Construction World October 2015

Products

Sustainable PRODUCTIVITY

Atlas Copco’s Kgothatso Ntsie.

Atlas Copco uses the term ‘sustainable productivity’. How is this defined? The company’s definition is ‘responsible usage of our human, natural and capital resources’, which is achieved by ensuring that it gives lasting results to its customers. Your website states that ‘sustainability is viewed as an opportunity to innovate, reduce cost, mitigate risk and create business opportunities’. What does this mean? In terms of innovation we do our best to meet the customer half way to ensure that we meet his/her needs. No complete overhauls of our existing product offering are done: that is because all of our products are made to suit as many markets as possible. From time to time we do work with a customer to innovate and to ensure that they can use our products to suit their specific needs. The company delivers cutting-edge technology in the form of safe, reliable and energy-efficient products designed to optimise customers’ productivity and competitive advantage. One such example is the scooptram: a 10 metric tonne underground loader. It has an ergonomically designed operator compartment for unparalleled productivity in any underground mine. In terms of reducing cost: we are one of the more technologically advanced companies where every single product we produce is geared towards helping the customer save money. The whole idea with research and development (R&D) is that as an organisation we make the customer happy. Atlas Copco is a world-leading provider of sustainable productivity solutions. It is organised around the following business units: compressor technique, industrial technique, mining and rock excavation technique and construction technique. Kgothatso Ntsie, corporate com- munications manager: South and sub-Sahara Africa, answers questions about the group and its philosophy.

In terms of creating opportunities: one of the legs of B-BBEE is enterprise development. We work with a local trust to create opportunities for individuals within the company who want to open up their own business – it has to complement our product offering though. In the first world the regulations for emissions are very strict, resulting in major technological improvement. How are these transplanted to the African context? Atlas Copco’s R&D adheres to certain standards (such as the UN World Index) for reducing its environmental footprint (which includes reducing CO 2 emissions). We import the same machines – they are not modified to meet the less strict regulations of African context. What are Atlas Copco’s core values? Our core values reflect how we behave internally and in our relationship with external stakeholders. The first is innovation . Innovation continues to be a core focus – Atlas Copco has 3 100 research and development engineers. In 2014 we spent 43% of our revenue on R&D in an attempt to ensure that the customer has it easy. This innovative spirit is reflected in everything we do and is aimed at delivering products that increase productivity and competitiveness. The second is interaction : with our stakeholders, but also internally and between customer centres. Although we are divisionalised, we all represent the organisation – so we come across as one company to the outside world. The last value is commitment : our pay-off line is ‘committed to sustainable productivity’. We operate worldwide with a long term commitment to our customers that we keep our promises and always strive to exceed expectations. How does the company innovate – is it a top down, from the bottom up approach – or a combination of this? It is a combination: 60% of innovation is from the top down. We have specialists that come up with ideas – R&D. The remaining 40% is from the bottom up innovation. Once a customer purchases a significant amount of product, Atlas Copco will modify these if needs be. It was done for a South African customer once who needed a very specific solution – and Sweden created it for them. Employees also have an opportunity, via an innovation website, to send ideas to R&D. What would you say is Atlas Copco’s unique selling point? We are well-known for our reliable products – it is a premium brand. This is our unique selling point. But, we are not well-known for being top of mind – which is something that is being changed. We realise that a customer is your customer for ever – it is not just about buying, it is also about looking after them. Therefore an entire service division for each business area was created – service generates 43% of our revenue. We now have almost 13 000 service employees across the world. ∞

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