The latest ‘big thing’ for South African companies: Enterprise and supplier development – proposing an implementation framework

Background: Although enterprise development and supplier development are two distinct concepts in the organisational and management literature, the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) legislation refers to the enterprise development and supplier development as a single concept. As a result, many companies have a single policy, strategy and structural arrangements to manage enterprise development and supplier development programs and activities, thereby conflating the two concepts.Objectives: The aim of this conceptual article was to propose an implementation framework for enterprise and supplier development and to show the rationale of keeping enterprise development and supplier development as two distinct but related activities.Method: The conceptual article provided an overview of the policy context regarding enterprise development, followed by a discussion on enterprise development and its complexities. The article drew from the literature on supplier development and from the supplier adaptation, relational view, and learning and knowledge perspective theories in the development of its argument.Results: The article presented an implementation framework for enterprise and supplier development and then concluded with some recommendations and direction for future research.Conclusion: The implications of this research have great value for organisations as they prepare to implement Enterprise and supplier development (ESD) programmes. The proposed framework will also contribute to a better understanding of the ESD process and the link between enterprise development and supplier development processes.