OVERHEAD CRANES
Success into Africa more likely with obstacles factored in From a marketing perspective, Africa is often viewed as an entity: a cohesive whole to be targeted with a single, generalised approach. The reality is different. Africa is the world’s second-biggest continent after Asia, containing 48 countries and six island nations. Spanning both hemispheres, its people speak an estimated one thousand languages with a further one thousand dialects. Climate and topography range from desert to equatorial rainforest, while economies include failed states as well as success stories similar to those in the developed world. It follows that any marketing approach would need to include segmentation by language, economic model, level of industrialisation, GDP per head of population and other key variables. One company notably successful throughout Africa south of the Sahara is crane and hoist manufacturer Condra. Headquartered in South Africa, the company is recognised as the leader in high-lift installations across the continent’s west, central and southern regions. Managing director Marc Kleiner predicts that African sales for his company’s 30
Lifting Africa - Jul/Aug 2021
products will continue in parallel with cyclical, Chinese-driven demand for minerals and other commodities. However, he points out that the risk facing exporters into Africa is the temptation to nationalise. “There is an understandable desire for any government to assert dominance over foreignowned interests, especially a productive mine. But government ownership of assets can result in inefficiencies, and they risk moral hazard. Generally, I would say that any company investigating an African country as a potential market should factor into that consideration the likelihood of nationalisation.” Kleiner added that he would like to see improved access to remote mines. He pointed to a recent crane order from Cameroon, where the road giving access cannot be negotiated by abnormal-load vehicles.
The only way to deliver this crane will be to design it for containerisation, splicing girders almost 30 metres in length for bolting together on-site at the mine. “It’s quite common for us to do this, but it does increase the price,” he observed. In South Africa, Condra’s two factories are busy with local contracts as well as orders from beyond the country’s borders. Eight coil-handling cranes for a new vehicle plant are under manufacture, together with a ninth and tenth for an automotive rubber factory. Asked what Africa could do better within its lifting equipment industry, Kleiner answered: “Africa could do better by taking more pride in the fact that it is Africa and not Europe. By this I mean that customers requesting the latest electronic refinements in
