December 3, 09/ Publication
Leading South African custom software development company, Barone, Budge & Dominick (Pty) Ltd (BB&D), has announced that its Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) rating has been raised from Level Six to that of a Level Four contributor with effect from November 12, 2009.
Importantly, BB&D is also recognised as a “Value Adding Enterprise”. This means that all procurement spend on BB&D’s services by its clients is enhanced by a further factor of 1.25, amounting to 125% in BBBEE procurement spend.
This latest increase is largely due to enhancements and improvements in the firm’s Preferential Procurement, Enterprise Development and Socio-Economic Development activities and initiatives.
“From the outset we have taken BBBEE very seriously and have tried to get the fundamentals right,” said BB&D Director, Peter Searle. “We established a good foundation when, after a long search, we found a suitable BBBEE partner in Sphere Holdings, which has a 35.75% stake in the company. Since then, the challenge has been to keep on improving rather than just holding our position.”
A likely target for the coming year will be further improvements in the area of Skills Development, a critical area for the IT sector. To this end, BB&D has a well-established Learnership Development Programme that takes in young candidates who find it difficult to gain entry to the demanding world of IT.
“We put our learners through established training courses, and thereafter mentor them for up to two years, placing them on various project teams so they gain useful real-world skills and experience,” says HR Executive, Ana O’Donoghue. “In the coming year we will increase the number of learners in the programme and we will be introducing a Learnership Support Programme, as well as added enhancements such as Study Skills and Life Business Skills training to help our learners get better value from the courses they attend and to facilitate the transition from a learning environment to a work environment. We will also focus on our current workforce and identify areas where we can upskill our existing staff.”
BB&D acknowledges the importance of achieving a high BBBEE rating and is committed to maintaining and sustaining an Empowerdex BBBEE rating of “Level Four Contributor” as well as being recognised as a Value Adding Enterprise.
About BB&D
Barone, Budge & Dominick (Pty) Ltd is a leading South African software and technology services company, with a key focus on custom software development, integration services and architecture and niche business consulting. It offers customised solutions across a broad range of vertical industries with specialist focus teams in Banking, Investments, Insurance, Treasury, Compliance & Risk Management, Telecommunications, Government, Payments and Retail systems.
Formed in 1984, the company has grown consistently over the past 25 years and today employs more than 400 software and business domain professionals in its development centres of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Nicosia (Cyprus). Through its Sepia division, customer interaction solutions and contact centres are delivered using the latest open standards technology with significant business benefits.
Our key differentiator is our ability to develop, implement and integrate working solutions within very short time frames, through our expert technical, project management and business domain expertise.
