longer
on the list. And the reason is simple:
they failed to transform themselves
into Internet-based businesses. The
challenge is that, if we don’t change
ourselves and get the team and right
tools, we could die as a business. Read
our feature story on how technology is
impacting the real estate world.
Organizations such as Facebook, Goo-
gle, Amazon, and Apple have taken
the lead and have already transitioned,
gaining an advantage in terms of cost,
innovation, business capabilities and
security and speed. They demonstrate
why companies must transform their
legacy systems to digital technologies,
providing the chance for competitive-
ness w hen the next wave of digital
business hits. Disruptors are people
driving this change by inventing quick-
er, cheaper, more effective ways to a
better world. These people are driven
by passion, purpose and do their best to
enrich others while making themselves
richer. These people and companies
that stay ahead of the competition will
quickly adopt digital technologies.
In life, there are three things that are
certain: we don’t have control of death,
taxes, or change. In business and in-
vesting, we could argue there are ways
not to let your business die if we are
proactive, creative, and adapt to change.
It is also possible to find legal ways to
pay less tax if we get the right partners
and adapt on the latest regulatory ad-
vice, which changes regularly. Howev-
er, if we become leaders of change, we
must still understand our customer,
keep abreast of new technologies and
make technology a priority in the busi-
ness. To do that, you need to have the
right team and the right information.
Successful investing
NEALE PETERSEN
FOUNDER/PUBLISHER
SA Real Estate Investor Magazine OCTOBER 2017
5
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