A cultural mindset is central to creating a sustainable business . That is the philosophy of OIM Consulting , a South Africa headquartered firm which works predominantly with manufacturing and mining organisations to provide consultancy and training to middle management . Here , Arjen de Bruin , MD , OIM Consulting , talks us through his own management philosophy , company history and why the business is committed to socio-economic development .

THE POTENTIAL PIPELINE FOR US IN 2022 MEANS

WE WILL DOUBLE AGAIN AS A COMPANY .

IM CONSULTING IS a South

Africa based company which provides an integrated approach to business improvement in the key areas of organisational performance , people management and operational optimisation .

While the company works across multiple sectors , key areas of focus are mining and manufacturing , with the team of 50 consultants aiming to help clients achieve sustainable success through the development of people and culture ; and by enhancing core competencies .

Intelligent SME . tech spoke with Arjen de Bruin , MD , OIM Consulting , to find out more about the organisation and how it has navigated the challenges of the last two years .

Tell us a bit more about your business and how it started .

It started in 1985 from a cultural diversity programme point of view . At that time , in South Africa , there was major political upheaval . Our founder , Professor Robert Tusenius , was part of the Dutch resistance and moved to South Africa .

He began looking at diversity and political issues and asked , ‘ What ’ s the commonality

among us ? What cultural fits do we have ? What makes it work ?’.

He started building development programmes for political , economic and student leaders from different cultural backgrounds . Then , businesses started saying they also needed these programmes to create a new culture .

So , that ’ s how we started . Then in 2010 , there was another radical change where we integrated the culture programme into the efficiency . One of our mantras is you can ’ t have sustainability in efficiencies if you don ’ t change current mindsets .

When we work with companies , we look at how efficiently they operate , leadership capability and how we can change the culture to make them more sustainable and prosperous .

How has the business grown and how have you ensured that growth ?

We ’ ve had a massive surge this last year . We had about 16 consultants , but this year , we ’ ve grown to about 50 so have more than doubled our size . One of the major reasons for our growth is because the mining industry ’ s commodity price boom has really benefited us as a company .

44 intelligent

. tech

Intelligent SME . tech