A South African engineering firm has effectively doubled the proportion of its total revenue derived from African projects from 10% to 20% over the past year, and expects this figure to grow to 25%.

The strategy of adding value to infrastructure projects has stood SMEC South Africa in good stead in 2015, with the engineering consultancy recording a very successful year against the backdrop of a declining economic environment.

While all the major economic indicators were down in 2015, SMEC South Africa “managed to stabilise and actually grew a bit in terms of personnel,” comments CEO Kostas Rontiris. “This has been a great achievement, as most of our competitors have been retrenching at the moment.”

Rontiris describes the firm as “civil engineers who provide consultancy services to the engineering industry.”

The bulk of the company’s work is civil engineering related, which constitutes 85% to 90% of its turnover at present. The remainder consists of project management and small electrical and mechanical works.

Adding value

“Our ongoing success is testament to our strategic focus of adding value to infrastructure projects, instead of being highly selective in specific niche markets.

Hence we look to the bulk infrastructure market at all government levels. The result is that while we do not have many big projects, we have a lot of small to medium sized ones, which gives us the necessary turnover.

“We go for the small projects as well, which means that we compete at all levels. We do not differentiate, and I think that has been our saving grace in the current economic environment,” Rontiris points out.

This flexibility has also allowed SMEC South Africa to adapt to a changing consulting engineering industry.

In terms of current major projects being undertaken, a feather in the cap for SMEC South Africa is its involvement with the feasibility study of the expansion of the Gautrain network, in a consortium including DLA Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr and Deloitte (FS). “This is ongoing, and should be completed early next year,” Rontiris concludes.