Midas Group Industry Awards
Guidelines for Sustainable Success in a Rapidly Changing Environment
His valiant efforts make for riveting
reading in his book “In the Driving Seat
– Lessons in Leadership”. With this
experience, Pretorius is well qualified
to comment on change that he defines
as frequent, dramatic, and fast. He
quotes a Latin proverb; “the future
struggles against being mastered”.
When dealing with this scenario, you
can’t afford to be passive. He cites two
business visionaries; Whitey Basson of
Shoprite Holdings, and Chris van der
Merwe of Curro, who used tough times
as defining moments to propel their
companies into the future. Pretorius’
guidelines are:
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Retain a Positive Vision – you
cannot afford to be afraid of the
future
Embrace Change – it is the price
of survival
Embrace Transformation – it is
not a compliance issue, it is the
right thing to do
Conduct Business with the Right
Values – and your behaviour must
be in line with these principles –
your business dealings must be
ethical, and you must eschew
commercial pragmatism, i.e.
bribes
Be Socially Responsible – don’t
ignore the challenges, accept coresponsibility, and be aware that
doing good is good business
Be the Best in Whatever You
Do – Best in Strategy, Best in
Positioning, Best in Innovation,
Best in Creativity, Best in
Development of Human Capital,
Best in Financial Management,
Best in Marketing, Best in
Information Technology, Best
in Customer Value, Best in
Customer Satisfaction, Best in
Customer Retention, Best in
Leadership
And finally, Brand Pretorius talks about
the concept of servant leadership.
As he says, “don’t just engage the
mind, touch the heart”. He says that
you must earn the commitment of the
people, and lead by example. He warns
that people perpetuate the tyranny of
the boss, and that if you manage; all
you get is reluctant compliance. Rather
lead – with integrity and humility.
It is not about position, or power, or
authority. It is about influence, and
influence has to be earned. The servant
leader has to have the capacity to care,
and the willingness to serve. And the
bottom line is that leadership is the
most potent competitive advantage
you can have.
➲ The evening ended with the much anticipated announcements of the awards. This year the scoring was by brand, rather than company,
with the criteria being Product Development; Operations & Logistics; Inventory Management; Availability; Administration; Brand Building;
Marketing and Demand Creation; Sales; BBBEE; Disciplined Market Practices; and Conformance to CPA. The award winners were:
NAPA Crystal Award: Hella
NAPA Emerald Award: Schaeffler South Africa
Midas Group Service Provider: Value Clearing and Forwarding
Midas Group International Supplier: Homer Enterprise Company
P.I.A. Crystal Award: TopClass Automotive
P.I.A. Emerald Award: G.U.D. Holdings
See more pics at www.abrbuzz.co.za
| words in action
67
september 2014
Midas Group Industry Awards
Brand Pretorius knows all about the
tough lessons to be learnt in business.
After a halcyonic career of 22 years at
Toyota, where everything kept going
right, Pretorius moved to the McCarthy
Group, only to find that what he
thought was a blue chip company was
in reality a “slap chip” company, and
he had to save a technically insolvent
company. Even more challenging was
the fact that 10 000 employees and
1 100 retail outlets were relying on him
to pull them out of the mire.