At some point, we can relate to a bad customer experience on a personal or professional level.

Be it having a special occasion ruined by terrible food or service at a restaurant, a shoddy repair job on your motor vehicle or having your call placed on hold for 25 minutes when trying to resolve a simple issue without success.

In most instances, these experiences have left us feeling disgruntled and inconvenienced, or in extreme cases, we might have even incurred additional expenses or suffered reputational damage.

What do we do?

We vow never to do business again with the parties involved and advise against them via word of mouth or write complaints on social media platforms.

Customers have the power to either make or break your business.

Recent surveys on customer experience conducted by Forbes Magazine and Bain & Company reveal two important facts that business owners cannot ignore. Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than those that are not.

While 80% of companies are under the impression that they deliver on customer experience, they responded that only 8% are doing so.

The recent pandemic changed the business landscape dramatically due to global lockdowns.

Digital-led experiences have increased and have become the new normal.

Companies that were slow on technology uptake were placed in a precarious position and suffered substantial financial losses.

Other companies quickly adapted their business models to focus more on service delivery to enable customer retention or expand their customer base.

Knowing Your Customer and where to find them is proven to be of the utmost importance. Their experience will define two-thirds of customer loyalty.

If your customers are not satisfied or offered convenience and consistency throughout their journey, they will go elsewhere.

The good news for business owners today is that customer experience technology offers solutions that will benefit your company and customers alike.

We have placed increased efforts on our customer success delivery model that we have embedded in every solution of ours.

Our Customer success team are professionals in the B-BBEE industry and boasts deep technical insights into the Codes and relevant sector charters. Internally we have identified a way of work to understand the customer’s operational environment and work together to align goals and objectives, thereby ensuring that the customer is deriving value from our offerings through their time with us.

It is essential to partner with the right service provider; there is an unfortunate misconception around value, especially in the South African market.

In a COVID struck environment, everyone looks for the lowest price.

Companies are impressed by who talks the “bigger game” at a sales initiative but not on facts. Facts must drive due diligence.

Mpowered has a customer satisfaction rate of over 90%, an average retention of customers for five years (some have been with us for a decade!) and a Net promoter score way above average for software as a services business.

We focus our customer success strategies around support and value.

Supporting customers through every up and down during their compliance journeys. Our customer success team thrive on our support platforms (phone, email and Live chat) so much so that our first-time response resolves are above 70%, and our actual time response to tickets are minutes on emails, seconds on Live chat and calls.

As the old saying goes, ‘Customer is king’.

We adopt this principle as our way of work to ensure that we optimise a customer’s compliance journey through efficiencies, allowing customers to drive true impactful transformation in their respective areas, all driving business forward.

With the global reality of COVID-19, shrinking markets, rising unemployment rates and increased competitiveness, it makes business sense to deliver on service now and understand the 76% of customers out there who expect to be understood.

Warren Buffett said it best, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Studies conducted by the University of the Western Cape have found that between 70% and % (https://www.uwc.ac.za/News/Pages/How-Can-South-African-Entrepreneurs-Succeed.aspx) of businesses fail within the first five years. These are scary numbers to look at, and after speaking to professionals in various industries, I wonder what the failure rate is for new graduates when they enter their profession. They all seem to say the same thing: graduates entering the workforce are nowhere ready to work for the companies that hire them.

When you speak to professionals you can understand their frustration at dealing with new graduates who are “know it alls” and feel they should be running the business based on the degree they have obtained. Yes, they might have mastered the theory, but they have no understanding of how to apply it practically, or how to navigate the corporate world.

I have personally seen graduates coming into the workforce thinking that they will be immediately earning a high salary. It is a rude awakening for them when they hear that they would probably need to start in an internship earning nothing more than a stipend, and that their starting salary thereafter will be modest.

This is where mentoring can be so useful for these graduates for them to understand that even if they have great ideas it does not always lead to instant success. Don’t get me wrong, I think their energy and insights are required in a technology driven, social media controlled modern world, and this could be beneficial to any company if it is done right.

So how do we harness the energy and insights offered by the youth, and improve their efficiency and initial experiences in the workplace?

One powerful way is through focused mentorship programmes. I have always seen myself as an educator, and teaching and mentoring has come naturally to me. I wish this could be a calling for more people as I think it mentorships could fundamentally change the experience that our youth have as they enter the workforce. Not only is there a need for this type of guidance for the youth, but also entrepreneurs that are starting a new business.

This is where professions such as Chartered Accountants and attorneys have got it right. Graduates are required to complete a two-year articles programme as they embark on their careers. These graduates know that they are in for long hours and low pay when they start their articles, because everyone has warned them about it.

A form of this should be standard for each industry.

After understanding what your reality will be when you join the workforce you now need a mentor that can help you navigate your new environment. Technology and the use of it comes easy for the Generation Zers. Dealing with people that do not speak their language is not so easy for them and can cause frustration for the entire workforce. Having a proper mentorship programme in place could also lead to less resistance from current workforce and can create clear growth opportunities for your graduates, which will mean more harmony in an organisation. Dare I say it, a win, win for all.

The mentorship concept seems to have gained increasing traction in recent years. Mentorship programmes such as http://mentorshipmovement.co.za/  and the  https://www.mentorshipchallenge.co.za/ are gaining followers. There is a professional body where mentors can register themselves: https://www.comensa.org.za. Even government has spearheaded various mentorship programmes for young entrepreneurs and work-seekers.

There’s little doubt about the value of mentorship, but many of the professionals who are well-suited to the task are inundated with work, and good mentoring involves a considerable time commitment.

The question we need to ask here is: can we find a group of people with both the time and relevant experience that can guide these youth and entrepreneurs?

The answer is yes: our retired citizens. Retirees have a wealth of experience and knowledge, and are often looking for a purpose. The average retirement age is roughly 60 years (https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/indicators), and with life expectancies increasing in South Africa and globally, retirees often end full-time work with several years of potentially productive years to spare.

From my experience you will see a lot of retired people enjoying the first couple of months of retirement and then getting bored and looking for a challenge. Let them guide our young entrepreneurs while simultaneously generating an income from the experience that they have gathered in their work life. Let us not throw away resources where they are so desperately needed.

As a B-BBEE professional, I can say that an opportunity exists for the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition to add more on mentoring by adding it as an indicator on the Amended Codes of Good Practice.

In this regard, the Construction Sector Charter has led the way. It allows for three points to be scored under Skills Development for an Implementation of an Approved and Verified Mentorship Programme. You can even score an additional bonus points for people that were promoted due to them having completed the learnership programme. This provides clear incentive for companies to drive mentorship programmes, and I feel this should be standard across all charters.

Let’s increase meaningful mentorship programmes across the country by inviting retirees to get involved and structuring incentives for companies to follow suit. I know getting people to commit their precious time to help individuals that are not friends or family does not come natural to human beings, but I promise you that when you see the growth in a person that you are mentoring and they succeed in their endeavors, their success becomes your success.

Author –  Kurt Van Der Westhuizen, 04 December 2020

With unemployment rates on the rise globally in the wake of Covid-19, and first world countries like the USA more than doubling their unemployment rate since the start of the pandemic (from 3,5% in February to 10,2%  in July), it’s little surprise that South Africa is also feeling the burn.

South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 30.1% in the first quarter of 2020 from 29.1%, which is above the market expectations of 29.7%.  This is the highest jobless rate on record since the recession of 2008.  The number of unemployed people increased by 344 000 to an all-time high of R7.1-million.

Official statistics from the second quarter have not been published yet, but a median of eight economists in a Bloomberg survey estimate that it will surge to 35%.

Is B-BBEE helping?

The overall objective of BEE is to increase black participation in the economy. Employment Equity as one of the elements of BBBEE is to achieve equity in the workplace by promoting equal opportunity and fair treatment in employment of black people, black women, and black people with disabilities.

Since historical information has shown that black South Africans, the majority in the country, face the most unemployment, followed by coloured people and then Indians, is B-BBEE helping to redress this?

 Whites and males still overwhelmingly dominate top spots

The 19^th CEE report, titled: “Transformation makes business sense” – showed that in 2018, more than 65% of top management positions were occupied by the White group; followed by the African group with substantially less representation at 15%; the Indian group at just under 10%; the Coloured group at 5% and foreign nationals at 3%.

The report showed that males occupied 77% of the positions and females 24%. Africans occupied 76% of the positions in government and whites occupied 70% of the positions in the private sector.

In terms of the gender split, males took the lion’s share of top management positions in the private sector, occupying 78%, with females filling only 22% of those positions.

The government sector saw a slightly more even spread between the sexes, but still, males occupied 67% in the government sector and females 33%. Persons with disabilities constitute 1.3% at top management level.

The ratio of black representation increased towards the less-skilled spectrum of the workforce. In the “professionally qualified” group 40% of the positions were occupied by the African group but that figure more than doubles as we reach the unskilled workforce.

Commission for Employment Equity Chairperson Tabea Kabinde said that Africans represent a whopping “army” of unskilled workforce with 84% of positions occupied by the group; followed by 11% coloured, 4% foreign nationals, and around 1% from both the white and Indian groups.

Little movement in latest figures reflects ‘no will to transform’

The 20^th CEE report is out, and very little has changed.  The report shows that in 2019, the white South African occupied 65.6% of top management positions compared to 65.5% in 2018. By comparison, black South Africans were still trailing behind at top management levels in 2019, with representation at 15.2% compared to 15.1% in 2018.  The data is based on directorship and not all levels of management control, demonstrating low transformation at board level.

Kabinde said that this shows that the workplace remains on the same trajectory at the top and senior management level.

She expressed that this worries her because it suggests that the pace of transformation is very slow and that it will take long for representation to reflect the country’s economically active population.

“The bottom line is that there is no will to effect transformation,” she said.

Speaking on the gender mix, she said that transformation was also very slow, as males occupied 75.6% of top management positions compared with female at 26.4%. versus 76.5% for males and 23.5% for females in 2018.

“It is almost as if employers do not hear the plight of women – that we are here,” said Kabinde.

“We want our place at the table, we are capable. We are not asking of you to give us something that we should not have access to. We say recognise us, recognise our skills, and recognise what we bring to the party,” she said.

As the Government is now forced to resort to strident measures to ensure transformation in the workface the Commission said that one of the ways that this lack of transformation will be addressed is through the Employment Equity Amendment Bill. Cabinet approved the bill in February this year for submission to parliament.

The primary objective of the bill is to empower the Minister to regulate employment equity sector targets for designated groups. The CEE said it will work alongside the Department of Employment and Labour to engage business sectors on the setting of targets.

The bill also outlines a requirement for organisations doing business with state entities to issue an annual “certificate of compliance” with Employment Equity targets.

Final thoughts

It seems like irrespective of the government introducing policies like the B-BBEE Act in efforts to transform the workplace, the CEE annual reports show that transformation is extremely slow. Official statistics find that white people and Indian people are still at the helm of most companies in South Africa, dominating top management and senior management level positions across the country.

Written by: Silindile, 14 October 2020

One of the mandates of the B-BBEE Commission is to verify all ownership deals to the value of R25 million and above. In order for the deal to be recognized by the Commission, companies are required to submit all the relevant documents proving the extent and type of black ownership.

Recently, the B-BBEE Commission released the Major B-BBEE Transactions Analysis Report to document the ownership transactions that have taken place over the past year and how the landscape of black ownership has changed. This article will look at what was presented in the report and provide insight into some of the key outcomes.

A handful of deals make up almost 90% of the value

Only 95 transactions were sent to B-BBEE commission for the period of 2018/19. The lion’s share in terms of rand value went to the ten largest transactions. These ten deals represented 88% of all the value of submitted deals.

Overall, there was a R76, 81 billion decrease in the total value of B-BBEE ownership deals in the country. There was a total of R111,9 billion deals submitted but only 46.7% of the gross value of these transactions is said to be allocated to black shareholders, which amounted to R52,3 billion in the hands of black shareholders. That is about the same amount the City of Cape Town approved for their 2020 budget.

The positive spinoff of this, though, is that the 2018/19 year saw a 12% increase in the value that was put into the hands of black people.

More black female ownership, but less black new entrants

Statistically speaking, there was an increase in the percentage of most of the ownership indicators as classified in the B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice. Black (African, Indian and Coloured) Ownership, which include male and female increased from 48% to 60%. Black female ownership increased from 20% to 29%. This is a clear indication that growth is occurring within the ownership element for black people.

The other indicator that showed an increase was for black designated groups which increased from 23% to 43% of shareholding in the hands of black designated groups.

1. Black designated groups are defined as follows:
2. unemployed black people not attending and not required by law to attend an educational institution and not awaiting admission to an educational institution;
3. Black people who are youth (aged up to 35)
4. Black people who are persons with disabilities;
5. Black people living in rural and under developed areas; and
6. Black military veterans.

The indicator that is the most concerning is the Black New Entrant indicator where there was a decrease from 22% to 13% in new black investors. This could be viewed as a decrease in new black investors gaining access to companies and that the companies are rather continuing to use the same black shareholders. One of the biggest concerns with B-BBEE is that it is said that only some black people get rich from B-BBEE and with the decrease in the Black New Entrant numbers underscore this concern. This indicator would need to be tracked for longer to see if a pattern persists.

Another significant factor that has been identified is that Voting Rights have decreased from 46% to 32%. This means that ownership deals have been structured to provide more economic rights for black people, but actual voting rights has been kept away from them. So, although more black people are getting access to financial benefit there is less voting power in making significant decisions in companies.

Finance sector dominates deal value

Currently, a company can be rated on one of ten different sector charters (including the generic scorecard), depending on the industry in which it operates.

Of these 10 sectors, the generic Codes of Good Practice saw the most ownership transactions (41), followed by the Financial Sector Charter with 21 transactions. Only the Construction Sector has shown a growth in transactions and all other sectors has seen a decrease in transactions. Both Forestry and Tourism had zero transactions for the same period. Overall, there was a decline of 177 transaction when compared to the previous year.

The value created by these transactions amounted to R111,9 billion. To put this in perspective, this amount is almost double Gauteng’s entire provincial budget for the same year.

Deals in the Financial Sector Charter provided the highest value of R44,1 billion. In that sector, there was also an increase of R28,08 billion compared to the base amount, with the base amount being previous year’s totals achieved. Only two other sectors showed an increase when compared to base period, being the Construction and the Marketing, Advertising and Communication (MAC) sectors.

All other sectors had a decrease in transactions value, with the biggest loss being the Tourism sector code because they had no new transactions, compared with the second biggest transaction value in the base year. The difference amounted to a loss of R57,05 billion in that sector.

Final thoughts

Based on the above, we can clearly see that there has been a decrease in transactions against the base year. From those deals, more economic interest has benefitted black people but control has been negatively affected with the decrease in voting rights. Having this report give us clear insight in how deals are structured and who benefits from these deals. It will be interesting to see if the report impacts future deals.

Written by: Kurt Van Der Westhuizen, 14 October 2020

Working in the BEE industry for the last 10 years I have been asked — by myself and others — what good B-BBEE has ever done for the black people it supposedly aims to serve.

I have seen some individuals benefiting from B-BBEE ownership deals, but it often seems to be the same people.

I have seen people being put into unsuitable management positions simply to benefit the company’s Management Control score.

I have seen black entrepreneurs start small businesses, but many have not grown their companies with the investments they receive, and some have even spent the money on luxury items rather than routing it back into the business.

These all paint a pretty dire picture, but as a black (Coloured) BEE practitioner, I’m here to tell you that there is also a ray of light on this horizon. What is it, you may ask?

Skills Development.

That single element of B-BBEE is where I see a measurable difference being made in the lives of black people in South Africa.

Why is Skills Development so important to me?

I grew up in the gang-ridden, notorious suburb of Mitchells Plain in Cape Town. I had no real opportunity to study full-time straight after high school. In fact, that opportunity only came when I was 30 years old. I paid for my studies out of my own pocket at first but had to take out a loan to complete my course. My degree came coupled with a chunk of debt that I had to pay off, and I still needed to help my family with expenses at the same time. It took me 5 years to pay off the debt.

Despite the financial strain, it was worth it. My life has changed drastically since I accomplished my degree, and I can truly see how important an education was for the improvement of my lifestyle. Without an education I would not be where I am today, and I think everyone should be given a similar opportunity to improve themselves.

How does my experience relate to B-BBEE?

B-BBEE has a mechanism that caters for the Skills Development of employees and the development of unemployed learners. This was further enhanced in the amendments that took effect in 2015 to include non-employed people. With the 2019 amendments, the Codes now also specifically cater for students at higher education institutions. There are several different types of training recognized by the Skills Development scorecard, including learnerships, mandatory training and bursaries. For the purposes of this blog, I will focus on bursaries.

The government is using B-BBEE to drive Skills Development to enhance our current workforce. The people who benefit from this won’t need to be burdened by debt when they study, because the course is funded by companies in South Africa. If I had been given the opportunity of a bursary, I would have been further along in my personal accomplishments rather than first having to pay off the debt I incurred while studying.

Even before bursaries could be claimed under Skills Development, companies were using different methods to pay for bursaries. They would use their Corporate Socio-Investment expenditure to pay for bursaries for qualifying students or for their employee’s children. Some companies even had ownership structures, whereby a trust would own shares in a company and the beneficiaries of the trust would be black students. But now that bursaries are a separate indicator under the Skills Development element, the number of companies providing bursaries to students has increased dramatically. Click here for a list of bursaries that are available in South Africa.

What does this mean for the future?

Thanks to B-BBEE requirements, companies are now implementing development plans for students from school level through to university and into the workforce for scarce and critical skills. This means that companies can now identify the correct people at a young age and develop them towards filling gaps where the need might exist in future. Although this may take a long while, it still promises a better future for students at school than they previously would have had in this current economy. It gives me great assurance that the future of my own child can be planned out at a much earlier stage than I had previously imagined.

What more can be done?

A big problem for universities is that only 22% of students complete their degree in 3 years, and only 39% of students have completed their degree by the fourth year. This puts strain on universities and on the workforce, as people with limited skills are joining the economy.

This is where I think corporate South Africa can and should do more. We do not have enough professionals that mentor students and keep them on track when they are studying. If your company provides bursaries to students, I would recommend that you take ownership of the relationship and provide meaningful mentorship for these students to ensure your development plan targets are met. Let’s work together to help students enter the workplace properly prepared and in a shorter amount of time.

My final word

I have always said, you can take a person’s job, you can take their dignity, but you can’t take their education away. If you go onto LinkedIn, you will see people that started off as cleaners, security guards or petrol attendants who have now achieved their degrees and/or doctorates, and some of them were achieved through the policies that were implemented by B-BBEE.

Let’s get more people educated and hopefully policies like B-BBEE will not be needed in future.

Author –  Kurt Van Der Westhuizen, 03 September 2020

Since the introduction of the B-BBEE Act of 2003, broad-based black economic empowerment is 17 years old and counting. It’s been seventeen years since a commitment was made to honour the infamous line of ‘righting the wrongs of the apartheid era’. Yet, still today, B-BBEE compliance is often referred to as a grudge purchase.

A grudge purchase. Let’s take a moment to break that down. When we look at the definition of the word grudge, Oxford quotes, ‘’a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from a past insult or injury.’’ I do understand the latter half of the definition: B-BBEE addresses the very real past injuries caused by apartheid; however, it’s the first half that I can’t quite relate to. A persistent feeling depicts a feeling that is ongoing or obstinate.

You would think, that after all this time, people would have understood the intentions behind the B-BBEE Act and Codes of Good Practice. For those who are unfamiliar, these legislations govern the guidelines on how to enforce black economic empowerment in a fair and safe manner. If these legislations are meant to offer a positive resolve, the obvious question arises, how can it contribute to the persistent feeling of ill will or resentment?

When one hears the word apartheid, there is generally an immediately negative connotation. Surely, then, any legislation issued to help alleviate those injustices would be seen in a positive light. Why, then, would the road to strip away the injustice still be paved with feelings of ill will or resentment? Perhaps it’s because, as humans, we have a basic instinct to protect our rights, our rights of freedom, of speech, of any act within our control.

The gratification of a purchase comes when you chose to spend your money on something you may want or need. Once the aspect of choice or control is removed and the purchase is done because you have to, you view that purchase negatively. When that control is taken away — even partially — we harbour a grudge.

Generally, grudge purchases are things such as tyres for your car, a roof for your home, a mattress to sleep on, etc. It is a product or service that needs to be maintained in order for you to extract a benefit from it. The same applies to the world of B-BBEE. In order for your business to extract the benefit of B-BBEE (such as securing new business opportunities) you need to obtain a good B-BBEE compliance level.

Attaining a good level, however, requires a serious commitment from companies. There are monetary and non-monetary implications, and sometimes it can be downright expensive.

But just as the car needs new tyres in order to maintain safety on the road, so too does B-BBEE need to be adhered to and maintained in order to truly transform the country.

While I don’t mean to be insensitive to people’s feelings, I do think that we need to get over the grudge that comes along with B-BBEE purchases. I mean, what positive outcome can arise from the persistent feeling of ill will and resentment?

For those of you struggling with this sentiment, I offer the following tip for dealing with grudge purchases: focus on the outcome rather than the process.

We will find more comfort when we understand that a truly transformed country means great things for every single South African. Every time your company hires a black person, every black skills development intervention, every purchase from a B-BBEE compliant supplier, every contribution made towards a black-owned company or towards the black community, will be a step in the right direction.

So I say grudge schmudge. Don’t let the negativity of the apartheid era seep into what can be a beautiful transformation for an evolving country.

Yes, there are many instances of corruption in government and public entities that all leave a bad taste in our mouths. Somehow these are more often than not tied into some B-BBEE principle such as preferential procurement. Despite that, I think we should subscribe to a more positive mindset and focus on each black life that is changed for the better. If we are all truly honest with ourselves and each other, we will acknowledge the underlying racism that continues to plague our world.

I sincerely hope I will not be misunderstood here. I am not saying that I don’t understand the feelings of grudge, I am asking that as you read this, you open your mind to changing the way you think and feel about B-BBEE.

Look at the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to face a virus that threatens the very existence of our livelihoods, we as a nation have come and continue to stay together. We encourage and support each other, in the spirit of compassion. Why then can we not do the same when it comes to B-BBEE? Why can’t we see transformation for what it is, which is a change, to enhance or be better.

As each South African accepts the beauty and burdens that others carry, we will start to embrace the changes that make us a rainbow nation.

So the next time you hear someone say that B-BBEE is a grudge purchase, remind them of how helpful or worthy the task at hand could be. Remind them that each step we take in the right direction is one step closer to something more beautiful.

Author –  Mitishka Ramdhani, 11 August 2020