I'm in New York City at the moment, I came over to meet Julia, my sister Frances's new baby. We've had a fantastic time here. America is an fascinating country and New York is probably its most interesting city. Frances has been living here for five years and has many South African friends in the city - all have managed to keep their South African accents (even though Frances married Chris - an American) so at times it felt like we were at home. I also met up with some old school friends who live in the USA. It would seem that all these ex-South Africans wil remain ex. It has been an important wake-up call for me, all of these people have made lives for themselves in the USA and that is where they have chosen to live. Admittedly the quality of life in Manhattan cannot rival that in Sandton, but that is not enough to entice these people back to the country.
Perhaps this is where the whole concept of BBBEE fits in. If it is regarded as an economic and remedial plan and manages to address the unemployment and violent crime levels in South Africa, we might see some of the ex-pats coming back (both black and white).
But for this process to work we will need to see both government and corporate South Africa taking a mature appproach to BBBEE and suppliers.
I would like to see bigger corporates and parastatals requesting broad-based information from their suppliers. There are many non-black owned companies that are making the requisite broad-based effort that is not being recognised.
BBBEE is a journey - scores will be low initially but this will improve in time. If it doesn't then companies can decide whether they want to use these laggards as suppliers.
The exempt micro enterprise threshold is R5million - EMEs should not be pressured for their BBBEE status.
All forms of entrepreneurship must be recognised and encouraged.
The BBBEE message within companies must be uniform - Caird has developed and implemented education strategies for our customers so that their supplier selection does not fall over because of a lack of information.
And finally a few thank you's. I found myself in a precarious position halfway through this year but with the help of all of our customers and partners we baely skipped a beat. Special thanks must go to Rienzo for bringing a new direction to Caird, to Lesley-Ann at Image Communications for the continued (and fantastic) PR and marketing strategies, to Kath for putting up with a hell of a lot more than she ever anticipated.
Happy New Year - as I write this it is new year in SA, New York still has six hours to go. The Caird Group will continue to provide provocative and innovative thought for business continuity - please continue to read this blog for more ideas.