The Democratic Republic of Congo is a big country and meeting its cement needs is a challenge for a company with big ambitions.
“We celebrated our 130TH anniversary in April this year,” says Iqbal Omar, Managing Director of PPC Barnet DRC. “Over the years that company has expanded, firstly in South Africa, where we’re the number one player, then growing in Austral Africa Countries, where we have strong foot print and leading position, with natural growth on the borders of Southern Africa, in Ethiopia and Rwanda.”
PPC is among the top listed companies in SA stock market, but PPC Barnet DRC is the only branch of the company in a French-speaking environment, after starting operations in the country in 2017. Starting as a green field site, the company has built itself up from scratch into a state-of-the-art facility with a 1.2-million-ton capacity, built by the Chinese company, Sinoma.
“I joined the company in 2020 to become the head of these operations at the beginning of Covid,” Omar says. “One of my roles was to restructure our debt, and to bring back the profitability through financial restructuring and a new business model for business growth (logistics, digital; retail etc).”
Serving the Whole of the DRC
Congo is a large country, covering 2.345 million square kilometres occupied by a population of more than 120 million people.
“Our country lacks infrastructure, but not skilled human capital,” Omar says. “The country is young, expecting a brighter future, like many African countries. We are mineral rich. In the central southern part of the country, close to Angola, there are diamond mines. Then in the north, you have the disputed territory between Rwanda and Uganda. Then there is the western part of the country, following the Congo River. It is a rich land.”
On top of that, PPC Barnet DRC is developing local resources and local talent. The company employs 189 people with an average age between 35 and 40 years old. The staff is made up of 24% women, most of them in the plant in charge of production, mechanical workshops and quality control.
While the country is rich in people, metals, and minerals, it lacks infrastructure. Reaching customers around the country is a challenge, and PPC Barnet DRC is only able to produce cement thanks to its unique location in the country.
“To produce cement the first thing you need is limestone, the second thing you need is a stable electric power supply to run your machines, and the third thing you need is a fossil fuel,” explains Omar. “I know that is not considered ideal in this day and age, but the plant needs to run on coal. You can run on gas, but we do not have that here. We do not have natural coal resources, so we have to import, which means need to be close to a port.”
But while it is based in the ideal location for producing cement, distributing it is another matter entirely.
“It is complicated to supply the rest of the country because of the lack of infrastructure,” Omar tells us. “There is only one road, one way down, one way up, so the whole country travels through that road.”
To reach anywhere not directly connected to that road, PPC Barnet DRC adopts a multi-modal approach, sending products along the Congo River. Cement is loaded onto barges and transported for 25 days to go north, or 20 days to the south, where it travels by train to reach further south, taking 50 to 60 days in total.
“It is very important to our value proposition that we have a footprint everywhere in the country,” Omar insists. “We have been able to get away from the Kinshasa market, which was an easy market from plant to truck. We have taken our strategy into these regions and are investing heavily in that. We have a warehouse in the Northern province and a warehouse in Zongo. Where the capital city has small roads, we can deliver with tuk-tuks and small motorcycles.”
This service is unique in the DRC.
“Our delivery service is unique in that we will do last miles delivery, whether you are a contractor or a small home builder,” says Omar. “30% of our cement is delivered to its endpoint by us.”
A Cemented Reputation
As well as getting its products to where they need to be, PPC Barnet DRC is also dedicated to ensuring it provides the quality its customers need.
“Our cement is used by architects and contractors for large building projects, and they like PPC cement because it is very good in terms of the strength and how it can easily be mixed with other products for a smooth finish on plastering jobs,” says Omar.
That quality is backed up by exemplary customer service.
“We want to be everywhere where cement is demanded. We want to be at the last mile and on the shelf,” Omar tells us. “We want to be ready at every corner of the DRC and continue our expansion into different parts of the country.”
The company is planning to expand into up to four new locations around the country, while also launching a complete regeneration of its O2C (order to cash cycle) from order point to delivery point. This includes logistics deliveries localisation and shortening order processing times to from 3 days to 24/30 hours.
“The customer journey used to be a very long one, involving meeting the sales department in person, giving the order, and paying at the bank. The whole process would take a week. Through digitalisation we can reduce that to 30 hours,” Omar says. “What we cannot change is the road transfer time between Kinshasa and the plant, or the travel time for boats going north and south, due to river tides, seasonality and road infrastructure but this ordering system will reduce ordering time to 20 hours and improve a lot through digitalisation.”
Keep by connecting to its internal IT systems, PPC Barnet DRC has eliminated the need for customers to come into the office thanks to a comprehensive CRM and call centre.
“They can do everything through an app or a phone call,” Omar tells us excitedly.
At the same time, PPC Barnet is also increasing its offering to its own drivers, building better facilities for refreshment stops, and an improved queuing system that also updates customers on their delivery’s progress.
“We will continue our expansion, to cover more of the country with more warehouses while enhancing the customer journey to reduce the lead time,” says Omar.
Greener Concrete
On top of quality, service, and delivery, PPC Barnet also has plans to take care of the environment.
“We are reducing our fossil fuel usage by adding Biomass in our process and minimising plastic waste. Recently we have begun burning biomass to reduce coal. In the DRC, we as a multinational company have a responsibility to work on that because this country has one of the strongest biodiversities, while our rainforest captures a lot of CO2,” Omar points out. “We are part of this journey and we have taken a leapfrog ahead to be the first industry player to reduce our footprint in this way.”
Altogether, it shows PPC Barnet DRC is paving the way for a bright future in the DRC.
