Stakeholder Engagement Update
Correspondent | Monday May 21, 2018 14:40
The information we gather from our various stakeholder engagements feeds into our decision-making process and also drives our business strategy.
Over the last six months the key focus of the Board, management and staff has been to bring the much-needed stability to the organisation. Top of the agenda has been the improvement of internal business processes that are part and parcel of good corporate governance. This improvement has been brought about through the documentation of all the organisation’s processes, including the introduction of risk mitigation strategies and strengthening the general internal control environment. The Board has over this period considered and approved a number of policy documents, which include charters for both the Board and the various sub-committees of the board. These sub-committees have also started functioning and hold regular meetings to hold management accountable for their actions, and to ensure that the interests of members are protected against possible management negligence.
Documents such as client service charter (COSBOTS promise to its customer to ensure that it provide quality of service to its members), a code of ethics, code of conduct, privacy policy, asset procurement and disposal policy, HR and staff welfare policy and a host of other control documents have been introduced, and that were existing and in current use further enhanced to improve effectiveness.
The COSBOTS team has also been seized with the matter of reviewing the company’s constitution, social and cultural fund for COSBOTS members, as well as considering the provision of monitoring services. The monitoring service will offer an automated works usage system, in order to help with accurately determining who should be paid in respect of what usage of works. Work in this respect is still on going. The organisation is also piloting a works documentation system developed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) called WIPO connect. This system will enable the Documentation and Distribution department to easily navigate member information and interrogate data-based on musical works etc. WIPO connect also acts as a membership system that links member names to relevant personal and professional information of members. We are all aware of the developments in recent times, where collection societies have been in the midst of various scandals, which have occurrence, has left members stranded. These developments have given impetus to the emergence of member activism; where more rights holders are demanding to know how their society operates and how licence fees are accounted for. The Board and management are alive to these developments, and this is what has given currency to the Board prioritising good corporate governance and instilling this into the DNA of the organisation. To the Board and management, good corporate governance has become a fundamental safeguard in respect of the interests of members. The COSBOTS team appreciates that members have begun to actively assert their rights and by so doing demand more accountability on the part of management and the Board of Directors in the way that they run the affairs of the organisation. The Board will therefore do all in its power to maintain a high level of transparency, accountability and governance in the management of COSBOTS.
The importance of governance cannot be overemphasised, and good corporate governance demands the constant development and review of the corporate strategy to ensure that the Society remains true to corporate objectives and best practices. It is against this background that the Board, management and staff will be reviewing the current strategy to ensure that all its provisions align with and respond to the vision of the organisation. The team will also be starting the process of developing a new fit-for-purpose strategy for the next strategic planning cycle that starts in July 2019.
COSBOTS team would like to take this opportunity to assure members and all its stakeholders that it is totally committed to adhering to the highest possible corporate governance practices and that members should take the Board, management and staff into their confidence. This is the first instalment of what will be a regular and transparent engagement with our relevant stakeholders and the organisation commits to continue to brief its stakeholders on developments occurring in their organisation, in pursuance of the universal principles of transparency, accountability, fairness and responsibility.
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