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15
BLUE LABEL INTEGRATED ANNUAL REPORT 2016
Understanding material matters
continued
Risk
Context
Mitigating factors
Ability to attract
and retain skilled
resources
The Group’s future
performance will depend
largely on the efforts and
abilities of its key personnel
and employees. The existing
Group Executive Management
pioneered the mass prepaid
market and established the
Group’s business model. The
Group’s future success will
depend, in part, upon its ability
to continue to attract, retain,
motivate and reward personnel,
including executive officers and
certain other key and
specialised employees. There is
a dearth of suitable technical
skills in the ITC sector.
The joint CEOs and co-founders are both substantial
shareholders and are passionate about and dedicated to
the sustainability and growth of the Group.
Key members of the management team are bound by
service and restraint agreements and in most instances they
are shareholders of Blue Label via the Forfeitable Share
Scheme. Executive Management has implemented talent
management and succession planning in key areas of the
Group. Appropriate skills transfer activities are ongoing
through on the job and other training programmes.
The RNC has approved remuneration policies which include
long-term retention benefits, short-term incentives and an
outperformance bonus. In addition, key components of the
Group’s remuneration policy have been adjusted to focus
on retention.
Increasing
exposure to
issues such as
data security,
breaches in
technology
security or
privacy
As the bulk of the Group’s
inventory is of a virtual nature,
defence against cybercrime is a
top priority, as susceptibility to
hacking and the penetration of
firewalls and other defence
systems are always matters of
extreme concern.
The Group is dependent on the systems and platforms that
it utilises to deliver its products and services, as well as to
manage its merchant base. In recent years, technology
spend has been increasing in recognition of this key
imperative, in order to support not only organic and
acquisitive growth in the business (and the concomitant rise
in the number and type of transactions processed), but also
to improve system availability and resilience. This invariably
includes a major focus on the security of all systems, both
production and enterprise, in order to suitably detect and
manage security threats, as well as the ability to recover
from collateral damage that may be caused as a result of
cyber security breaches.