Economic and social transformation in South Africa is an evolving and fluid issue, with the rules being written by, and through our actions. The revision of the Code of Good Practice (RCoGP) on B-BBEE is reflective of some of these actions (behaviours) over approximately the past seven years, both good and bad, and provides us with some indication of how the Department of Trade and Industry (Dti) views the progress made to date. As such it is difficult to define best practice in absolute terms. There is no right or wrong approach, as it is very dependent on the context.

The area of transformation remains a very emotive, complex, business defining, social issue of our time. As a consequence, discussions on transformation still tend to provoke strong reactions with key stakeholders in business and politics sometimes having quite divergent views. While not discounting the importance of allowing these emotions to surface, be openly discussed and become mutually understood; Having said this, it is fascinating that people are appointed to drive this complex systemic process with little to no formal equipping – there has been to date no longitudinal accredited work-based learning process that mentors new transformation champions to deal with these responsibilities. This is the gap that the Transcend B-BBEE internship program addresses.

The internship program through a combination of work based and classroom based processes provides:

• A detailed step-by-step approach to understanding and implementing enterprise transformation, based on the revised Code of Good Practice and empirical best practice, in a sustainable manner so that it delivers value to your business.
• The objective of this internship is to equip champions to move  organisations beyond classical tick-box compliance thinking around B-BBEE, and to truly embrace the new enterprise transformation paradigm, to achieve a successful and sustainable business in symbiosis with the ever changing environment, able to compete nationally and internationally, delivering value to its clients.

The internship follows provide a cohesive framework for understanding, enabling, and achieving enterprise transformation in this specific context. In this process we provide a breakdown and explanation of the Dti’s revised code of good practice and scorecard measurements, as well as a set of enterprise principles and a transformation process roadmap that serve as the foundation for a holistic analysis framework that captures the current state, envisions the future state, and determines actions needed for guiding transformation efforts.

We explore in detail the three interdependent, interconnected cycles that every enterprise should enact along its transformation journey – the strategic cycle where the need to transform is understood and defined, the planning cycle where the enterprise determines the actions it needs to take, and the execution cycle where the enterprise translates plans and ideas into action. This holistic analysis framework integrates discrete analyses of stakeholders, processes, performance measurements (scorecard elements), change management principles including change maturity (readiness), resources allocation and role clarity, alignment with corporate strategic objectives, and enterprise characteristics to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. These gaps, in conjunction with the desired future state, are used to develop the enterprise transformation plan. We will walk through each element of the analyses and use examples and best practice drawn from the interns actual organisations to illustrate key concepts.

For more info email: Brian Hendrikz brian@transcend.co.za