for the mining industry. Cobus Kotze explains, “Our family’s forte has always been the production of technical ceramics, including products with industrial and medical device applications.” He adds that the company underwent something of an evolution in 2007, when the mining industry started investing heavily in high speed stirred mills to improve the recovery of platinum ore. “Wear-resistant ceramic beads are used as the grinding media in the mills,” Kotze says. When industry players started seeking strategic supplies of such media, the Kotze family was invited to submit a sample.
“It was a fantastic opportunity to address a need in the market,” he recalls. But even opportunities come with challenges – in this case, although the company possessed the ability to produce ceramic beads in the lab, it still had to develop a product and production process that would enable it to meet volume demands and strict quality standards.
“DMM was formed, and we secured a loan to build a pilot facility where we could develop this technology. We had to benchmark our product against strong international competition, and develop the product and process in a way that allowed for quality as well as price benefits for the customer.” To do this, Kotze continues, the company had to add maximum value to raw material, thus minimising input costs. It also had to design a production process in a way that secured the required volumes.
Of course this could not be done without the appropriate expertise in the material science. However, knowledge in equipment design and fabrication was equally important. “An environment of lateral, innovative thinking laid the foundation for a seemingly impossible task. We persevered - and by the end of 2008, delivered the first 20 tons of ceramic beads.” Not content to rest on its laurels, the company continues to strive to improve equipment, materials and processes, and today the commercial plan produces more than 120 tons of ceramic beads each month. This output, which requires a 24-hour production process, combined with equipment that DDM was obliged to design in-house, means that the company has had a positive impact, both socially and economically, on the Zululand community in and around Gingindluvo, where the factory is situated. The company currently employs 120 people, and plans to expand further during the next year.
“An innovative spirit has become entrenched in the way we do business, and because of this, we have
40 EDGE | November 2011
a number of new projects in the pipeline – including the commercial production of milling equipment and downstream ceramic industries,” Kotze informs. From beads to branding - Cape Town based Personera has harnessed the power of branding with social networking to create personal branded products, making it the first company worldwide to do so. The company’s Tasleem Williams explains: “Most forward thinking brands have Facebook fan pages. Our applications allow the fans who use those pages to combine the brand’s content, such as photos, with their own content, like photos, events and birthdays. The end resuls is an entirely unique, personalised product like a calendar, T-shirt or photobooks.”
The advantages for the brand are clear, Williams points out: not only does it have a platform for actively engaging with consumers, but Personera also creates an extra revenue stream, and the brand is able to monetise its Facebook page to derive extra value.
Local brands that have leaped to take advantage include magazines such as Car and Woolworths Taste; however, the business has gained even greater traction in the United States where the product has found great synergies with businesses such as sports teams and music artists. For example, Williams notes that some musicians have used the application to allow their fans to create personalised T-shirts commemorating concert tours.
He admits that, although the applications are clearly an example of forward- thinking and are in touch with a new wave of social media savvy consumers, it has been difficult to gain momentum in South Africa – hence the emphasis on international markets, and the focus on business development for the US market.
This move has paid dividends: Personera has partnered with Xerox in a joint marketing effort to market its applications, and with the leading digital network for country music, Music City Networks. Williams considers these relationships the company’s greatest achievements; adding that yet another highlight is the company’s status as one of only 90 companies listed by Facebook as a preferred developer – and the only one on the African continent. Not bad for a company that started out with only four people.
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