Content about Alan Swaby

The expression ‘chicken feed’ normally implies something cheap and insignificant, but this is far from the truth when half a million chickens are involved, as Abdul Salam Akate tells Alan Swaby.

Mining operations usually provide much needed employment in developing countries but these jobs have a finite life. As Alan Swaby learns, a longer point of view is what’s really called for.

There’s nothing new in the bigger mining companies, operating in third world or developing countries, having social responsibility policies. But the question is not what to do while the mine is in operation but rather how to put in place a sustainable structure that can still function even after the life of the mine is over.

Botswana has transformed itself from a sleepy African country to a vibrant democratic economy and as Alan Swaby learns, its national airline is trying to emulate the country’s progress.

It’s an understandable aspiration that developing countries want to be represented on the larger international stage through their own national airline carrier. Understandable, but fraught with danger—at least of the economical kind—as many African countries have discovered to their cost.

Keeping a brand popular for 100 years when the content is essentially the same year on year, and where there is no shortage of competitors, requires a level of commitment way beyond what is normally found, as Alan Swaby discovers.

Despite living in a mercenary world, there are often individual acts of altruism that take us by surprise and remind us that not everyone is fixated on self-aggrandizement. When these voluntary acts involve a whole city, that’s something special. And when it happens year after year… well, you get the picture.

South African businesses are surprisingly well served with their computer needs and are often in the vanguard of what is new, as Alan Swaby learns.

When Y2K was looming down on businesses at the end of the century, no one was really sure if the whole house of cards would crumble or not. JJ Milner, founder and head of South Africa’s largest Microsoft hosting provider, felt that it wouldn’t; but he understood that his many clients preferred something more concrete to go on than just his gut instinct.

Against the backdrop of a very public revolution in Egypt, Procter & Gamble is quietly continuing to pursue its ongoing commitment to investment and growth, as Alan Swaby discovers.

Even if ‘Business management during periods of revolution’actually existed as a module in MBA programmes, it’s unlikely that many would ever have to put it into practice. Yet this is the very real situation that managers at Procter & Gamble (P&G) have had to face during the Egyptian chapter of the ongoing Arab Spring.

A restructure in 2008 has transformed the fortunes and profile of one South African organisation completely, as Alan Swaby reports.

The name is the same. Many of the business sectors and activities are the same. But the profile and vision of Imperial Holdings has undoubtedly changed from what it was five years ago.

Alan Swaby talks to a South African mining software company that is resisting being pigeon-holed and, in the process, carving out a successful path for itself.

Is it a mining-savvy IT company or an IT-savvy mining company? At one time it might have been the first; but these days, MineRP is very much a rounded supplier of mining solutions and actually wants to get much rounder. 

The northern regions of Canada are again experiencing a mining boom and behind every mining operator there has to be solid support, as Alan Swaby discovers from the Gibeault family.

For a case study on man’s ability to adapt and prosper; look no further than Ron Gibeault and his family. Early in his career, Ron decided that a new start in the northernmost reaches of Canada was what he and his new bride needed. 

Alan Swaby takes a look at an industrial brand that is almost as well known in the home as it is in the factory.

You know you are doing something right as a company when your brand name turns into a verb. Just as ‘to Google’ is synonymous in everyday speech with the act of searching for something on the internet, so too in some European dictionaries there is the verb ‘to Kärcher’—signifying cleaning down surfaces by means of pressurised water. 

There’s a mining boom in Namibia that is placing extra demands on electricity supply—necessitating a complete restructuring of the industry, as Alan Swaby learns.

Let a private company sell below cost for any length of time and it will inevitably end up staring down the barrel of disaster. But when the seller is a public body, it’s much easier to fudge the true situation and avoid a similar fate.

Against a background of accounts that Iran is oil-rich but petrol-poor, Alan Swaby looks at Tanzania, which is gas-rich and electricity-poor.

It’s all very well wanting to be green with a sustainable energy policy; but if nature doesn’t play ball, then as the Scottish poet Robert Burns tells us: the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.