The following two sections of this survey, Top Empowerment Companies (TEC), are dedicated to dissecting the black economic empowerment (BEE) debate into its simplest possible forms through a sector-by-sector focused ranking and then a factor-by-factor ranking.
This is an acknowledgment of the different challenges faced by different companies in various sectors of the economy.
Though the tool used to measure BEE performance is the same as in the previous overall rankings, the data trends coming out from sector-focused and factor-focused rankings reflect important nuances to be considered in the whole BEE debate. These nuances include the fact that firms that have significant black ownership tend to do better across the broad-based BEE scorecard. It begs the question raised by many : Should ownership be made the entry ticket into the BEE game?
Certain sectors of the economy tend to do better in particular factors of the scorecard. A good example comes from the financial sector players who did well on the enterprise development factor of the scorecard. This fact is acknowledged in the BEE Codes of Good Practice, which have allowed for the development of sector-focused charters. Various sector-focused charters put emphasis on different aspects of the generic scorecard.
Though other sectors such as property are reflected to be generally slow performers, the reasons behind such trends are explored and explained in the following pages.
