The ability of companies to create competitive advantage and win business in the South African market based on their broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) scorecard rating can be an incredibly costly and extremely complex issue, says Hansie Fourie.
Fourie, an experienced veteran of the IT distribution sector, has teamed up with Business Beyond Boundaries, a business improvement consultancy, to launch a unique B-BBEE rating enhancement and managed services delivery solution.
“B-BBEE is a non-negotiable condition of doing business in South Africa for an overwhelming majority of small to medium corporates and all enterprises operating in the country – local as well as multinational,” says Fourie.
“However, depending on the company’s commitment to B-BBEE and the Sector Charter that has to be applied to the business, compliance at levels that help to guarantee competitive advantage in the open market based on public sector tenders and requests for proposals in the private sector can be prohibitively expensive and extremely complex to manage,” he adds.
To illustrate this point, Fourie points out that the three aspects of the DTI’s Scorecard that represent both the greatest cost and complexity when it comes to compliance are:
* Skills development – at a total cost of up to 6% of payroll;
* Enterprise and supplier development – at a total cost of up to 5% of Net Profit After Tax (NPAT); and
* Socio-Economic Development – at a total cost of up to 1,5% of NPAT.
Fourie says the BBB solution, based on expert financial consultancy across all aspects of the B-BBEE Scorecard and the turnkey delivery of managed services focused on skills development and job creation, is designed to assist clients to reduce the cost of B-BBEE compliance to zero in these three areas.
“At the same time the BBB solution will enable the client company to enhance its B-BBEE Scorecard rating by up to two levels and have a significant impact on improving overall operational efficiencies,” he says.
