With South Africa's employment situation becoming less favorable day by day, may business leaders, managers and professionals are turning to entrepreneurship. Will 2007 be the year when you make a break to realize your dreams?


This great article by Vuyo Jack

This year we have seen unprecedented resignations, firings and retirements of chief executives in South Africa. What is happening globally and locally that is leading to these chief executives to quit in droves?

There is a natural exhaustion that comes with being a leader of a company. There are challenges that are brought about by the economic environment, the social and political climate that companies operate in. With the country's economic boom having set new standards and stock markets at an all-time high, it may be very difficult for business leaders to surpass those successes.

Shareholders globally nowadays are concerned about the short-term gains, which increase pressure on company's management to deliver short-term results. If they fail they get the boot. Sometimes the business leaders decide it is time to go because they need a "career break".

In South Africa, we have Tony Trahar, Lazarus Zim, Myles Ruck, Sean Summers, Connie Molusi, Thulani Gcabashe, Stephen Levenberg, Mark Lamberti, Rael Gordon, Sajeed Sacranie, Maanda Manyatshe, among others leaving their jobs. Some have come to the end of their contracts and have opted not to renew their contracts. Others have come to a mandatory retirement age and will probably be non-executive directors. Some are young and have a compulsory career break to reassess the direction their lives will take. Koos Bekker of Naspers took a novel option of a year-long sabbatical in order to recharge the brain and regain energy.

With entrepreneurs it's a slightly different case. The life of an entrepreneur is always a life on the edge because there are no guarantees that the business will succeed. Getting financing from traditional sources is an uphill battle so they have to devise means to stay afloat until their business does not require their day-to-day management.

This constant struggling is taxing to entrepreneurs and is exacerbated by the fact that they never take a break because they are too attached to their business. There is a certain exhaustion that overcomes entrepreneurs: they get the itch to move on. Sometimes it is difficult to let go of the business because of the attachment to the journey of getting it to a successful place.

For example Brian Joffe, a chartered accountant (CA), started his business in 1978 and consolidated it by buying a pet food company. He later the sold the businesses to Tongaat-Hulett, making his millionaire dream come true at 33 years. He then took what I would call an "entrepreneurship break" by going to the US where he played golf. Eventually he returned home and joined the corporate world before starting Bidvest.

Stephen Saad, who is also a CA, became a multimillionaire at the age of 29 when he sold his stake in the pharmaceutical group, Covan Zurich, to Adcock Ingram. It seems that he took an "entrepreneurship break" when he thought of retiring. But soon thereafter he started Varsity College, which he sold off four years later to LeisureNet for R75 million. Subsequent to that he started Aspen Pharmacare with R50 million. It seems that entrepreneurship breaks are an important interlude for entrepreneurs, especially the serial entrepreneurs who continually create new enterprises. It is precisely these entrepreneurs who bring innovations and drive our economy through their ideas.

What's next for the white chief executives who haven't reached the compulsory retirement age or were sacked? Don't be surprised if they crop up as supporters of black economic empowerment (BEE) players. The modified flow-through principle embedded in the BEE Codes of Good Practice allows them to participate up to 49 percent in black companies without negatively affecting the company's BEE status. Their wide network, deep pockets and experience in the corporate world always prove to be an asset to aspiring BEE players. The outgoing black chief executives will probably go ahead to start their own BEE outfits.

Closer to home, the entrepreneurship itch has been beckoning for a while, leading me to seek an "entrepreneurship break" to determine my future direction. This year, 2006, 30 years after the 1976 riots, will be remembered as the year when chief executives were guillotined in their droves from their corporate empires through natural and staged means. This is not a trend isolated only to South Africa but it is a global phenomenon.

Published on the web by Business Report on December 8, 2006.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Business Report 2006. All rights reserved.