Alec Botes is very happy about the impact that the Imperial College team has had on Mervyn Gers, where he sees definite growth and improvement compared to several months ago. “Both our production and management teams are excited about upcoming developments”, he explains. “The Imperial College student engagement coincided well with our business transformation needs”.

As Alec points out, the implementation of change “needs to be carefully approached” as businesses such as Mervyn Gers, that are complex and heavily reliant on manual processes, require a staged, and human-centred approach in order to be sustainable.

Significant progress has been made in terms of the human resources and payroll, including the optimization of the payment cycle, improved communication and more explicit appreciation of team members. There has also been progress in terms of team morale and culture, resulting in an improved workplace culture and enhanced communication.

In the next period, Alex will focus on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software and management systems, which are expected to drastically improve decision readiness, as well as real-time production tracking.

Alec is grateful for the Imperial team and holds everyone in high regard for their skills sets and contribution. “We really appreciated how the Imperial team prioritized certain focus areas rather than treating all the aspects of our briefing equally”, he says. “The intervention produced lasting value for Mervyn Gers relevant for current changes underway and our future development. I hope that we will interact again in the future”.