Pragma, one of the world’s leading physical asset management companies, is spreading its wings to countries around the world. The company, with its headquarters in Cape Town, South Africa, will be involved in projects in the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, France, Ireland, USA and more.
Says Dirk Janse van Rensburg, Operations Manager at Pragma. “I’m very excited that a project with one of the leaders in PET packaging solutions kicked off in February this year. They have approached us to perform an after sales service and maintenance assessment, and to help them on a maintenance transformation journey.
“We’ll be doing assessments in most of their zone head offices and will end off with a strategic workshop at the corporate head office, where we’ll present our findings and recommended a roadmap going forward. The roadshow will include Dubai, UAE, where we will assess the Greater and Middle-East and Africa zone. Thereafter we will move to Guadalajara, Mexico, to assess the Latin American Market, which will be followed by an assessment in Atlanta for the North American part of the business. The European assessment will happen in Le Havre, France, and the final presentation and strategic workshop will be in Zug, Switzerland. What makes this project so exciting is that we’ll be exposed to a large part of the client’s business which will allow us to identify areas of improvement, and possibly areas where we can assist them in future.”
The output of the project will be a strategic roadmap and long term plan on how to mature their after sales services business. Van Rensburg continues: “The next challenge beyond this project would be the implementation of the strategic roadmap. For Pragma Acuity, it’s such an honour to be recognised by an industry leader as a trusted mentor who can objectively and with a fresh perspective evaluate their business practises.
“We’re bringing asset management structure and concepts to the world of after sales services. We believe that by approaching after sales services with discipline and structure, the cornerstones of asset management, it will lead to after sales services becoming more profitable and effective. The project will jointly be delivered by Pragma’s staff from South Africa and Brasil. We’re really looking forward to working closely together with our Brazilian colleagues.”
According to Van Rensburg, Pragma has recently showed tremendous growth. “We’ve also been involved in an asset management project with C&D Foods, based in Ireland, and Aujan Industries in Dubai. In both cases we’re assisting them to better understand the asset management challenges they face. Some of the quickest gains are to improve skill levels through proper training and to establish standardisation in business processes. In parallel, information system optimisation and improvements are always necessary to ensure that it’s supporting the business in the best possible way. Our level of involvement often also entails strategic discussions and identification of areas for focussed improvement.”
Van Rensburg concludes: “We’re very happy to see that the skills and knowledge developed in South Africa is just as applicable in the rest of the world. We’re welcomed with open arms by other communities to share our thoughts and understanding of asset management. Our aim is for our clients to firstly understand the journey of asset management growth. Once we’ve established that understanding, the tangible and intangible benefits become clear. We want to be there every step of the way. We like the saying “Radical thinking – evolutionary implementation”.
