The power industry in Africa is a growing dynamic industry and faces financing challenges against a huge supply backlog and maintenance requirements. The ten-fold revenue growth of our company over the past five years has been phenomenal and it is an inspiration for us to continue our efforts to add value to our customers, employees, shareholders and the community at large. We also constantly strive to improve products with respect to the escalating costs of raw materials and our delivery commitments.

Hawker Siddeley is Africa’s supreme manufacturer of Distribution & Power Transformers, Miniature Substations, and Oil Ring Main Units. We have, over the years, successfully embraced and implemented the process of ongoing improvement to engineering excellence, product quality, responsive quotations and customer value creation. To maintain the transformer industry leadership and supremacy, our organization established a sustainable process of value creation.

For us, value innovation goes right through all phases of our business; encompassing product design, process development, pricing, marketing, service to our customers and contemporary business management methods. In addition, we are sincerely dedicated to meeting the expectations of all our stakeholders equally, while addressing social imbalances of the past. We also aim to create products that hold great value not only for those who use them, but also for those who create them and their families.

All our products are manufactured to meet SABS specifications and we also do custom design and manufacture for customers with unique requirements. Every unit is fully tested in accordance with SABS and other standard specifications and test certificates are provided. Our SANS 780 certified product range includes;

• Power and Distribution Transformers up to 66kV and rated up to 10MVA with off-load tap-switch or on- load tapchangers
• Special application units for mining, industrial, rectifier/ traction, converter and thyristor drive applications
• Internally arc tested Minisubstations with Oil or SF6 Ring Main Units.
• Tiger Oil Ring Main Units (RMU).

In November 2007, Hawker Siddeley Transformers passed the internal arc test for minisubstations to IEC standards and the company is currently implementing various initiatives to maintain our market leadership.

OUR VALUE-ADDING ADVANTAGE
Value may be regarded as being what customers would pay for a product or service if they had perfect information of those products and services, such as the benefits associated with the purchase. Going forward our company maintains the view and understanding that the purpose of our existence is to create value for customers, employees and shareholders and that the interests of these groups are inextricably linked.

Hawker Siddeley thus views competition not as a goal, but as part of the business environment and hence seeks to create and sustain a value adding advantage through value proposition, which is a description of the customer problem, the solution that addresses the problem, and the value of this solution from the customer’s perspective. As a result, our company finds it very useful to map our key assets by building four ‘strategic balance sheets’ that focus on customers, employees, processes and investors. Our motivated and well trained employees, using state of the art equipment and processes create outstanding customer value.

It is important to note that in addition to the implementation of the theory of constraints (TOC), Hawker Siddeley embraces an integrated systems view of business that recognizes the interdependence of all stakeholders in the value-creation process. Effectively we think first about creating the most value, and then we later think about capturing part of that value as profit.

On the other hand, a developer seeking to power a townhouse complex is made to realize the possible advantage of completing the project earlier by say three months through a short mini-substation delivery period. In essence this implies three months of revenue which, without doubt surpasses the small premium price difference from that offered by our competitors. Similarly a plant engineer is proffered to consider investing in say, a power transformer that has minimal chances of failure and ultimately revenue loss through production stoppage or in the worst case – having to purchase a new unit again.

In this regard our aim is to mitigate the risk that may befall our customers. We achieve this through our high quality products, short delivery periods and assisting customers to order the right specification the first time. This is a clear benefit to those who purchase our products because they face little or zero defects at commissioning and during use of our products rendering their contractual obligations smooth and easy to satisfy the conditions required to claim their performance bonds.

As a customer oriented supplier we also observe that most buying decisions are left to the buyer and stores managers who may not be well versed with project analysis and value creation. Thus we encourage adjudication that is well informed and that does not compare the proverbial three quotations and predictably identifies the cheapest and in most cases the poorest quality offer as the best. Our sales team puts an unprecedented effort in providing technical and commercial guidance that ultimately lead to responsive quotations or value proposition, hence to well-informed buying decisions by the customers. A good buying decision is one that has very little risk and one which is rewarding even in the long term.

For Hawker Siddeley, competition is all about value: creating it and capturing it. Our high quality customers’ products typically arrive to site within 8 to 12 weeks for Minisubs and Distribution Transformers; Power and Special application transformers within 16 to 24 weeks.

Our value-adding advantage also emanates from a positive corporate culture, a systemic view of the entire value-creation process, the process of continuous improvement through learning and visionary leadership that emotionally chants effective relationships, equipping of employees and a win/win attitude.

OUR LEADERSHIP
Hawker Siddeley was acquired by Yemurai (SA) (Pty) Ltd in January 2002 and incorporates Hawker Siddeley Transformers and Hawker Siddeley Switchgear. As a member of the Yemurai Group, Hawker Siddeley benefits from the advice, guidance and resources of its parent company. The CEO, Simon Chiwaka and CFO, Ian Smith provide Hawker Siddeley the essential strategic guidance and resource allocation, concomitantly creating strategic fit between the business unit’s critical success factors and opportunities, and the corporate parent’s skills, resources and characteristics. They also actively seek new markets for the company’s products and also set the strategic thinking tone; giving Hawker Siddeley a sense of direction and harnessing the employees’ energy towards the goal of supremacy over competitors.

Our management team thrives on the process of strategic thinking that entails sitting together and thinking through the qualitative aspects of the business and its environment. This being guided by shared common values, a deeply felt sense of purpose and our clear vision that is equally compelling, distinctive and consistent.

In our competitive environment, empowering leadership is one advantage our organization has over others. After all one is too small a number to achieve greatness. In essence our top managers engage in greater doing and lesser preaching, which is what Peters and Waterman refer to as the ‘hands on, value driven’ style of leadership. In this way collective responsibility over task accomplishment is cascaded through the hierarchy.

We are also satisfied to report that our Chief Operations Officer, Danford Mugadza; an ardent scholar of operational effectiveness through TOC, and his management team have done a tremendous job in developing and sustaining a profitable enterprise. This has come about through product and process innovation and understanding unique customer needs with ever-increasing speed and engineering precision.

CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP
Hawker Siddeley maintains a clean environment of all its premises as well as promoting health, sports and education among its staff and the community. We recently donated blankets, food and children’s toiletries to a number of families that were displaced by the xenophobic attacks.

THE MARKET
While the high demand for reliable products in South Africa has played a significant role in the company’s growth, the expanding export market has played its part too. We have become more visible in the southern African region and have gained a reputation of responding to every customer, no matter how geographically distant or small the prospective order may be. Key to the company’s success is the engagement of customers input to product development. Our marketing and engineering teams take exceptional initiatives in dealing with the challenges facing the electricity industry, and in the process continue to win the trust of the customers. In essence we learn from our customers rather than learning about them. Our customers are thus co-creators of value as opposed to being a statistic in the value chain. To this end, Hawker Siddeley is headed in the right direction as it clearly realises and acknowledges the customer’s viewpoint more than the company’s viewpoint. Our organisation’s primary task then is to create customer benefits by researching, understanding and anticipating customers’ needs, excelling in product and process innovation providing world class service and customer intimacy.

The following development design projects are among the prototype units under manufacture: 33kV Miniature Substations due to demand in Africa; Underground Mine Miniature Substations in response to continued requests from our mining customers; and High Voltage Metering Units, as well as cost effective Transformer design improvements.

We wish to assure both our valued existing and prospective customers that Hawker Siddeley has the infrastructure, technical know-how and capacity to make a difference where it counts most.

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