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sustainable construction world
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Products
Sustainable
PRODUCTIVITY
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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Atlas Copco’s Kgothatso Ntsie.
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