Printing SA’s latest announcements include a message from Dr Abdool Majid Mahomed, CEO of Printing SA a new appointment and training courses.
‘From 26-28 July 2022 I had the pleasure to attend the Southern Africa Postal Operations Association (SAPOA) annual conference in which I delivered a paper entitled ‘Amazon – and its impact on the print and publishing sector’.
SAPOA is a gathering of senior executives of all the Postal Services across the southern Africa region, who share their best practices and success stories. It was truly illuminating and refreshing to hear of the strides made across the region, and how they trying to work together to improve a whole range of new services to their existing offerings. They have added more value to their customers, through joint collaboration, and getting IT systems to be integrated seamlessly to allow for cross border transactions. The SAPO CEO, Nomkitha Mona, also presented an interesting perspective of where SAPO as an organisation is, and where it is aspiring to be, given the help of both government and the private sector.
There are amazing plans in the pipeline, and her team are working hard at actualising these. Across the region, there has been a decline of the traditional postal services (use of stamps, transactional mail, and postal orders to transfer money or small packages) with the advent of newer technologies to communicate faster, courier services that offer an efficient and prompt service, as well as online banking and money transfer capabilities that are now in vogue.
Post offices in the region have re-invented themselves to offer related full-house services to the hitherto unbanked sector, especially in deep rural areas, where they have the advantage of having the best footprint and are using their prime locations and infrastructure very strategically. They have integrated self-service kiosks located at each of their post offices with online banking terminals alongside these, allowing for full banking service transactions.
They not only issue social service grant money, they have also embarked on being a service point for pension money to be obtained, creating a facility to do all utility bill payments, the printing of car licence discs, and going a step further by having the infrastructure to print high security driver licence cards. Some have also entered the insurance sector, offering personal and business insurance either through an underwriter, or registering as a financial service organisation and offering it in competition with other established vendors.
They have also engaged with strategic partners to offer collaborative services or special add on services. These include relations with:
– Africa Wide, which builds industrial solutions for Africa, merging technology with efficiencies to the scale required, with Africa Cloud services, SmartMation and Banking solutions across borders.
– Mail Americas, which have over 20 years of experience in managing publishing and cross border e-commerce in emerging countries, delivering over three million international packages per month across Latin America.
– TradeRoot Africa, which have a broad range of products throughout the payments and issuing spectrum. They work together with card associations and payment regulators and have a well-established footprint of clients throughout Africa. They licence solutions across the entire value chain, from payments to core banking and issuing, both on a traditional licencing model and by offering a managed services platform as a service to clients.
– Mastercard is a global pioneer in payment innovation and technology, connecting billions of consumers, issuers, merchants, governments and businesses.
– DHL is a global leader in the logistics industry, specialising in international shipping, courier services and transportation.
– Escher, which delivers e-commerce solutions from the first mile to last mile of delivery, helping postal service providers connect globally with 1 billion consumers through their innovative software platform.
– Merpak Envelopes, a specialised envelope manufacturing and printing company that manufactures, prints, and converts the widest range of envelopes with a complete selection of windows, flap gums and paper stocks. They also offer a range of PostSafe products that include recyclable polythene envelopes that are manufactured to the highest specification and offer outstanding security, tamperproof, sealing ability and weatherproof solutions for high value mailings.
– ProJunction does procurement, warehousing, processing, picking, packing and distribution across Africa.
These developments across the African continent bode well for the growth and development through the networks forged. With more and better engagement, it will usher in a new era for postal service operators, capitalising on synergies, and becoming self-sustainable, making essential and diversified services available to all citizens.
Naturally what is happening at SAPO is of concern. As a state-owned entity, it is struggling with huge debt, and the promised bail out from government has not occurred. The SAPO CEO and her team have delivered a strategy document to Parliament where they outline the challenges presented by the SASSA grant payment system. This grant payment process is costing SAPO financial resources, which it can ill afford. SAPO has suggested that since this is a social welfare programme, it should be subsidised by the government. Their strategy further outlines that with more support from both government and the private sector, it can become self-funded and carry out its core postal business functions once again.’
Printing SA welcomes new Central Chamber manager
Ashley Samuel is the new Chamber manager for the Central Region of Printing SA. Samuel has a wealth of work experience from a wide variety of sectors. He has excelled in business turnaround strategies, is a strong marketing manager and is able to sell services and products easily.
He has over 19 years of experience, most recently as a business analyst focusing on finding appropriate solutions as part of a better customer experience. As a territory sales manager, he maximised profitability through efficient statistical and financial oversight. As a branch manager, he managed a large sale force and ensured sales targets were maximised.
He managed stock control and ensured operations ran optimally. His focus on staff training and development made them grow and achieve new heights. As a sales manager he was the link between customers and his sales team, who together strove for operational excellence. He managed and negotiated contracts and ensured quality assurance, taking personal ownership of tough decisions made. In the motor industry, he managed customer requests and seamlessly executed decisions that resulted in repeat business. As a regional operations manager, he successfully cross sold products and services, and was able to manage membership bases and build solid client relationships.
He holds a Diploma in Leadership and Operations Management, a certificate in Leadership and Customer Care, and an Advanced Certificate in Taxation. He looks forward to building a strong relationship with all member companies in Printing SA, improving member enrolments, selling training and consulting services, and ensuring the viability and sustainability of the Chamber.
Events
Northern Chamber’s CEO lunch; Northern Chamber annual golf day; and KZN annual golf day.
Training courses
Adobe InDesign Essentials, registration closes 23 September 2022. Learn more and register.
Carton die cutting and creasing operating skills programme, registration closes 14 October 2022. Learn more and register.
Printing SA’s 2022 Training Course Prospectus is available on its website. The prospectus covers the training courses they are hosting next year and will prove invaluable when planning staff training or self-improvement. Download here.
PRINTING SA
+27 11 287 1160
info@printingsa.org
http://www.printingsa.org
