There are many reasons, but the bottom line is economic survival.  If you cannot make products and ensure services that can compete successfully on the world markets as well as locally, you face a bleak economic future.  Similarly companies must understand their customers needs and expectations to become more competitive to survive.

There must be a better way of managing.  The current approaches do not seem to meet the current needs. Throughout the business world, communications between organisation's, their management and their employees remains a vexing problem. In times of organisational change (transformation) the issue becomes even more critical.  In South Africa the existing gulf between management and labour, exacerbates the problem further.  An era has now been entered where alignment, empowerment, teamwork and the like are fundamental requirements for business success and effective communication in all dimensions is imperative.

If we observe the gains made by international competitors, the message is clear and is eloquently summed up in the following quotation :

     "We are going to win and the industrial West is going to lose out - there is nothing much you can do about it, because the reasons for your failure are within yourselves.

    For you, the essence of management is getting the ideas out of the head of bosses into the hands of labour.

    For us, the core of management is precisely the art of mobilising and pulling together the intellectual resources of all employees in the service of the firm. Only by drawing on the combined brainpower of all it's employees can a firm face up to the turbulence and constraints of today's environment.

    This is why our large companies give their employees three to four times more training than yours. This is why they foster within the firm such intensive exchange and  communication. This is why they seek constantly everybody's suggestions and why they demand from the educational system increasing numbers of graduates as well as bright and well-educated generalists, because these people are the lifeblood of the industry.

    Your socially-minded bosses, often full of good intentions, believe their duty is to protect the people in their firms. We, on the other hand, are realists and consider it our duty to get our people to defend their firms which will pay them back a hundredfold for their dedication. By doing this we end up being more social than you."
 

    Konosuke Matsushita, 1986