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Pam Du Plessis, Managing Director, Invincible Valves
Invincible Valves is a supplier of quality valves and ancillary equipment, working with customers worldwide. It was founded in 1982 and has supplied valves and equipment to mining, chemical and energy industry clients, as well as various forms of agricultural and environmentalist concerns. spoke to the managing director, Pam Du Plessis, about Invincible Valve’s position in the market.
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he African industrial valves market is large and growing, expected to reach more than $4 billion by 2021 and encompassing factories and producers across the continent. The industry feeds the large and growing oil and gas industries, particularly in Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria, and looks set to expand further as these economies diversify into other sectors. Major international companies including Flowserve, Pentair Ltd., Emerson Process Management
and the Weir Group operate in Africa as well, but local companies like Invincible Valves are beginning to develop as a viable alternative for industrial customers with the advantage of local knowledge and reduced shipping fees on its products.
A challenging era
Recent falls in the prices of commodities like oil and metals worldwide have been challenging for the industry. The oil price fall in particular has hammered economies like Nigeria’s where many of the valve industry’s biggest
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customers operate, and companies like Invincible Valves have had to branch out to new areas and industries to meet the shortfall in demand. Du Plessis explains: “We are entering into the fisheries markets, for example, and continue to run a reconditioning unit in our factory, so we can offer other services too, which also helps to save the customer’s costs. “It’s all part of our in-house vision. For example, we can rubber line to unique specifications,
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“local companies like Invincible Valves are beginning to develop as a viable alternative for industrial customers with the advantage of local knowledge and reduced shipping fees on its products.
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and can recondition valves. We do general repairs on all valves we supply and only change out what needs to be replaced and recondition what can be salvages. We also have a technical facility, whereby we perform pressure testing on all our valves – new, reconditioned or rubber lined.”
This approach helps give Invincible Valves a major advantage. Due to its location being close to the businesses it serves, delivery times and costs are substantially reduced. In addition, being able to custommanufacture and design specialist valves and systems has given the company the flexibility
“Du Plessis is one of the few women in her field, but her tenure at Invincible Valves has been full of success stories, not least a number of prestigious awards.
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it needs to keep clients on board, and has allowed it to establish a reputation as a go-to company for custom products. While its core business model is simple and selfexplanatory, Invincible Valves goes above and beyond in the manufacture and distribution of high-quality industrial valves and fixtures. The business has a strong emphasis on building long term relationships with its customers and pursuing innovation and development over simple reselling. Despite both internal and governmental efforts to address the divide, women remain underrepresented in many African industries, including South African ones. Du Plessis is one of the few women in her field, but her tenure at Invincible Valves has been full of success stories, not least a number of prestigious awards. “I won a global award for Enterprising Woman of the Year for how I run Invincible Valves and how it operates, in the ‘Over $5 million and up to $10 million’ category, which took into account how I run the business, how we developed as a company and how successful our operations were.” She’s also keen to see more women join her in what can be a strongly maledominated industry.
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“We also run an intern programme within our business, if they are admin orientated, they will be able to start work at reception at Invincible and work their way up from there. They usually only stay there for a maximum of two years, and I can then employ them if I have a vision for them going forward. We have an intern programme in
“I believe that mining in on the up in South Africa and over the next couple of years you are going to find that the petrochemical market should start picking up in as well, so there’s room to expand and consolidate on our expansion once that happens. our workshop developing young adults from the local technical high schools also giving them the opportunity to obtain experience and further their education within our programme.”
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The programme has produced a number of success stories, Du Plessis goes on to explain. “One of my administrators got started through it. Another one that was on reception is now a project coordinator, the last one that was on reception is now studying – she is doing accounting through UNISA. Currently we have 3 interns in the business on the programme and trust that they will run the full intern programme for the workshop and administration.”
representation in a number of countries. We are looking at the DRC, in fact we have already done a lot of business in the DRC and we are looking to put an agent into Zambia as well.” Du Plessis is hopeful about the future of African commodities. “In Africa, mining is recovering, for sure. I believe that mining is on the up in South Africa and over the next couple of years you are going to find that the petrochemical market should start picking up as well, so there’s room to expand and consolidate on our expansion that happens.” AV-DFC_01.pdfonce 1 07/06/2017 09:44:44
An international presence
Invincible Valves has been making inroads in countries outside its homeland in South Africa. Its supply chain already extends across the southern end of the continent, a product of the company’s decision to “shop local” wherever possible. Du Plessis outlined its current attempts to expand across borders. C
“We’re currently trying to open up markets in new regions, so we have representation in Ghana, we have representation in Zimbabwe, we have
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Invincible Valves (Pty) Ltd
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33 Shaft Rd Johannesburg, 1416 T: +27 (0)11 822 1777 / +27 (0)11 027 1831 F: +27 (0)86 632 6456 / +27 (0)11 822 3666 E: enquiries@invalve.co.za
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