Johannesburg, 11 Dec 2014
Specialist ICT services company, Atio, is pleased to announce that it has ? for the second year in a row ? been awarded Level 2 B-BBEE Status and has also been recognised as a Value-Adding Supplier (VAS) by the BEE Verification Agency, Mazars.
Key to the renewed rating is the fact that the company is a black-owned company, and now Atio customers are again entitled to claim 312.5% recognition of their procurement spend with Atio for their own B-BBEE certification.
"Over the years, we have made serious investments in numerous black economic empowerment initiatives, the idea was never about merely achieving targets, but rather to put in place a viable and sustainable transformation plan to deal with transformation imperatives in our business," says Atio CEO, Chris Van der Sande.
As part of its transformation imperatives, Atio has revised and realigned its staff equity and procurement strategies to stay closely in line with its B-BBEE plan, as well as implementing internal capacity-building initiatives to improve skills development opportunities in the company. Today, its skills development programmes are registered with MICT SETA and it has managed to maintain a working partnership with the institution for almost a decade.
"At Atio, we believe training and skills development should be a business priority never to be compromised, however tough it might be," adds Van der Sande.
According to Van der Sande, Atio's Level 2 status has come as a result of hard work and a lot of long-term planning on the part of the entire business.
"Achieving a level 2 BEE status, two years running, in an industry that is still white male dominated, is a true indication of our investment as a company in our own staff. Our organisational development strategy is centred on developing our staff from junior levels into leadership positions, and where possible to create job opportunities, particularly for previously disadvantaged individuals. This obviously requires a huge financial investment and focussed effort, but at Atio we see that not as a 'challenge' but a solution, and to a larger extent an intrinsic part of our culture and what we as a business want to stand for. In short, looking ahead, our strategy is and always will be about our people," he ends.
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