The problem.

Certain environmental influences including the overregulation of the business environment in South Africa has put tremendous strain onto profitability and sustainability. The opposite it was intended to do. This combined with the difficult economic environment internationally forces businesses to relook at the ways they are going to operate in future. Cost leaders or low cost producers have always been and will be the core to the generic strategy of the winners in the industry or any industry for that matter.

Additional consensual and regulatory standards to maximise revenue and controls by corporations and government are being thrown at unit level businesses without measuring the true effects on the total business processes in the long run. Technology, people and equipment (PEP) are being introduced or removed into and from businesses  to cover for speculative/potential risk across the board and to make up for skill depletion caused by various factors. The general problem however is that no detailed systems analyses’ are being completed to truly assess the process and control impact, return and long term sustainability on a continuous basis. This results mainly due to the fact that operators don’t have time to look back and readjust continuously within the over regulated environment.

For example expense departments such as maintenance, security, surveillance, environmental regulations, occupational safety and risk management tools are introduced without measuring true returns on a monthly basis. These are also introduced without proper process assessments or believing in the true values thereof. Furthermore today’s business requires individuals that are ethically sounder than ever before and in life in general. Specifically in South Africa where the political environment has opened the door for major corruption and bad practices that were introduced in the name of sustainability but with the opposite results.