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CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
JUNE 2017
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from 2009. Notably, during his initial
stages of his ABB career, he spent the
first six months of his ABB tenure across
the African continent, putting together a
market approach in a bid to develop the
company’s business outside South Africa
at a time when only 30% of its business
was generated from markets outside the
country. He also went on to hold several
key managerial positions, and his most
recent role, just before he joined Metso,
was head of a business unit within ABB,
with strong focus on the sub Saharan
African market at large.
Kirienko brings in a wealth of
international experience to the service
operations side of the business. Born in
St Petersburg, Russia, he is an electrical
mechanical engineer who majored in
robotics. He spent the initial stages of his
career at the Russian Design Bureau where
his role entailed the designing of satellite
antennas for ships, before he got involved
in the design of layout for concentrators
with a big international concern.
Krienko joined Metso in 1992 as a
project and sales support manager before
taking the role of Vice-President – Services
three years later. He also briefly worked
in South Africa back in 1999 as project
engineer in a manufacturing environment.
He assumed his current role as Vice-
President – Operations Africa on November
1 2016, where his major task is to oversee
all activities concerning deliveries to
customers and the related service.
Key focus areas
The new executive team has an end-to-
end focus on Metso’s business in southern
Africa. “We are looking at this from an
end-to-end perspective, all the way from
finance, human capital management, to
sales and operations, ensuring we have
a fully functional team in our goal to be a
high-performing entity,” says Abrahams.
“Operational excellence is a huge focus
for us this year, notwithstanding the most
important factor, which is our people. We
have a huge drive in 2017 to make sure
that we have the right people doing the
right jobs. This will be achieved through
a special focus on our skills development
programme to be able to produce the
specialised skills we need,” explains
Abrahams.
Abrahams adds that in the quest to have
a high-performing organisation through
operational excellence, there is a big focus
on transferring the knowledge from the
back office to the market-facing personnel.
“Operational excellence is a key target
area for the new executive team. We have
strategies in place to set up the right pro-
cesses, building the basis at which we can
deliver the right products, solutions and
services to our customers,” says Kirienko.
Kirienko further reiterates the impor-
tance of service provision to customers.
“Operational excellence is one of the cru-
cial pillars for our growth strategy. There
needs to be a greater balance between
sales and execution. My portfolio entails
the understanding of customers’ business-
es and formulating best ways to go around
their operational challenges,” he says.
While there is general sentiment that
the mining sector is not enjoying the best
of times, Abrahams is of the view that he
joins Metso at a very opportune time when
there is major shift in the global mining
landscape where both international and lo-
cal mining houses, including junior miners,
are abandoning their conventional ways of
operation, changing the ways they look at
suppliers of technologies and services.
“Other than being a technology suppli-
er, Metso is a solutions provider. This is a
huge differentiator for the company. We
have the ability to go in and understand
the challenges facing our customers, and
we have the portfolio and expertise to
provide solutions that can best help them
achieve their objectives,” says Abrahams.
By doing so, Abrahams says Metso is able
to establish long-lasting strategic partner-
ships, helping its customers achieve best
business performances in the process.
Growth areas
In his role as Vice-President – Sales and
Services, Abrahams is also responsible
for identifying who and what Metso
Southern Africa defines as key customers
and strategic partners, key markets the
company needs to prioritise, as well as the
product lines and solutions that should be
going into those identified markets. In its
area of jurisdiction, Metso Southern Africa
still sees lots of opportunity to grow in
South Africa. For more incremental growth,
Abrahams believes opportunity abounds in
mining destinations such as Zambia, the
DRC and Namibia, and these are key target
markets outside South Africa.
To better service customers in all key
mining regions, the company is also look-
ing at spreading out its presence in all
strategic areas. This will entail appoint-
ing service partners where necessary. “On
the execution side of the business, we are
looking at appointing local service part-
ners, preferably in more remote areas,”
says Kirienko.
“We are identifying a few potential
partners, especially in the Central African
region. We are considering areas where
there is density of mines to warrant the
establishment of service partners,” says
Abrahams.
The company is also pursuing strategic
partnerships with its vendor suppliers on
the manufacturing side of the business.
“We have our own Metso manufacturing
facilities, but we are selecting strategic
partners for the manufacture of certain
components and provision of certain ser-
vices,” says Kirienko.
Looking ahead
Both Abrahams and Kirienko are excited
about the prospects of growth moving
forward. However, Abrahams says for the
year ahead, there is need to understand the
base, considering that the mining sector at
large is just coming out of a tough cycle.
“We are targeting to stabilise in 2017,
before rolling out a specific growth plan
going into 2018,” he says.
Abrahams says there is also need
to realise that the company has a new
executive team in place, and is going
through a lot of changes as an organisation,
which are being implemented in a phased
approach, with a clear view of how and
when the company will need to grow. “I
would say that we are keeping it on a flat
line between 2016 and 2017, and we are
targeting to have more growth from 2018,”
says Abrahams.
Abrahams says these are the very early
stages of an upward cycle. “2017 will see
a lot of mining houses relooking at their
existing assets. We will start to see some
interesting changes at mines in 2018 as
mining houses start their consolidation
of operating assets. We see a good and
healthy market outlook from 2018 to 2020,”
concludes Abrahams.
b
Mikhail Kirienko (left) and Qasim Abrahams
form part of a new executive team at Metso
Southern Africa.