Hell, it's been an interesting four years for the team that has produced four annual editions of the Financial Mail Top Empowerment Companies (TEC) survey. Each year brings new challenges, mainly relating to methodology used to rank the black economic empowerment (BEE) credentials of companies listed on the main board of the JSE.
One lesson stands out. We have to prepare for combat as this publication hits the streets. There will be many angry calls, some bordering on intimidation, others blatant attempts to curtail our freedom of speech. And there will no doubt be fair queries.
We have learnt to respect this product and approach it with a high level of professionalism. The flighting of a company's BEE credentials on the back of the FM brand is serious business. BEE ranking is more than a competition - it has implications for the bottom line and could move the market. People get fired and companies lose money because of it.
The BEE project is gradually being entrenched as a business imperative. We therefore believe we are justified in commenting on a company's BEE credentials whether they like it or not. Since the companies in this survey are listed, we adopt a robust analytical approach - as the FM does in defence of shareholder value in its main pages.
The data used to compile this survey comes largely from voluntary submissions by companies invited by the FM to participate. The data is compiled by BEE rating agency Empowerdex. Where companies did not respond, Empowerdex relied on publicly available data such as annual reports. We publish the information after all reasonable attempts are made to verify it. We hope this assists companies to adopt a diligent approach to BEE. This can be achieved only with the right will and by having good systems in place. The data required for the TEC survey should be available at the click of a button.
