Is your B-BBEE compliance on track?

For many companies, Q4 can be an immensely pressured time, not least because of pending fiscal deadlines. Plus, the extra burden of ensuring that your B-BBEE compliance report is on track for timely submission, and in line with your transformation aspirations.

This can be particularly worrisome in cases where critically important areas of B-BBEE strategy have been neglected – or where it may incur a high cost in time, administrative frustration, and vital resources just to locate and centralise the relevant information. Factor in those areas of the scorecard which have been singled out as priority elements, and demand greater attention to detail to ensure that sub-minimum requirements have been met to ensure you don’t run the risk of discounting.

As many aspects of the B-BBEE scorecard are relative, or percentage-based with reference to net profit, companies often wait until they have a clearer picture of their financial position before determining Rand-based spend. This may necessitate last-minute implementation to ensure points are achieved; often at the expense of doing so with a broader strategy in mind, or a sensitivity to cost and value delivered.

Even for those companies who do plan ahead and simply need to reconcile in Q4, there may be the added burden of having to decide where to best shore up a weak B-BBEE scorecard, a task that can be daunting in its complexity and potential for inaccuracy. Very often, there are factors which are very difficult to control, particularly when time is limited – for example, requesting and collecting updated B-BBEE certificates from suppliers who may not share the same sense of urgency