Micor moves into new stable

31 Mar 2000 - by Staff reporter

Three companies
link up

THERE WILL be new muscle in the SA logistics fold in the next millennium as the just-listed DNA Supply Chain Investments fires up its newly-formed operation.
This new name is the result of the November merger of SMG Management Services and Sensormatic into the DNA stable, and its December/January absorption of the supply chain management services interests of the previously-listed company Micor.
SMG - founded three years ago by Steve Conradie and Peter Baker (the two men who established the courier industry in SA with the XPS and Fastlane companies) - offers supply chain solutions to its customer base. This by installing its own staff at customers' premises and optimising their logistics and inventories. The company is expected to make R8-million attributable profit this year.
Sensormatic, meantime, focuses on retail inventory risk management, setting up in-store security processes. It is licensed by the world's largest such operation - Sensormatic of the US.
Both these companies are leaders in their field in SA, according to Mark Kaplan, formerly m.d. of Micor, and now joint chief executive of DNA with Conradie.
The three-company link-up, he added, is intended to be a main contestant in the new logistics field - that of 4th party logistics operator.
This, Kaplan told FTW, is basically a supply chain integrator. Third-party operators in the freight industry currently tend to focus on only a limited section of
the overall logistics chain, he said.
But in this new evolutionary sector, the supply chain manager has to design and operate an overall solution for the entire logistics procedure of a company - but with no necessary direct physical involvement in any of the links along the chain.
At Micor, said Kaplan, we went through a whole restructuring a year ago, based on this new vision of the supply chain services industry. Solutions and partnerships with customers.
We felt that there was a huge opportunity there, if we could bring intellectual capital and sophisticated technology to the party - but without the hindrance of capital assets.
During this restructuring, Micor disposed of over 70% of its operations.
In this radical surgery - because we only had a year-or-two to assume this new identity - we got rid of all the trucks and warehouses, for example, said Kaplan. But we felt that the opportunity was so big, and that anybody who was in there first would reap the fruits of the venture.
But we also needed to sign other like-minded people, and form a group.
The result of this was a year of discussion and planning, Kaplan added, and the birth of the new DNA Supply Chain Investments.
It was listed in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) services sector on December 13.