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come without challenge and additional cost attached. However, van den Oever believes staff at Microelettrica have a ‘can do’ attitude which makes the “seemingly impossible, turn into opportunity”. In line with this, the company spends six percent of its payroll in order to equip people with the necessary skills to assemble and test products. “This is nearly double the normal spend on skills development in South Africa and our training plan is a culmination of inputs and agreement from all levels of management. Skills are generally in short supply and so we have to nurture what we have,” says van den Oever.
Aggressive expansion
With an eye on possible strategic acquisitions to add to the company product portfolio, Microelettrica continues to aggressively market itself to gain a bigger market share on the continent and really get the brand name out there. “In support of this, we are launching our fans and power converters in the South African market which is only just the beginning. Further, our sales focus is on products that have not yet significantly penetrated the South African market in sectors that the company has not yet sufficiently explored, such as mining and energy. This presents a great opportunity for Microelettrica as we target to achieve at least one third of our growth in African markets,” emphasises van den Oever, adding that further market research will be needed in order to ensure that new product launches work in conjunction with the Microelettrica localisation strategy. “It is too early to say which countries will bear fruitful business opportunities, needless to say that where we identify a local content requirement we will look at the possibility of setting up subsidiaries in these countries to cement our localisation strategy in place from the
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Senny van den Oever, Managing Director Previously working for Transnet and Metrorail (today known as PRASA) for 16 years, Senny van den Oever was headhunted to join Microelettrica in 2006, with this year marking his tenth with the company.
We are making the right inroads at this stage to gain an extensive footprint in Africa in the long term