Positive energy

In light of the recent lack of lights in South Africa, maybe Eskom should be chatting to Google.org about their Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (RE < C) and RechargeIT Initiatives.

Back to earth

Opinions and freedom of expression make blogging powerful but the art is in getting the balance right. I found some balance in this post on Ego and Opinion.

Online Technology in Economic Transformation - South Africa

Today businesses need information technology. A farmer wouldn’t plough their lands by hand but rather use technology. Something which was quite advanced in its day, a tractor and a plough. Similarly, organisations process large amounts of data using tools. Information technology tools such as software turn data into fertile and actionable information. Accountants use accounting software to track and process financial data. What information technology systems do we use to track and measure our BBBEE compliance? The amount of data required for skills development or procurement scorecard is similar that of an annual accounts report. Does reporting and managing BBBEE have to feel like ploughing a field by hand?

Using Technology to aid economic transformation

The ANC’s National Policy Conference of 2007 a Gallagher Estate the Commission Reports and Draft Resolutions made it clear that the ANC is relying greatly on information technology to assist economic transformation; http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/2007/conference/econ_transformation.html

“Our vision of the economic transformation takes as its starting point the Freedom Charter's clarion call that the People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth! Since 1994 we have made substantial progress in transforming the economy to benefit the majority, but serious challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality remain ... National prosperity through rising productivity, brought about by innovation and cutting edge technology, labour absorbing industrial growth, competitive markets and a thriving small business and cooperative sector and the utilisation of information and communication technologies with efficient forms of production and management.

It isn’t only South Africa who approaches transformation in this manner; an article on the Cisco website, http://www.cisco.com/web/EA/press/ea_press_240907.html “Cisco Engages Angola Government on Economic Transformation through Technology” their opinion is IT is a valuable tool in education and the competing in a global economy: “Around the world the Internet has been the engine behind the spectacular growth of the global economy, enabling the sharing of skills, knowledge, expertise and creating local wealth.” Anthropology states that the human race’s success over other animals is the ability to adapt to the environment. Humanities direct environment today is society, economics and politics. Humans in general are affected more by these than the ecology, yet find it difficult to manage them effectively. An economy cannot strive unless there is political and social stability but we are able to analyse a situation, learn, plan and respond in the best way. Is information technology becoming our way of adapting to our changing environment? New technology and sociological development in human history has been met with skepticism. This is healthy for South Africa’s economy, neglect is not.

Information technology as a tool in business

There are maestros who slice information into beautiful edible pieces like a butcher uses his cleaver to create a French trimmed crown of lamb. These craftsmen and women come at a high price, or do they? Actually, they are the majority of every office. The MD’s assistant types an elegant email on behalf of the boss and sends it to a mailing list, calling recipients to action, possibly changing the known universe forever. Information technology is a common tool. Today it is as easy for humans to use as it is for a primate to dip a blade of grass into a termite mound to retrieve valuable nutrition. Some can do it some can’t but IT really isn’t a very complex technology anymore.

Failures of information technology

Has money been wasted chasing information technology fad? ‘The bursting of the dot-com bubble marked the ... lengthy early 2000s recession in the developed world. http://www.stock-market-crash.net/nasdaq.htm explains “By early 2000, reality started to sink in. Investors soon realized that the dot-com dream was really a bubble. ...One high flier, Microstrategy, slid from $3500 per share to $4! Numerous accounting scandals became known, showing how many companies artificially inflated earnings. ... Millions of workers were now jobless and had lost their life savings.”‘ Is the internet is simply a landscape which is too difficult for the average South African company to navigate or could it be it be tool to help to even the new playing field?

Successes of information technology

In developing countries, the internet is often used less for greed but rather for saving money. SARS has successfully used it to collect taxes, The SARS eFiling website explains; “While the benefits for taxpayers are simplicity, speed and convenience, it is really companies that stand to gain the full benefits”. This website is a direct indication of the technological advancement within government. Over 3.8 million returns are submitted via eFiling each year. Secure payments of over R155 billion are made each year via eFiling. The eFiling website was met with a healthy skepticism when it was launched in 2003. Users we confused that it had been built by a 3^rd party, an ASP hosted solution and not by SARS themselves. However, SARS had more pressing requirements; Manual reconciliation, cheque fraud and postal service delays have become some of the main reasons why SARS had been experiencing late and “non payment” of taxes. This was addressed on a large scale by the eFiling website. (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/31/20/35395550.ppt )

Broad Based Transformation

There is significant risk that our economy will fail in the next ten years unless The Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) strategy (http://www.dti.gov.za/bee/bee.htm ) is executed correctly in our economy. It states that in order for our economy to grow we need to absorb more black people into our economy. If more than 20 million people outside the economy became useful contributors and beneficiaries of our economy, some other socio-economic problems may be alleviated.

South Africa can transform in a cost effective manner:

Contributions to BBBEE initiatives are largely recoverable to any given entity, both in the long term and short term. The measurement of BBBEE is not the same; it is labour intensive and onerous. It is more the volume of reporting rather than the complexity which is costly. One may have some difficulty interpreting some of the Codes’ definitions but the calculations are Grade 9 mathematics. Implementing a bespoke or cusomised BBBEE management information system in ones business may be a way to address the measurement and tracking issue in the long term. Once businesses have control over their contributions and targets they are able to make informed decisions. The more we learn about empowerment, the better we will become. Should we be looking at integrating our CRM’s, risk management solutions and procurement databases into a BBBEE MIS?

Large companies often have thousands of suppliers whose BBBEE scorecards need to be collected. Skills development measurement is extremely granular level of measurement, when trying to recoup skills expenditure over a given twelve month period; by individual person spend by gender by race by program. Attempting to process this information by hand or on paper is a labour intensive task. Above all it requires the attention of individuals who understand all aspect of the business. It is expensive to engage people such as this in tasks a menial as measurement.

The DTI and industry associations responsible for driving transformation need this information in order to make informed decisions. There are around 2.5 million registered companies on the CIPRO database. Individual entities, industry associations and the government require a BBBEE strategy, transformation and implementation plan and measurement planning. I know of at least six large industry associations, other interest groups and organisations that have taken the lead on automating transformation measurement and management. They provide their members with information technology solutions to speed up and reduce the costs of compliance.

The DTI is in the planning phase of creating an online solution and various other companies and organisations have built OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing applications) scorecard solutions, however the there are only a handful of people that understand how best to tackle the challenge. Using a standardised data capture method in order to return meaningful information is the first step to tracking transformation. It need not be complicated.

The baseline BBBEE presidential report shows that the “Broad based” part of South Africa’s BBBEE scorecard is frighteningly lacking. This report looked at 2000 businesses in South Africa as a sample base. The “broad based” elements of the scorecard that will help provide education and hopefully a glimpse to the economy for the majority of black South Africans. An opportunity does exist whereby SARS could publish all small back owned businesses on a single website to promote them.

BBBEE is either an opportunity or a threat. It could be a costly era for our economy or it could be a catalyst for national business intelligence. The next ten years in information technology history is unique. Business and government will work together as they have never done before. Will we be able to look back at BBBEE and say: “South Africa revolutionised the use of information technology in economic transformation; South Africa became a leading global knowledge economy spurred on by black empowerment; Leading economies look to South Africa for knowledge on economic transformation; The miracle of peace in 1994 was only a glimpse of the unprecedented national growth and prosperity achieved during the ‘broad based empowerment’ years of 2007-2017.”