Deloitte SA Blog

The property legislative compliance demands and personal accountability by owners and directors are creating a far bigger challenge than ten years ago. Buildings must comply with various legislative regulations, but property owners and company executives are paying surprisingly little attention to this requirement.

Organisations own or lease large property portfolios and have large numbers of staff occupying these properties. Ageing properties, and the fact that organisations buy properties as and when there is an operational need, result in legislative compliance and other compliance requirements and standards not being adhered to. Legal documentation (e.g. title deeds and other documentation) is more often not available for compliance and audit requirements.

A large number of commercial buildings have incomplete records relating to building plans, occupation certificates and numerous other essential documents. In many instances, property owners or organisations are unable to provide or keep up with current, complete and legally required documentation. Where property owners or organisations have documents reissued, a surprising number of these records are not available, properly indexed or filed and are much less integrated.

Occupiers of space, either through ownership or lease, are required to protect their staff from damage or loss to property and life. Owners are also required to protect their assets against instances of partial or complete destruction through fire, etc. Compliance with relevant legislation will ensure that companies are aware of possible risks and that insurance companies will pay out in the event of a disaster where assets are destroyed.

Unfortunately most companies do not know what they have to comply with and what is required from a legislative point of view.

It is critically important for property owners or organisations to have a full record of all necessary documents, title deeds, leases, plans, compliance certificates, etc. of all property or buildings. This will assist greatly when growth or reduction strategies are created and implemented and properties sold, redeveloped or expanded.

Do you know the quantum, risks, compliance issues and occupational status of you portfolio?

It is essential for any organisation to know and understand what you own and or occupy. This can be realised through documenting all documents relevant to compliance and other legislative requirements. The following areas are important . . . . read more

For a more detailed discussion, contact Dewald van Reenen at dvanreenen@deloitte.co.za

Businesses today operate under unprecedented conditions of competition and turbulence, making it increasingly difficult to attract and retain talented employees and fill scarce-skills positions.

In a recent article by SAICA (2013: Moneyweb), the chief executive officer of SAICA, Matsobane Matlwa, says, “Companies trying to survive and thrive have turned to the advanced financial management skills of CAs(SA) to steer them through the toughest economic times of our generation.

In troubled times is not just about controls, tax or ratios – though these are important – it is about grasping and managing risks and strategic opportunity. This is why CAs(SA) also dominate the chief executive function in South Africa with three out of ten (29.7%) listed company leaders also having achieved the CA (SA) qualification.”

Critical CA leadership talent is becoming increasingly scarce in South Africa due to this appreciation of the abilities of CAs and the resultant demand exceeding supply, growing skills shortage in the profession (continuous shortage of 5 000 CAs as far back as 2008). The laws of economics dictate that a high demand and shortage of supply of top talent should lead to a highly competitive market for CA talent.

For your organisation to thrive, it is important to be ahead of the game in terms of attracting the best chartered accountants in the country.

Download the full article . . . .  An innovative approach to leadership talent strategy and sustained future success

If you require a more detailed discussion around your organisation’s leadership talent strategy, feel free to contact Anneke Andrews at anandrews@deloitte.co.za

We welcome you to join the Deloitte South Africa – Audit group on LinkedIn to post comment and interact with your peers

Everyone knows that only public clouds can deliver the system flexibility and scalability a business needs, at a price it can afford. Right? Not so fast. Recent technological improvements have revved up computing power and driven down operating costs. Is it time to take a second look at in-house ERP?

The drumbeat for cloud-adoption has become deafening in recent years. Internal sourcing is inefficient, unaffordable and, well, unnecessary — or so the conventional wisdom goes. Increasingly, however, the cloud-only drumbeat is not the only sound CIOs hear. Hardware vendors have dialed up computing power by turbocharging CPU, memory technologies and solid state storage. In doing so, they have made it possible for many IT organizations to run their current workloads, internally, with a lot less gear. Such improvements have breathed new life into the idea of running internal ERP systems — and led some to question if public clouds and external sourcing are, in fact, the only game in town.

Once the debate has run for a few weeks; a full report will be generated which will summarise the thoughts and opinions given. In the meantime please vote on the poll below or drop a comment in the comment bar.

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Can Google do better with your transactional information than loyalty programmes, retailers and banks? Most definitely, and the ecosystem of Google will deliver solutions to the market at a significant pace. Those companies that don’t utilise their customer information effectively will find that they have lost their competitive data assets.

With the announcement that Google Wallet will enable cash to be transferred via email, Google has certainly positioned itself in the same landscape with PayPal and on a collision course with financial institutions. From the initial reports, it appears that Google will allow e-commerce companies to utilise transactional information for loyalty programs which starts to position the wallet service squarely between banks and consumer companies. Currently Google Wallet is a conduit for credit card transactions and only based in the U.S. although it will not be long before banks open up the accounts to transact with Google Wallet, directly.

Will Google be able to use people’s information more effectively than retailers or banks and how will it happen? Google Wallet will initially enable e-commerce transactions to take place and over time the this will extend to bricks and mortar  transactions (through Near Field Communication -NFC) and with each payment Google will be able to associate one’s email ( or identity) with the specific transactions. Through the loyalty program functionality Google will start to track the basket of items that are part of each transaction and this will fall under the value added service of warranty management, discounts, product and  loyalty programs. In the long run, the Google ecosystem of search, advertising, geolocation and now transactions will offer increasing value to the market segment of one, you or me.

This scenario may play out over a number of years and will probably encounter a number of anti-competitiveness issues, however it does stress the point that banks and retailers need to exercise their client facing data assets more effectively to develop customer loyalty. If companies are slow to this, they may find themselves as a commodity service down the value chain to the client data specialists, Google.

If you have any questions relating to Deloitte’s digital capabilities, feel free to contact Greg Comline (Deloitte Digital Senior Manager) at gcomline@deloitte.co.za or connect with him Twitter @gcomline.

Whether your organisation is highly regulated, unregulated, public, or private, it’s likely that compliance is a core business issue on your immediate agenda. As government regulation deepens around the world, its importance is only growing. While there’s been plenty of talk about the role of an enterprise compliance approach in managing these risks, the details have always been a little fuzzy…until now.

Deloitte’s new book, Enterprise Compliance – The Risk Intelligent Approach, explains the key components of enterprise compliance and offers senior executives and board members a practical guide to the tough questions they should be asking about their own compliance efforts. Questions such as:

• Who can give me a detailed snapshot of all the compliance issues we face, given our specific industry footprint?
• How are we identifying, monitoring and adjusting for emerging compliance risks and requirements?
• What are we doing to make sure our employees understand their responsibilities when it comes to compliance?
• How can the board determine whether resources devoted to compliance programs are adequate and aligned with the organization’s risk appetite?
• What could we change tomorrow to either reduce the cost of our compliance efforts or increase their value? Can we do both?

Download Deloitte’s new book . . . . Enterprise compliance: The Risk Intelligent approach

If you have any questions relating to enterprise compliance or any risk-related issue or business challenge, feel free to contact Dave Kennedy (Service line leader – Tax and Legal and Risk Advisory at Deloitte South Africa) at dkennedy@deloitte.co.za

Deloitte South Africa are pleased to share with you a summary of the market trends and priorities that are driving human capital decisions for corporate leaders across South Africa.

This specially tailored report compares the South African results to the overall results of our comprehensive survey of more than 1,300 business leaders and HR executives in 59 countries comprising the world’s major economic regions.

Deloitte’s global human capital survey set out to determine which trends are playing the most significant role in global organisations today and which are further out on the horizon.

Accordingly, we have categorised these trends as either leading or highly relevant today, rising, relevant in the next one to three years, or emerging, three or more years from now.

This South Africa report was designed to complement the Deloitte 2013 Global Human Capital Trends report, “Resetting Horizons.” We believe both reports will inform your organisation’s leaders on the issues impacting companies throughout our country – and around the world.

We look forward to engaging with you around the findings and to help you unpack their implications for your human capital, HR and talent management decisions.

Click Here to download  Human Capital Trends 2013 – South Africa report

Click Here to download  Deloitte Global Human Capital 2013 Trends report

Yours sincerely

Trevor Page, Human Capital Practice Leader, Deloitte South Africa

A project manager leads a project by scheduling activities, monitoring the timeline and constraints, and motivating everyone involved. This article takes a closer look at more specific skills that make a good project manager.

1.    Computer skills

A project manager does not have to be an IT specialist. However, today’s project manager needs to be able to use basic office software, such as word processors, spread sheet tools and office email systems, irrespective of whether it is from Microsoft or IBM.

A project manager should also be able to create and manage project schedules in a tool of choice, for example, MS Project or Primavera. In a project/programme office environment, it is essential that a project manager are comfortable with organisational tools, such as EPM or SharePoint.

2.    Ability to apply basic and logical thinking

Working with creative, problem-solving teams can sometimes lead the team to lose sight of the basic outputs that need to be achieved. A project manager may often need to apply basic, logical thinking about what is needed for the specific project and what can be achieved – just to bring expectations back to reality.

3.    Competent at maths

This component has two elements to it:

A project manager will always be responsible for the project budget and  therefore needs to be comfortable with any calculations in this regard. Although a project manager does not have to be an accountant, he/she must be able to interrogate project financial numbers and notice when the numbers do not add up as expected.

In some organisations and environments, a project manager may be required to conduct Earned Value (EV) calculations, such as SPI and CPI. It is then essential for the project manager to be able to do calculations at this level.

4.    Managing the level of detail

A very tricky challenge for a project manager is to balance the project team’s focus on the level of detail. Sometimes a project manager has to worry about the leaves, and sometimes a project manager needs to see the forest. Successful project delivery is tied to understanding the level of detail involved and needed at the right time.

5.    Good communications

A project manager needs to be able to express and share the needs and successes of a project with the relevant stakeholders and participants, which should be done through timely and well-packaged messages.

6.    Conduct public speaking

A project manager will represent and defend projects in various forums, some of which may be alien, politically against or hostile towards the project. Understanding the audience and being able to focus the message at the appropriate level is critical in such scenarios.

7.    Managing people

Project delivery requires people to succeed. A project manager will only be as successful as the people he/she surrounds himself with. Quite often though, a project manager may not have a choice in who is assigned to the project team. In such instances, it is up to the project manager to understand each individual, what motivates them, and how to get the best from them on the project. The core principle that people are humans will often come into direct conflict with project delivery and timelines.

8.    Technical expertise

Does the project manager have to be a subject matter expert?

Yes, and no. In some cases the answer is a definitive yes, for example, if the client is building a bridge, the project manager is required to be registered with the Engineering Council. In many cases, however, it is advantageous to have a expert project delivery track record rather than just being a technical expert. A talented project manager knows when to bring in the right expertise, as and when required.

A project manager’s role varies considerably according to the project, but a strong set of the above skills will support a project manager in the role of leading a project effectively.

Download the article . . . . Which 8 skills form the basis for a good project manager

For any further information, please contact Adie Gerber on email at adgerber@deloitte.co.za or LinkedIn at http://za.linkedin.com/pub/adie-gerber/12/703/996 or Twitter at @AdieGerber

It is undeniable that the consumers’ mobility experience is having a significant impact on the enterprise both in terms of IT infrastructure and in terms strategy and policies. Thanks to consumer products like the iPhone, these device users are linking their work email and calendars to their personal devices. This could perhaps arise from employees preferring not to carry around multiple devices or perhaps employees prefer the user experience of their personal iPhone to the company issued BlackBerry for example.

This trend of employee liable devices entering the enterprise does pose a few challenges but equally, this offers some opportunities too. For example, opening up corporate policies on mobile devices and permitting employees to bring their own devicesalso known as Bring-Your-Own-Device or BYOD to the workplace affords the enterprise with the opportunity to reduce its own hardware spend. Large organisations with a 1,000 strong sales team can appreciate the cost of procuring, provisioning and managing company issued mobile devices, not to mention insurance and maintenance considerations.

Mobile Device Management

We are seeing more and more enterprises embrace this trend by shifting expenditure away from funding company issued mobile devices toward investment in a sound mobile device management (MDM) solution that offers the enterprise the ability enrol and secure employee liable devices on the corporate network. Equally, mobile device manufacturers such as Apple, SAMSUNG, HTC etc are opening up their devices to MDM software vendors and providing them hooks into deeper OS controls allowing richer security and monitoring capabilities such as “remote wipe”, “device encryption”, “data roaming control”, “password enforcement”, “relocation tracking” etc.

Taking this a step further, provisioning self service capabilities that allows employees to browse a catalogue of applications and download over the air (much like Apple’s App Store model) can provide an opportunity to make enterprise apps much more consumer friendly. Opportunities like these are now seeing enterprises the world over embrace this trend and leverage employee consumer devices as a tool to increase employee productivity by provisioning productivity apps as well as mobilize the several line-of-business functions.

Enterprise Applications

Mobility consumers have different expectations of what applications should look and behave like based on their experiences until now. These users have had their experience in the consumer world they expect and demand the same richness and level of experience with enterprise apps. In this regard, consumer applications have set a standard at a point where enterprise applications now need to catch up. Rather than there being a single mobility solution that will meet any enterprise requirement, what we are seeing is the emergence of a spectrum of options for enterprise apps or Application Spectrum. On the one extreme of this spectrum are lightweight “instant-value” apps that are typically browser based and always online, whilst on the other extreme have heavy duty “mission-critical” offline applications with a large degree of business logic built into them.

Instant Value Vs Mission Critical apps

A more technical view of this would be going back to MVC component model where you have a Model to access data, the View to render that data and the Controller that controls the flow and mechanics of the component. The View part (which forms the user interface) is going to be streamlined across all of these devices, and the Model (which controls how data is consumed) is essentially going to change along with web standards and use case type.

Figure 1 – Application Spectrum

Instant Value

Currently the lightweight browser can only be used in an online mode with some data persistency (HTML5 now support persistency) but is generally not suitable for use cases with offline support and full data synchronisation. Fundamental to this will be the standardisation of the “view” part across all devices.

Mission Critical

Mission Critical apps are heavy-duty apps containing a lightweight sql database to support high volume data access and persistency. Delivering mission critical applications to meet the expectations of the enterprise cannot be done without avoiding native device development. Although these predictions surrounding HTML5 sound plausible in theory, the reality is that the challenge to meet the expectations of, for example, native integration with all the features of the device, native user experience, and synchronisation etc. cannot be met today. However, meeting these expectations seems inevitable.

What about Middleware and where will it sit?

The class of applications referred to as “Mission Critical” which have specific mission critical requirements from the enterprise, are typically ones that do not assume that the user is always connected and therefore need come kind of synchronisation technology, for example Field Service and Retail Execution scenarios. These are application that requires push technology and some kind of staging and capability to handle scalability and synchronisation factors. To support this, these applications require a sophisticated middleware layer and this is precisely where the need for a middleware originates.

From a Device perspective, the reason for having a middleware is that it is necessary to ensure that the user experience from the device is of a high standard. In terms of data availability middleware is needed to ensure data is available all the time and across multiple networking capabilities. Putting the entire load on the central server will not guarantee connectivity all the time. Equally middleware will ensure mobility is implemented properly with regard to data distribution and data security mentioned earlier.

With regard to “Instant Value” apps, some instant value apps don’t need a middleware (by its strict definition) when communicating to a backend enterprise server however, you still need to manage the lifecycle of the app be it through a application running on the device especially when these instant value apps are rolled out to several thousand employees.

Conclusion

And in today’s world of smart phones and tablets, the enterprise has no excuse for not to being able to meet these demands. SAP has made significant investment in its Mobility offering having the broadest device support among all the multichannel vendors, the largest suite of “ready-to-deploy” mobile applications, and the strongest mobile device management (MDM) offering, Afaria. The SAP Mobile Platform is capable of supporting an organisations long-term mobility initiative by offering most flexible application development environment with flexible application connectors for many mainstream ERP/supply chain management (SCM)/CRM systems and databases, and an ability to create composite applications with input from multiple applications.

For more information about Enterprise Mobility and SAP Mobility solutions, contact Sergio Congia (SAP Mobility Lead) at scongia@deloitte.co.za

This is according to a Global Business Reports interview with Venmyn Deloitte MD Andy Clay and Executive Lead Godknows Njowa, who discussed success stories in the coal mining industry.

“Venmyn Deloitte has seen great success for a client in the Hwange area who is mining coal,” stated Njowa.

“The project started in 2010 and the company had less than 18 months to start the mining operation.”

“Within eight or ten months they started producing coal and today they supply approximately 50% of the country’s coal needs for power from that mine.”

Njowa and Clay highlighted how the coal sector in the country is likely to be stimulated by Independent Power Producers which have been issued with licences.

“There are a vast number of coal resources in the country suitable for power generation and these new IPP licences that were issued would facilitated the opening of new mines in the country,” said Njowa.

He is optimistic that the mining industry, given the necessary capital requirements, will become a significant contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Njowa will be presenting a talk entitled “A perspective on attracting the right investment for mining companies in Zimbabwe” at a Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines annual general meeting from the 23rd May to the 25th May 2013.

Among the discussion points that he will tackle are:

• Principles of mineral asset valuation and the valuation of mineral assets in relation to the Zimbabwean mining industry
• Challenges in the mining industry in Zimbabwe, including the lack of exploration
• Limited mineral resources that are compliant with international mineral resource standards
• Significant requirements for capital expenditure, on-going replacement capital or stay in business capital; and indigenisation
• Requirements to attract potential investments and
• Innovative funding structures

To find out more about how Venmyn Deloitte can assist with projects in Zimbabwe, contact Godknows Njowa at gnjowa@deloitte.co.za

This booklet contains a summary of tax and investment information relating to thirty African countries which include Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Details of each country’s income tax, VAT (or sales tax) and other significant taxes are set out in the publication. In addition, investment incentives available, exchange control regimes applicable (if any) and certain other basic economic statistics are detailed.

The contact details for each country are provided on the cover page of each country chapter/section and are also summarised on page 6, Tax Leaders in Africa. An introduction to the Africa Tax Desk (including relevant contact details) is provided on page 5, Africa Tax Desk.

This booklet has been prepared by the Tax Division of Deloitte. Its production was made possible through the efforts of:

• Moray Wilson and Adrienne Snyman – editorial management and content
• Bruno Messerschmitt, Musa Manyathi, Moray Wilson and Sarah Naiyeju – Deloitte Africa Tax Desk
• Deloitte representatives in various cities/offices in Africa and elsewhere, and other professionals from non-member firms (namely; Lesotho, as well as, Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC)

Unless otherwise indicated, the fiscal information is current as at 31 December 2012. The economic statistics have been obtained from the best information available during 2012.

Download the booklet . . . . Tax and investment information relating to thirty key countries in Africa

Enquiries may be directed to morwilson@deloitte.co.za of the Deloitte Africa Tax Desk