SA SME defies odds – moves from 5 employees to 260
A South African company, ANAX Logistics, established in 2007 as a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and started off with only 5 employees has grown to now employ 260 people and has been selected by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to represent South Africa at the 2019 Africa Kaizen Awards to be held in Tunis, Tunisia on 26 June 2019.
The rationale behind the 2019 Africa Kaizen Awards is to enhance capabilities and competitiveness of African companies by promoting the concept of Kaizen through mutual learning process of know-how and the practical experiences of Kaizen activities in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as the sharing of information on Africa Kaizen Initiatives.
JICA the organiser of the awards, recognizes Kaizen as an approach to enhance the foundation of firm capabilities necessary for companies to grow and innovate. The Kaizen concept is a Japanese management philosophy that enables the implementation of best workplace practices to yield higher productivity levels.
In recent years, the achievements of Kaizen has attracted the interest of an increasing number of countries in Africa. At the occasion of the sixth Tokyo International Conference of African Development (TICAD VI) in 2016, Kaizen received high attention as a promising method to increasing quality, productivity and competitiveness with the unique pillar of Japanese cooperation.
African countries participating in this year’s awards also include Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia and South Africa. The South African company selected for the awards, ANAX Logistics, was established in 2007 by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and owner, Mr Ntsikelelo Eric Mgqibelo and his wife Mrs. Fezeka Mgqibelo.
Mr. Mgqibelo states, “for our company to be nominated to participate in these awards is a phenomenal feat for a company of this size and with the humble beginnings that it had. Implementation of the Productivity SA Work Place Challenge into our business has ensured that we inculcate a culture of continuous improvement in all spheres of our business thus contributing significantly in the attainment of critical KPIs required by our clients for much needed value add in their operations. This was a catalyst that has strongly ensured exponential growth achievements in the recent past, taking ANAX Logistics from small humble beginnings to a medium / large size business contributing significantly to job creation in the local economy.”
“This is clearly a vindication of returns that could be realised when government agencies and big businesses make a concerted drive to invest time and resources into developing small businesses and ensuring their sustainment. Our achievements would not have been possible without the involvement of Productivity SA, extensive participation by our employees / work teams and contributions made by our key / major clients; ie. Mercedes Benz SA, Total SA, Shell SA, etc.”
“We believe that the opportunity to participate in the 2019 Africa Kaizen Awards will not only allow us to compete, but to also give us a platform to get more exposure on world class best practice benchmarks, something we plan to bring back home to further improve the way we run our business operations and to share experience with other up and coming business counterparts”.
Productivity SA was responsible for the implementation of productivity-improvement methodologies within ANAX Logistics via the Workplace Challenge Programme. A continuous improvement programme that measures, quality, cost, delivery and innovation. Winners of the competition in Tunisia will head to the TICAD VII Conference to be held in August in the city of Yokohama, Japan.
The Chief Executive Officer of Productivity SA, Mr Mothunye Mothiba, wished ANAX Logistics well and says “efforts towards leading a productivity and competitiveness driven growth and development agenda in South Africa must be heightened”.
Enquiries:
Maupi Monyemangene
Media Liaison Manager; Productivity SA
Tel: 011 848 5397
Cell: 0824473232
