A post that I might have written in the past. My stats tell me that this is post is number 1293, which is not that much if you consider that the blog is almost 20 years old, I started it in August 2006.
There are multiple players in the black economic empowerment world.
1) There is the client. That company that needs a BEE certificate
2) There is the person at the client who handles this process
3) There is the verification agency (VA) that gathers the evidence and gives you a score
4) SANAS (my nemesis) the agency that issues licenses to VAs to operate.
5) Finally the companies that want to receive the BEE certificates. Certificates are fine, there some companies that are being lead around the BEE Hive and set rules for affidavits that are ludicrous. The mines are the ABSOLUTE worst
A BEE consultant sits between 2 and 3. They are the people that you hire to arrange the process, make sure you do everything right and then get you a scorecard. These are the people that have the necessary relationships with the VAs and can get things over the proverbial line.
There are a few types of consultancies as far as I can see
Number 1
These are the expensive ones. They have a number of people working for them, each person handling a client. They behave themselves and do everything by the book. You pay for the privilege of their custom. Their professionalism extends to their dress and their fantastic use of contemporary corporate jargon. They get results, often at great expense. Tend to work for the largest companies (and SOEs).
Number 2
These are the transformation folks. They are up for doing the right thing, doing it because it's right. There are a lot of these. They know how to manipulate the BEE Commission's opinions into binding processes that you'd be far too scared to challenge. They have a wide network of beneficiaries for all types of causes. They'll get involved in everything. I think there's an element of fear there. Good dress sense and just enough knowledge to confuse.
Number 3
Number 3 work on compliance. The better ones know how to interpret the various BEE codes to their clients' benefit. In some cases they may use an interpretation from someone that serves their client best, even though they disagree with the interpretation. They may then reject that interpretation for the next client. They know that BEE is expensive, they know it's a necessity but they also know that their clients are not going through a BEE process because it's the right thing to do. Their clients are doing it because they have to. They don't want to spend unnecessary money. They want results and they want those results for as little money as possible. The cleverer consultants don't get involved in any internal processes in their clients. They just find points. Dress sense is often sorely lacking and as a result they may be more inclined to do virtual meetings. Their waistlines increase because stretchy fabric hides the fallout.
AND THEN THERE'S RUDOLF and ME
We're number 3s. We have saved our clients a ugly amount of money over the years. Easily in the hundreds of millions if I have to think about the last 20 years. We go for results. We look for points and we find them. We charge per engagement and don't do retainers. We can sort everything out ourselves and have relationships with everybody if needed.
I like being us. And we are really good at not liking SANAS.