IT IS often beneficial to partner creatively with clients and suppliers to benefit from broad-based black economic empowerment, as well to grow your business.

The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act ingeniously encourages the implementation of empowerment through a trickle-down effect.

Organisations are encouraged to not only empower black staff internally, but to also build and partner with black-empowered suppliers.

Points are gained on the scorecard for procuring goods or services from black empowered enterprises and empowerment is encouraged at all points of the value chain, from supply to the delivery of the service.

Additional points are awarded for enterprise development and other social investment activities. The intended beneficiaries are small, micro- and medium-sized enterprises owned and controlled by black people.

It works to the advantage of a business to dovetail its empowerment strategies by helping to procure services from small black businesses, thereby addressing both the enterprise development and preferential procurement issues.

Small businesses must meet the qualifying criteria for their business sector and should

implement the following:

Select five of the seven elements of the empowerment scorecard: ownership, management control, employment equity, skills development, preferential procurement, enterprise development and residual factors;

Apply to be on clients’ supplier databases to be considered for procurement opportunities;

Identify enterprise development needs to accelerate financial and operational capacity;

Partner with clients to participate in enterprise development programmes;

Support clients to get points for their enterprise development initiatives; and

Expand opportunities to supply to clients through closer working relationships.

Qualifying enterprise development contributions mean those that are actually implemented in favour of beneficiary entities, with the objective of assisting and/or accelerating the development, sustainability and the ultimate financial and operational capacity of the entity.

Building small businesses can benefit an organisation as this can ensure greater reliability, quality and consistency of supply, as well as supporting the scaleability of the supplier.

Support may be nonmonetary or direct financial assistance. In order for this support to be sustainable, the investment needs to be lasting, which requires a holistic approach.

Business may provide infrastructural support — for example providing equipment or premises at a minimal charge, or it may mean giving access to expertise within the business, such as financial experts, marketing expertise, human resource management, computer or legal expertise.

Consider the advert that flaunts the support a specific bank provides a black-owned car retailer. This provides goodwill for the bank and exposure for the business. There might be opportunities to partner with your supplier that create publicity for both parties.

Both these direct and indirect investments could lead to growth of the small business. However, the sustainability of these interventions may not be lasting without the requisite increase in capacity to manage the development of the small business.

Interventions are best coupled with training and mentoring. This structured support and learning could be outsourced to providers who train and build small business.

Collaborative efforts can have a great effect on both the small business and the client, while the synergy of enterprise development and preferential procurement can provide a win-win scenario.

Babb is MD, the Skills Framework.