Filling critical skills gaps in South Africa : assessment of Old Mutual's Ilima trust as a CSR case study

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is taking on a developmental stance in Third-WorldCountries. Old Mutual, through its partnership with the South African govemment, set up atrust to assist govemment in skills development at local, provincial and national level andsmall enterprises. Old Mutual's retired senior employees were taken on as consultants inProject iLima to share their experience and expertise with government employees.Literature on mentoring is reviewed, covering the definitions of mentoring, the differentphases of mentoring and the competencies required for each phase for the mentor andmentee. Finally the benefits of mentoring are addressed.The method used to uncover the business system involved primary research and asynthesis process. Interviews were held with two iLima consultants, after whichquestionnaires were used to gather qualitative feedback from the iLima consultants andtheir clients. The feedback was synthesized until business objectives and activities wereidentified.The study project sheds light on iLima's business system. This is done through a methodof synthesis, which seeks to get to the underlying meaning of the responses. Eight keybusiness objectives are identified. These can be achieved through managing twenty-onebusiness activities. The business model provides a compass or map from which businesssolutions can be aligned to business opportunities and problems. The model is a one-pagerepresentation of the entire business system that Project iLima ought to put under strongmanagement, in the writer's view.The iLima business model may be summed up as follows: "Through the attractiveness ofthe iLima purpose and culture, a strong client engagement model and successful projectdelivery, Project iLima can build a strong ccnsulting brand and adopt a viable businessstrategy beyond its four year funding limit."The contribution this thesis makes to the business-modeling domain is to use a noncollaborativemethod to generate a systemic business model. The thesis demonstrates asimple synthesis process to generate the business model provided there is access to asufficiently broad-based, but not necessarily deep, knowledge repository.Recommendations were made as to how Project iLima's management can introduce thebusiness model as a management tool. It is recommended that a further study be done totest the acceptability and adoption of the model.In addition to the presentation of the iLima business model, CSR trends locally wereexplored. It appears from the trends covered that targeted skills development is still a fairlynew phenomenon in South Africa.