Mercuri International SA (MISA) recognizes the need for BEE and is fully committed to align itself with both the spirit and the letter of the BEE guidelines of the Government.

Although there is currently no charter for companies that offer training and consulting services, MISA will align itself with the DTI scorecard.

MISA operates as a franchise of the international company Mercuri International Support Company AB (MISAB). One of the conditions of the franchise agreement is that Frank Willemoes or his nominee company has to hold at least 61% of the shares in MISA. These shares are currently held by Willemoes Investment Holdings (WIH), an overseas registered company. Current share holding of WIH is 61% with the balance of the shares of 39% being held by the other two directors of the company.

The nature and size of the business is such that the success of the business relies heavily on each person making a substantial contribution to the company. Securing and keeping suitably qualified people remain one of the biggest challenges for MISA. Successful consultants in MISA have to have a corporate sales background, ideally at a management level. There are currently few black people employed in corporate sales which compounds the challenge. The nature of the work is such that consultants often have to be away from home on consulting or training assignments. This makes it difficult for many females to consider employment with MISA.

MISA believes that transferring a substantial portion of the shares to an existing BEE company would empower a few shareholders and would not necessarily contribute to the transfer of wealth to more individuals.

There are currently no black people in management. Past experience, locally and internationally, has proved that it does not work to bring people from outside into the company at a management level. Special effort will thus have to be made to fast track the development of black people into management.

The objective is to increase the number of black people in terms of employment equity to such an extent that it would be double the current proportion by 2010.

For various reasons given above, MISA will have to put a lot of effort into upskilling new black people. The plan is to spend 3% per annum of payroll on the development of black employees. This will be continued until 2010 at which time the situation will be reviewed. No learnerships will be considered, partially due to the work involved therewith and the limited resources available to implement this in MISA.

The plan is to get MISA to a situation where 50% of all procurement is done from BEE contributors. It will not always be possible to do procurement from excellent BEE contributors and hence the plan makes provision to do procurement from good and satisfactory BEE contributors. The hope is that this would inspire suppliers to become better BEE contributors.

Although procedures will be put in place to verify the BEE contribution of suppliers, it is not envisaged that approved accreditation agencies will be used due to the cost involved therein and MISA’s limited purchasing power which might turn suppliers away.

The plan is not to make any monetary investment in any SMME, but rather to make non-monetary support available to an SMME in the form of that which MISA does well, the development of sales and customer service. The plan is to identify one SMME where MISA’s input can make a difference and help this organisation in the form of consulting and training services.

Given the background above and specifically the shortage of black people in corporate sales, MISA will endeavour to create some way in which black people can be brought into and/or be exposed to the sales industry. Current thinking is that a sales academy will be run for a group of black people.

MISA recognizes that it has a lot of work to do in order to be aligned with the BEE philosophy and scorecard. The shareholders and management recognize that this will only be achieved with determination, and are committed to the achievement of the planned implementation, as detailed above.

Download the BEE Scorecard here