THE aim of any empowerment process must be to create a leaner, more effective and profitable business that is globally competitive. The transformed business processes should also support and complement the objectives of the government, which is the nation’s largest single procurer of goods and services.

At the core of the transformation process is the overriding imperative to grow the bottom line through carefully planned and skillfully executed strategic interventions. A critical part of the mix is the application of a triple-bottom-line model that requires company performance to be evaluated in terms of both financial and nonfinancial standards. The model contains several advantages.

It tracks the business’s performance in a manner that encourages transparency;

It focuses management’s attention on sociopolitical issues in southern Africa, thereby fostering higher levels of corporate responsibility;

It ensures accountability between the holding company and the companies in which it invests;

It intensifies management’s attention to maximising profitability; and

It is sustainable.

A critical element of the process is an imperative to redefine current business process and practice with a view to transforming it into a new and appropriate process. The ultimate objective is to ensure sustainable future growth based on operational effectiveness and relevance founded on “legitimacy”.

Transformation and change should be viewed as a continuous process of translating aspirations into results through the development and capitalisation of the business’s core competencies. Therefore, the company’s investments must transform concurrently.

When implementing change and transformation, an understanding of the dynamics of anxiety and the need for management’s psychological comfort is paramount. Among the means of achieving this is to accelerate transformation by:

nHelping employees in a new investment to see what the future looks like for the company;

Involving them in contributing to resolving issues;

Demonstrating the behaviour and culture change required for the future; and

nEnsuring that there is a sustainable effect in those communities in which the investment’s employees live.

The above should be incorporated into a transformation map designed to get everyone to pull in the same direction to execute the goals.

The empowerment process must be holistic and systematic, driven by skilled expertise in close liaison with senior management and fully endorsed by the board of directors. The transformation agenda lends itself to interventions that create value throughout the organisation; value through transforming ownership and control, organisational development (workplace transformation), affirmative procurement, channel strategy, and empowerment communication.

It is commonly assumed that the new government procurement regulations merely require some form of black ownership in businesses wishing to participate in state tenders. In reality, however, over and above the shareholding requirements, there is a need for meaningful workplace transformation in terms of the Employment Equity Act of 1998, the Labour Relations Act and the Skills Development Act. And there are the additional requirements of procurement reform driven by clearly defined policies, practices and evaluation mechanisms.

Broad-based black empowerment should not only be limited to the number of participants in the shareholding structure, but should also ensure that all the pillars of the black economic empowerment scorecard are covered comprehensively.

I suggest that an approach of this nature be tackled on two fronts.

nDesign a syndicate participating in broad-based black investor groupings on a “horses for courses” basis. Black empowerment investment groupings have differing value propositions, with each offering different inputs to enhance the organisation’s competitive edge.

nConduct a gap analysis to identify areas where the organisation would need to deploy skills into the broader business grouping with a view to monitoring the investment/s and to drive the business forward as a participant in executive management.

Ultimately, management dares not lose sight of the fact that black empowerment is about value-add; that other subsidiary goals should be relegated to nether regions of the priority hierarchy.

nLesela is CEO of empowerment investment group Jala Capital.