South Africa is facing not just a crime crisis, but a growing resilience crisis among its small and medium enterprises (SMEs). While large corporates invest in layered physical security, cyber protection, monitoring systems and incident response planning, many SMEs remain structurally exposed underestimating risk, underinvesting in resilience, and overestimating their ability to recover when incidents occur.

In a high-crime, digitally exposed operating environment, resilience is no longer a corporate luxury. It is a survival requirement.

“South African businesses operate in one of the most complex risk environments globally,  from violent crime and infrastructure instability to rapidly evolving cyber threats,” says Christopher Thornhill, CEO at Phangela Group. “Yet many SMEs still treat security as a line item rather than operational infrastructure. That gap is becoming dangerous.”

South Africa consistently ranks among countries with the highest crime levels globally. At the same time, cybercrime is accelerating rapidly, with South African businesses increasingly targeted by malware, ransomware and digital fraud.

For SMEs, the impact of a security incident is rarely contained.

“Incidents are not inconveniences for small businesses,  they are cash-flow events,” Thornhill explains. “Downtime means lost revenue, missed payroll, reputational damage and, in many cases, permanent closure.”

Cybercrime in particular presents a hidden risk.

“There are only two types of businesses: those that have been hacked, and those that don’t know they’ve been hacked yet,” he says. “The biggest cyber risk for SMEs is not being attacked, it's not knowing they’ve been compromised.”

Many SMEs mistake fragmented protections for resilience:

• Insurance does not guarantee recovery
• Backups do not equal continuity
• Firewalls do not ensure cybersecurity
• Panic buttons do not constitute a safety strategy

“Resilience is not a checklist,” says Thornhill, “it is an integrated system that anticipates risk, detects incidents early, responds in real time and protects continuity, not just property.”

South Africa’s regulatory landscape around cybercrime and artificial intelligence continues to lag global markets, while criminal actors increasingly leverage sophisticated tools, including AI-assisted attacks, identity theft and coordinated fraud campaigns to scale threats faster.

“We often underplay the scale of the risk,” Thornhill adds. “Cybercrime casts a wide net. Anyone with an email address or cellphone number is a potential target. The belief that ‘it won’t happen to me’ remains one of the most common vulnerabilities we see among SMEs.”

From its work across banking, retail, logistics and property environments, Phangela sees first-hand how fragmented security approaches leave businesses exposed across both physical and digital fronts.

Phangela Group positions itself not as a traditional security provider, but as a resilience infrastructure partner, integrating physical security, AI-enabled monitoring, cyber protection, intelligence analysis and rapid response into a unified system.

“Resilience should not be a privilege reserved for large enterprises,” continues Thornhill. “In South Africa’s current environment, it is fundamental infrastructure, as essential as electricity, connectivity or cash flow.”

The resilience gap is no longer a facilities issue or an IT decision. It is a leadership responsibility, even for owner-managed SMEs. “Business owners need to shift the question from ‘Will something happen?’ to ‘Will we survive it when it does?’ Preparedness is not pessimism, it is responsible leadership.”

“The conversation must move beyond crime statistics,” Thornhill concludes. “This is about protecting income, protecting jobs and protecting continuity. Resilience is no longer optional, it is the foundation of business survival.”