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South African businesses need to become agents of change and undergo transformation because it makes good long-term business sense. There is a new language of “empowerment”, “partnering”, “team building”, “consensus-based decision-making”, etc. Compare this to the old authoritarian owner-manager paradigm where all major decisions were channelled through the owner-manager. (As the adage goes, it is like pouring new wine in old wine skins.)

This is a period of fundamental change in the structure and culture of the business. Business leaders need to respond and commit themselves to a new future. It is a journey that will be shaped by the direction the incumbent owners and business leaders choose.

The new broad-based BEE environment requires businesses to reassess their current business models as regards ownership, management and employment equity in terms of the composition of employees who control and manage the business, focusing on black people with regard to skills and development, procurement from black suppliers, investment in black-owned businesses, and increasing and redirecting socio-economic development spending to beneficiaries who are predominantly black.

In some quarters criticism has been levelled at businesses which have not done enough to embrace the moderate approach taken by the government, despite having had many years in which to transform. The legislation and the Codes of Good Practice constitute a decisive approach to address this lethargy, rather dramatically, in a relatively short period of time.

The handing over of control and influence over time must be viewed as a process rather than an event. When the degree of influence between the incumbent and the successor is too large and/or the developmental pressure accumulates, an event triggered by an external or internal source invariably results in disengagement, and possible conflict, potentially resulting in a hiatus.