Massmart has seen its localisation efforts benefit not only the group but has also helped to benefit more local suppliers. Over the last nine months, the group has struck up a fruitful partnership with the Department of Trade Industry and Competition (DTIC) and determined which of its imported products could be competitively manufactured by local businesses.
The group called upon the expertise of industrial engineers to review nearly 600 products to select the top contenders for local manufacturing based on available manufacturing capacity, availability of raw materials and pricing.
Von Stander, Massmart’s sourcing optimisation executive said there a quite a few benefits to manufacturing locally: “Locally manufactured products present significant supply chain benefits by reducing supply lead times so that stock arrives in our stores faster and more reliably which translates directly into improved sales.”
He adds one of the successful transitions has been that of the Makro cookware range.
“Our Makro cookware buyer, Christina Hinis, successfully re-launched some Primaries cookware products through a local supplier who still had to import the required aluminium to manufacture the products. We appraised DTIC of the situation during a regular meeting after which they quickly introduced us to a local aluminium supplier.”
Over the last year, Massmart has seen a steady increase in its share price rising from 2 260 a year ago to trading at 6 266 at 1:39 PM (CAT) today. As of 1:28 PM (CAT) today the share price was trading at 0.45% up.
