AfriSam honoured its top suppliers at the 8th annual Suppliers’ Awards, an event which has become the highlight of the industry to those who provide an excellent service to the company throughout the year.

Suppliers play a critical role in AfriSam’s business and are seen more as strategic business partners in the company’s long-term growth plans than just providers of goods and services. The awards aim to thank and reward them for their superior performance, reliability and quality - principles which are also encouraged and practiced by AfriSam in efforts to remain the customer of choice for its suppliers. This year thirteen winners were acknowledged as suppliers to AfriSam’s different business units and regions according to specific categories and then rated against criterias considered critical to AfriSam’s business imperatives.

“Every supplier of AfriSam forms a critical part of the day-to-day operation of our business and is regarded by AfriSam as strategic business partners to ensure the future growth and success of our company.  We utilise the Suppliers Awards function to recognise those suppliers who have excelled in their service delivery to AfriSam”, says Calie Ehrke, Supply Chain Manager at AfriSam.

AfriSam has over 3 000 vendors and each one plays an important role in the successful running of the business. This makes the competition tougher every year as suppliers strive to enhance their product and service delivery to AfriSam. “We consider a range of criteria that vary from total spend to B-BBEE status, from safety records to quality of service or product, from contribution to our brand to pricing policies and future market trends, to mention just a few,” adds Ehrke. Amongst those honoured at this year’s prestigious ceremony included Linde Materials Handling (Pty) Ltd for most improved key supplier of the year, with Insimbi Alloys Suppliers (Pty) Ltd taking the much coveted key supplier of the year award.  BEE Supplier of the year award went to Saflog Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd, and IIca Trading (Pty) Ltd took the SME/QSE Supplier of the year crown.

Cement transporters, Klipstone Transport (Pty) Ltd, dominated the Transporter category by receiving a special award for improving their BEE status by 51% over the last year. They also took home the cement branded transporter of the year award. Other winners in the transporter category for branded cement fleets included Long Distance Dedicated Contracts (Swaziland) for the safety award, Unitrans Freight (Pty) Ltd for corporate identity, and Cargo Carriers (Bloemfontein) for service delivery. Third-party transporter of the year was awarded to Interfreight Vervoer, with Patrick John Borman taking the readymix transporter of the year. AfriSam internal teams were also recognised for their hard work, with the Gauteng Procurement Team taking the best improvement award, and the Accounts Payable team winning the award for above average performance within AfriSam.

Congratulations to all the nominees and especially the winners in the various categories. This is just another example of AfriSam’s drive towards longer term stakeholder relationships and partnerships to grow the industry.