Purchase costs rose at the sharpest rate on record, meaning companies increased their own selling prices at an unprecedented pace.

The rate of expansion in business activity ticked higher, but steep price rises acted to limit demand and the pace of new order growth eased to a four-month low.

Meanwhile, employment decreased for the second month running. The headline figure derived from the survey is the Stanbic IBTC Bank Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).

Readings above 50.0 signal an improvement in business conditions on the previous month, while readings below 50.0 show a deterioration.

The headline PMI was unchanged at 51.0 in March, the joint-lowest in four months.

The latest reading pointed to a slight improvement in business conditions during the month, and one that was softer than the series trend. Price pressures remained elevated in March.

In fact, the rate of purchase price inflation hit a fresh record high for the second consecutive month, largely due to the impact of currency weakness.

There were also some reports of higher transportation costs. Employee pay was also increased in response to cost-of-living pressures, resulting in the sharpest rise in staff costs since last November.

In line with the picture for purchase costs, the rate of output price inflation was also the steepest since the series began in January 2014 as close to 69% of respondents increased their charges over the month.

With prices rising sharply, firms faced challenges securing new orders.

Although new business increased for the fourth month running as some companies noted greater client interest, the rate of expansion was the softest in the current sequence of growth.

The rate of expansion in business activity quickened slightly from February, but remained relatively modest.

Increases in activity were seen in each of the agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale & retail and services categories.

While output and new orders continued to rise, employee resignations caused staffing levels to decrease marginally for the second month running. Purchasing activity returned to growth, however, following a reduction in the previous survey period.

Where input buying increased, this was linked to efforts to meet new order requirements in a timely manner.

This was also a factor behind sustained growth of inventories. That said, backlogs of work ticked higher amid the high cost of materials and delays in payments by customers.

Suppliers’ delivery times, meanwhile, continued to shorten, in part thanks to muted demand for inputs and prompt payments.

Confidence in the year-ahead outlook for business activity strengthened from the previous month’s record low, but remained relatively weak at the end of the first quarter of the year.

At the same time, staff may lack basic cybersecurity knowledge to protect themselves as only 38% of businesses offer IT security training.

According to the report, lack of external knowledge about potential cybersecurity incidents is not usually mitigated by internal efforts.

According to the research, only 38% of organisations have already implemented security education and training to ensure that employees are provided with crucial information.

In addition, more than seven in ten (76%) of those companies have experienced at least one issue relating to the quality of these services.

This includes dissatisfaction with the high complexity of courses and a lack of support or expertise on the part of the training provider.

Employees that had not been provided with basic knowledge about the importance of protective measures, can’t be expected to follow the rules.

In 2021, compliance of staff and dealing with insufficient end-user security culture is one of the top three biggest concerns for businesses when it comes to IT security – 38% of respondents cited it among the most alarming issues.

In practice, companies regularly face informational security infringements (50%), inappropriate IT resource use (53%), and improper sharing of data via mobile devices (50%).

Breach prevention requires concerted action by everyone who interacts with a corporate system and could be a potential target for attackers.

To better secure employees, companies should combine reliable protective measures with maintaining security awareness among their teams.

These include:

1. Ensuring prompt patching and updating of software to prevent adversaries penetrating the system.
2. Implementing high-grade encryption for sensitive data and enforcing strong credentials and multi-factor authentication.
3. Using effective endpoint protection with threat detection and response capabilities to block access attempts, and managed protection services for efficient attack investigation and expert response.
4. Minimising the number of people with access to crucial data. Breaches are more likely to occur in organisations where too many employees work with confidential and valuable information that can be sold or somehow used.
5. Equipping your employees with the cybersecurity skills they need.

There is a need for the organisation to provide education that presents all the necessary and up-to-date information in an engaging format.

To save time and receive a quality service, companies should work with globally recognised providers that can ensure an efficient learning process.