CIPS is a nice and good profession but this is becoming more difficult for the people of Africa. Day in and day out it becomes more expensive. Content of case studies are solely European.

Could there be a way out for other cases to be developed for the people of Africa since understanding foreign cases are becoming more difficult, for example the current case for strategic supply chain management?

I know that CIPS is not cheap; it is expensive, especially if you look at the issue of books. If you look at what we have done up to now, first of all to have a much stronger focus on Africa, because in the global business of CIPS the African intervention is right up there, people take note. That is one thing that I can guarantee you. What we have identified and I agree is that course books’ availability and affordability was a major issue that’s why we started the initiative through one of my colleagues. We developed a project called “Books for Africa”, to ensure that through effective supply chain practices (cause we need to practice what we preach) actually make sure that course books as a start become more affordable and more available. So we got that through, they actually agreed to run a pilot, and we ran that pilot very successfully. So we are now in phase two of the rolling out Books for Africa project across the Sub-Saharan continent. The impact on the student and the members will be that their books will eventually become more affordable and more accessible.
The other thing that we are looking at is global tariffing, taking into account that if you look at the capita income and you bring that into play and into consideration when we for instance look at pricing. So we are really working hard to make that difference.
I you look at case studies, yes unfortunately that is the case, because a lot of it is developed in Europe. That is why we want to work very close with local institutes and local tertiary institutions so that we can bring in those Africa case studies. One other thing that I think is really important is if you look at our study centers across Africa, they are currently recognized and not approved. There is a very big difference; it’s much more odorous for a study centre to become an approved study centre than a recognized study centre. So once you apply for the approved study group status, there your tutors and all those people actually become very critical, because we rely a lot on our study centres and tutors to take this material and make it relevant for the different countries that they teach. I think you will also see through that process of registered study centres to move to approved, fortunately or unfortunately for those mediocre and marginal study centres they are not going to make it, so that is how we want to improve the experience to our colleagues out there.