Corporate action played a big role in shaking up the information & communication technology (ICT) list of the 2008 Top Empowerment Companies (TEC) rankings.
The decision by Altron last year - the parent company of Bytes Technology Group - to buy out all its listed shares resulted in it disappearing from the JSE earlier this year.
The exclusion of Bytes facilitated a significant change in the TEC list, with hi-tech recruitment company Paracon taking its place at the top of the rankings.
Paracon not only took the top spot in the ICT list, it also moved up in the overall TEC rankings from 17 to the 12th position.
It is not surprising that Paracon has at last finally risen to the top of the list because it has worked hard to improve its empowerment credentials. Paracon is known for its extensive training of young black people in IT skills.
Other changes on the TEC list include technology group GijimaAST's rise from fifth to second place within the ICT sector rankings. The improvement in GijimaAST ranking is the latest bit of good news that the group has announced.
It declared its first dividend last year and also concluded a R122m deal that will lead to the company providing software and support services for mining house Anglo Platinum.
Technology heavyweight Dimension Data came in third and was the highest ranked of all the large companies in the sector.
Telkom and MTN have - for the second year in a row - slipped down the list. Their decline has more to do with the advances of their smaller rivals than any backward shift by the heavyweights.
Both have increased their overall scores on the past year's figures, but now fall behind Faritec and Business Connexion on the sectorial ranking.
Evidence of the rise of the smaller players in the sector can be seen in the ascendance of little-known software group InfoWave. It was not even listed in the Top 10 last year. It came from nowhere to sit at number four this year within the sector rankings.
One of the biggest factors counting in Info-Wave's favour was the appointment of Sibusiso Shabalala as its new CEO last year. This is after InfoWave bought Shabalala's company Adapt-IT for R11,7m late last year. InfoWave has since changed its name to Adapt-IT.
Overall, the ICT sector showed a vast improvement over the previous year's ranking. The Top 5 on the list made it into the Top 20 overall TEC ranking, up from four the year before.
There was also a tightening in the list with difference in points between the highest ranking company and the 10th narrowing from 33,52 to 15,44.
The performance of the sector can also be seen in the improvement of Datacentrix, which was placed 10th last year, pushing up its overall score from 33,38 to 56,53. It has since moved up to ninth in the ICT list and from 78th to 42nd in the overall TEC ranking.
It is clear that Datacentrix has put a lot of work into empowerment. This culminated in it appointing a black CEO, Ahmed Mahomed, to replace Gerhard Uys, who announced his retirement in December last year.
This means Datacentrix had the rare double of having a black CEO and chairman in Gary Morolo.
The change at the top resulted in its board becoming 86% black and 43% female by the beginning of March.
Mahomed's appointment has been part of the company's long-term succession strategy. He joined the group in 2002 as MD of Datacentrix Infrastructure - its largest division - and moved up to take the position of chief operating officer.
"Over the years, Datacentrix has strengthened the management team, systems and culture and managed the graduation of the company from a founder-owner management culture to an experienced, professional executive team," Morolo says of Mahomed's appointment.
Morolo says in some ways it is easier for Datacentrix to deal with transformation issues because unlike its larger counterparts it is a small growing company that can adapt more easily.
Despite its success in dealing with empowerment issues, Morolo says there is significant room for improvement.
He singles out management and corporate social responsibility as two of the areas that the company will need to focus on.
