By: Ilan Solomons
Historically disadvantaged South African (HDSA) entrepreneurs are poised to benefit significantly from local hospitality services and facilities management company Tsebo Outsourcing Group’s supplier development programme, which allocates 40% of its procurement spend to local black-owned suppliers.
“In one contract alone in Limpopo, more than 150 thriving Limpopo-based entrepreneurial businesses, such as BBB Meats, Indochem Chickens, Ikegeng Uniforms, Kill-a-bug Pest Control and Maxluck Packaging, have already grown significantly, owing to the group’s activities in a rural community in Lephalale,” said Tsebo Outsourcing Group marketing MDRoyce van der Zwan.
Speaking to Mining Weekly at this year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba, Van der Zwan discussed the ways in which Tsebo is able to build partnership models that not only deliver a high-quality service to clients, but also ensure that local communities benefit directly through jobs, enterprise development, skills development and community support.
The company’s contract in Lephalale, which is one of over 4 000 operated by Tsebo Outsourcing Group across Africa, has created long-term jobs for about 1 000 of the local community members.
Meanwhile, Tsebo Outsourcing Group CEO Clive Smith said the group’s multidisciplinary range of services and subsidiary companies received a positive response from a large crowd of delegates at this year’s indaba, which took place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from February 3 to 6.
“Our proposition is simple – we manage the basic noncore activities, such as catering, cleaning and building facility maintenance, for our clients, and in doing so, create a robust business infrastructure for them at a lower cost. This has great appeal for multinationals growing and investing across the African continent,” he said.
Smith added that Tsebo’s suite of services was packed together according to the business requirements of the client in their particular environment and geography and “comprises both traditional and modern services”.
Creating Energy Efficiency
Tsebo Outsourcing’s energy efficiency solutions subsidiary Tsebo Energy Solutions CEOWilliam Gould arranged meetings with about 20 indaba delegates who were interested in the company’s energy efficiency offerings.
Gould also told Mining Weekly that several follow-up meetings were scheduled to take place after the conference.
“Power-consumption efficiency has become a major buzzword in all sectors, particularly in the mining and heavy industries, as these operators are among the biggest consumers of energy and they are, therefore, seeking integrated solutions that will enable them to save costs and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions,” he explained.
Gould said Tsebo Energy offered end-to-end solutions, which provided insight into and an understanding of energy consumption, as well as practical solutions that identified and eliminated unnecessary consumption.
Tsebo Energy’s offering includes two separate products that promote energy efficiency – Powerstar and Red-K.
Powerstar, which was on display at Tsebo Outsourcing Group’s exhibition at the Mining Indaba, is a modular unit for optimal voltage efficiency that saves more than 10% of customers’ electricity costs, with no impact on productivity or performance.
Red-K is “a powerful diagnostic software package that meters consumption at a granular level and identifies sources of excessive or abnormal consumption,” explained Gould.
Serving the Mining Sector Across Africa
Tsebo Outsourcing Group remote hospitality provider Fedics Site Services’ regional director, Andrew St Clair-Laing, and sales and marketing manager, Denis Hourquebie,told Mining Weekly at the Mining Indaba that the subsidiary operated in several countries in Africa, including South Africa, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Namibia and Mozambique.
Fedics Site Services business development manager Siyanda Ndlovu said that, in addition to attending several business meetings at the indaba, he and his colleagues attended many of the African Ministerial Forum addresses and private breakfasts to network and learn about new project developments in Africa.
Additionally, Van der Zwan pointed out that Tsebo Outsourcing’s bulk catering solutions subsidiary, Equality Reef Services (ERS), received many enquires at the indaba, as it specialised in providing basic nutritional and auxiliary products and services for large industrial and mining organisations.
“ERS is a cost-effective and reliable service provider, which thoroughly understands the unique health and wellness requirements of employees in the industrial and mining sectors,” he said, emphasising that ERS strived to effectively manage the nutritional needs of workers such as mineworkers, who worked in a physically intensive environment.
“Given the toll that HIV/Aids exerts on the mining industry and the growing emphasis on good nutrition to complement and reinforce the effect of antiretrovirals, ERS has re-engineered its clients’ meal plans to boost health through nutritional intake.”
Further, Van der Zwan noted that, in addition to catering, the ERS brand had retail outlets at clients’ premises to meet the specific needs of mineworkers and manufacturing industry workers.
“What makes ERS unique is its approach to the communities in which it operates, as the company offers a range of community upliftment programmes that complement our catering services,” asserted Van der Zwan.
Smith noted that mining communities were often located in isolated, rural and underdeveloped areas, which highlighted a need for the type of multidisciplinary range of services that Tsebo Outsourcing offered.
“In most cases, the local residents are unemployed and have limited job opportunities, which is why we use our business platform as a social tool through the establishment of literacy programmes, entrepreneurship development plans or skills training schemes,” he explained.
Smith also pointed out that ERS aimed to partner with local nongovernmental organisations that provided value-added services with regard to the health and education of its customers to improve the lives of the most marginalised members of the society in which it operated.
“ERS is not merely a catering service. We are committed to providing a high-quality and cost-effective service for all our customers, which upskills their staff and leaves a lasting legacy long after their operations have ceased in that particular area,” Smith stated.
Mozambique Expertise
Tim Makin, COO of Tsebo Outsourcing Group’s Mozambique-based subsidiary catering company, Servco Catering, told Mining Weekly at the Mining Indaba that the company, which has a staff complement of more than 900, served more than 22 000 meals a day at its clients’ facilities in Mozambique.
He explained that, although the Mozambique mining and gas industries were still in their infancy and lacked an understanding of outsourcing, the opportunities on offer in terms of servicing the mining, gas and construction industries in the country are significant.
“If Servco Catering can service only 25% of this market, we can double our market share in the country and grow our brand in Mozambique,” said Makin.
He highlighted that, while Servco Catering still operated the first contract it was awarded in Mozambique by the Mozambique Ports & Railways Company, it had since been contracted to provide outsourcing services to an additional 23 companies in the country.
Facilities Focus
Van der Zwan told Mining Weekly that Tsebo Outsourcing Group’s facilities management subsidiary, Drake & Scull, was the number one facilities management service provider in South Africa by turnover.
In South Africa, Drake & Scull was responsible for the management of Parliament’s facilities in Cape Town, including the daily maintenance of the building and the coordination of special functions, such as the opening of Parliament.
The company also managed other facilities in South Africa and the rest of Africa, such as the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital, in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, and banking firms Absa and Barclays banks across Africa.
Tsebo Outsourcing Group also owns cleaning company subsidiaries Tsebo Cleaning Services, East Coast Hospitality Solutions and Ubunye Cleaning Services, which clean commercial and residential buildings in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Mpumalanga.
“Clearly, growth opportunities in Africa can only be harnessed by those that are able to execute a transaction in-market. A company like Tsebo provides the stable business infrastructure its clients need for that purpose,” Smith concluded.
