Leading South African multidisciplinary technical services business, Prommac, has been excelling in the petrochemical and heavy industry sectors since 2012 providing mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and welding services in execution of maintenance, shutdowns and turnarounds, as well as construction projects.
If this sounds like just another company, think again. For a business that has grown from a humble garage sized office with a few people to a corporate office with workshops and more than 3000 people at peak, this is anything but just another company.
Prommac has for a long while invested in technology and back in 2016 began the process of rolling out virtual animations and renders of execution method statements, doubling down further in 2017 into the deployment of advanced technology platforms aimed at scaling training rapidly. Since 2016, Prommac has been considered as a pioneer in technology in the construction sector and this has helped the company to upskill people quicker than ever, which has improved the company’s safety, productivity, efficiency and costs, resulting in exponential gains in delivering value for clients.
Prommac has become the local player with an international reputation, competing against some of the biggest players in the global market securing new contracts every year since Jason English adopted the company in 2012 at the age of just 34 years.
Former COO, Dany De Barros took over the reins from Jason English in 2018 at the young age of 38 allowing Jason to move on to become Chief Eco System Officer of Prommac’s parent group, CG Tech – an international technology services group, which provides strategic management and innovative solutions to its core underlying investments. What makes Prommac even more interesting is that its top management team has an average age in the mid 30’s, resulting in a young, dynamic team that is forward thinking and innovative in everything they do.
When looking for innovative ideas and technologies to improve efficiencies and client experiences, Prommac has been at the forefront, creating unique experiences for both its team and its clients. With the ability to leverage from the wider CG Tech group which today also owns an advanced tech related virtual reality startup in the United Kingdom called “The Virtulab”, Prommac is making even bigger strides than before in its innovation advancements
Building a culture where employees feel valued and rewarded has been one of the core focus areas of Prommac, with teams being given numerous opportunities for self-development and career growth. This philosophy has been key for Prommac to attract new young talent with the right attitude and now the emphasis is on retaining this culture, whilst continuing to build innovation into the DNA of the company.
Training has been a core focal point as well for Prommac, who introduced multiple learning experiences through the use of technology as a platform which helped turn its young team with very little experience, into extremely valuable assets in the field, with technical knowledge at the level of long term experienced industry leaders. This has been achieved through using online training technology combined with a suite of digital training videos. Previously, it would take a new recruit in their industry around four years to become a well-trained, systems knowledgeable, operationally compliant individual ready to take on site management duties. Today, that time period is shortened to less than two years within Prommac.
A large portion of the innovation focus has been around the use of drones, virtual reality, remote work collaboration and connectivity to IOT (Intelligence of Things). Prommac was one of the first drone services operators in South Africa. Also, the company boasts that they were using platforms such as Google Workspace as far back as 2016 and were already completely structured to work remotely when the COVID pandemic hit. The data that was collected was then converted into meaningful, useful data in the form of things like Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality experiences.
Jason English is part of Peter Diamandis Abundance 360 Singularity program, and is a member of YPO together with Dany De Barros, and have had the opportunity to travel to innovation centres in Silicon Valley, Europe, Asia, Las Vegas and Russia where they have witnessed first-hand the amazing technology being developed around the world. Prommac’s Chief Innovation Officer is also a product of MIT and collectively this has offered Prommac the ability to implement some of the world’s best technologies, aimed at ultimately improving efficiencies and scalability within Prommac.
Prommac has and continues to demonstrate its ambitions to be an innovation leader in South Africa. By bringing in innovations and technology across the business, it is differentiating itself from others in the country and certainly the industry. Prommac has positioned itself as a business with a reach into the technology sector, but without losing its reputation for technical excellence in project delivery.
Adding new technology to the Prommac portfolio, leveraging from the rest of the CG Tech Group, upskilling employees quickly, and ensuring the company culture reflects a preparedness for quick changes in business direction all comes as a result of Prommac’s commitment to an innovative culture.
The ability to be creative is not always the case in big engineering firms. Ongoing investment into innovative technology solutions that help drive a culture of improvement and excellence are not always the norm across the industry, and it is these characteristics that set Prommac apart. By becoming more efficient and therefore more valuable, Prommac’s clients are receiving more benefits than ever before. Some call them a construction company – we like to think of them as the Google of project management and as long as this direction continues, this will be a business to keep watching in the future.
