Quantum Physics and BEE

The big news in quantum physics is that the Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest physics experiment. It consists of a particle accelerator, based in Switzerland. One of the strange theories about particle physics is that the act of observing certain particles causes a change of behaviour in that particle - I’d like to invite any reader who can give me a layman’s explanation to write to me. The best article will be published on our web site.

How does this impact on BEE? “The act of observing your BEE score will cause the score to change” – K Levenstein 2008.

If you know your BEE score, and how it is made up, then by continuing to do what you do in your business will have the inevitable result that the score will rise. By being aware will automatically cause you to make decisions that are in the best interest of your business, and at the same time improve your BEE score.

We have come across many companies who have recently gone through the verification process. Their score was less than 30 points – non-compliant. We do wonder why anyone would waste money to discover what they should have known before calling in a verification agency. What is the point of getting a scorecard that is non-compliant? You can give that information to your customers without paying someone thousands of rands. One of our own suppliers submitted a scorecard to us that showed a score of 5.3 points! They obviously do not recognize that it is the score that is important and not the fact that they have a scorecard. I need good score from them to improve my procurement score! If it remains as is, it is no better then if they did not respond.

If any company that is going through a verification does not know what their score is going to be, they should not start the verification process. They should only start the verification process when they are satisfied that the score they will achieve is good enough for their customers. They should rather spend their time understanding the scorecard, and observing it.

Logical Steps to a BEE Scorecard

As mentioned in the last newsletter, no verification agencies have been accredited by SANAS – the hold on the accreditation process seems to have been lifted although this does not change the fact that, there is still plenty work to be done before the accreditation can be finalised.

Some opportunistic prospective verification agencies are only accepting scorecards that have been produced by a company that has applied for accreditation to SANAS, and rejecting all other scorecards. Their logic is that a company that has paid their fee to SANAS is automatically doing the job right, and verifying correctly, never mind that they have never been assessed by any organization for competency. Their staff may have some or little or even no experience, but because they have filled in the application form their scorecards are now valid! At the same time we know of one BEE consultancy, a well known and well respected company, whose calculations have been rejected just because they have not applied to SANAS. Not logical!

What is logical?

• Get knowledge on BBBEE

• Produce an internal scorecard

• Collect acceptable documentation

• Put a process in place to collect remaining documentation and improve on the score

• Produce a final scorecard based on the documentation you have collected