SAIMC


SAIMC: From the President's desk

February 2016 SAIMC

Exciting times

To me, changing times also spell exciting times. A month ago, I made significant changes to my personal and professional life. These changes brought me to the SAIMC’s leadership desk during what can only be described as truly exciting times. At SAIMC we believe that, although change for the sake of change is unwise, change is also necessary and important to ensure a healthy and vibrant organisation.

Education and training remaining our priority

Towards the end of the 2015 calendar year, the SAIMC council held its last monthly meeting for the year. Together with other delegates, it discussed how best to optimise and protect our current business portfolios, and how to manage the exciting growth prospects available to us. Given the current economic turmoil and recent developments (e.g. #Feesmustfall campaign) in the education landscape, education and training remains one of our main focus areas. SAIMC vows further to strengthen its collaboration with educational institutions. Facilitating CPD accreditations and providing training and development expertise across multiple fields remain part of our agenda.

Maintaining focus

Under the leadership of Vinesh Maharaj, the SAIMC embarked on a journey to get C&I engineering recognised as the tenth official engineering discipline by ECSA. The council has reinforced this initiative as one of our top priorities. To ensure accelerated progress in this regard, strategic engagements with various stakeholders have been identified. As the wise man has once said, “An activist is not the man who says the river is dirty, but the man who cleans it”.

Strengthening our relationships with key stakeholders

To enable our growth aspirations, it is essential that we continue to strengthen our relationships with all of our key stakeholders. We will strive to be less internally focused and far more attentive to our patrons, our business partners and the governments of the countries in which we operate. Of course, our members remain our primary stakeholders and remain the core drivers of our value proposition.

This also means that we will continue to differentiate and prioritise our initiatives based on the needs of our stakeholders, their growth potential, and long-term strategic positioning. This is what we are about, serving the needs of those who contribute positively to our local industry and the economic development of South Africa.

Oratile Sematle.
Oratile Sematle.

Lastly, a milestone year to build on

It is hard to believe that we are into the second month of 2016. This past year we sharpened our focus on driving short-term deliverables, as well as our longer term strategic ambitions. Most notably, we took significant strides forward to progress our involvement with the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) specification development and management. From a long term perspective, this further strengthened our ambitions of being the catalyst among industry, government and education. I want to thank council for the time, energy and commitment they have invested in making 2015 a milestone year in SAIMC history. It has certainly been an eventful time, punctuated by many highlights we can all be very proud of.

Yours sincerely,

Oratile Sematle, President – 2016



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