Modern Mining November 2015

CONSULTANTS/ PROJECT HOUSES

Director, says it was occasioned in part by client pressure. “It was clear to us that many, probably most, clients wanted to deal with a single company offering a ‘one-stop’ seamless service,” he explains. “In addition, there was a certain amount of brand confusion between the various companies. So we decided to make the necessary changes and the new structure was launched in July this year. Given that we were restructuring in terms of our branding and internal organisation, we also decided to re-strategise the business at the same time. In essence, we now offer seven niche services over three revenue streams or commodity focus areas and in three geographical regions.” Elaborating, Pieterse says the commodity focus areas are ferrous metals, energy (primar- ily coal and uranium) and precious and base metals and industrials (or PBI). “In each of these areas, the niche services we offer are min- ing engineering, industrial engineering, risk management, geology, simulation and decision support, financial modelling and project sup- port,” he says. “Geographically, we also intend spreading our wings as we have traditionally mainly worked in South Africa and Namibia – although we have also carried out contracts for clients in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and are currently working for ENRC in the DRC. We now want to also target West Africa and Central Africa with our goal being to reduce depen- dency on the Southern African market and also increase our non-Rand-based revenue.” In respect of West Africa, VBKom is using Ghana as its entry point to the region. It has already visited the country on a number of occasions, including with South Africa’s Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), and has also developed a relationship with the SA

Above: VBKom staffers pictured at the company’s internal brand launch earlier this year.

Strauss Oosthuizen

VBKom’s stand at the seventh WaCA (West Africa and Central Africa) Mining Summit and Expo, held in Accra in May this year. Pictured (from left) are VBKom’s Nolo Lahasa, Eduan Pieterse and George Olivier.

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November 2015  MODERN MINING  43