Capital Equipment News June 2017

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.

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