THE PAST

Mpowered commenced active duty in the area of BEE and transformation during 2001, prior to the gazetting of the BEE Act. Although the main focus of the business was advisory services, the requirement of a large automotive manufacturer to measure the level of transformation of its suppliers, meant that our focus would broaden to include IT development as well.

In 2006, new management entered the business, and with the BEE Codes being gazetted early the next year, Mpowered took flight as a specialist BEE advisory firm. With services ranging from BEE strategy formulation and implementation, to verification preparation, Mpowered also become a forerunner in web-based BEE IT Systems, offering a BEE database system, as well as a scorecard calculator and scenario planner.

One sleepless night in 2008, a business decision was made to reinvent our BEE IT Systems, and to direct a very strategic focus towards entrenching ourselves as the leading BEE IT Systems provider in the country. In that year, the Supplier Management System was launched, and by April 2009, we went live with the new and improved Beetoolkit.

Since then we have continued to evolve our IT systems to ensure that we offer our clients maximum value, while at the same time developing our people, processes and technology platform to further entrench our market leadership.

By 2012, Mpowered had built up a large client base of active systems users, and in order to maintain the highest level of service to our clients, we ceased operating our BEE consulting business, choosing instead to focus entirely on our systems. We now have various alliance partners in the industry, including rating agencies and BEE consultancies that we leverage to keep up to date on the latest BEE developments.

THE FUTURE

Mpowered has built up a solid management team that has enabled us to explore exciting new opportunities, in conjunction with some of our clients. Our strategy is to continuously improve our existing BEE IT Systems, and their enviable growth over the past years.

Mpowered will develop new functionality and products that are complimentary to what we already offer our clients. We do at times develop our systems based on bespoke client requirements, but we also try to maintain their simplicity by minimizing the amount of company-specific features we include.

Anticipated new functions and/or products include our skills development system Skillware (www.skillware.co.za), and enhanced functionality in the Supplier Management System, which aims at assisting procurement professionals in the management of the broader sourcing and supply environment.