Nexus Group is Namibia’s leading building and civil construction group with an annual turnover in excess of N$500 million and with over 700 employees. With a proven capability to deliver a range of projects across an entirety of scales and formats to a multitude of clients in a diverse selection of markets, there is little doubt why they are such big news.
Operating in sectors that include infrastructure, road and earthworks, property and concessions, mining services, interior fit out and the construction and building sector, there are few areas that Nexus Group doesn’t feature in. Clients include governmental parastatals and local authorities, major mining houses, leaders of industry, large corporate groups, financial institutions and property developers.
One of the reasons for the company’s success and diverse offering is their strength when it comes to tendering, which is definitely enhanced by their membership within the Namibian Construction Industry Federation, who act as the national voice of Namibia’s construction industry and who have been playing a major role in contributing to the economic prosperity of the nation for over 60 years. All countries rely heavily on their construction entities as it’s these businesses that lay the roads everyone drives on, build the homes that people live in and the buildings they work in.
As a member of CIF, Nexus is in very good company. Included in the group are multi-national building and civil contractors, though the bulk consists of smaller contractors and SME’s. Members also include the retail and wholesale building material trade, along with many other manufacturers and suppliers of construction materials and equipment that serve the sector. It also represents specialist trades such as electricians, joiners, plumbers, painters and steelworkers, among others. Furthermore, as CIF is an autonomous, non-governmental and apolitical organisation, an Executive Committee comprised of volunteer members elected at the Federation’s annual general meeting governs the group and the committee is elected from a variety of construction-related sectors, thereby enabling the Federation to speak authoritatively on behalf of all its members.
BACK TO NEXUS
While their membership with several over-seeing organisations may be fortuitous, Nexus has developed quite the footing of their own. Already strongly active in all 14 regions of Namibia, they also have a strategic intention to cross the border into sub-Sahara Africa including South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
THE NEXUS GROUP
The Nexus Group comprises of three business units that operate across their geographical areas of operation. Although they are registered as individual operating companies geared for further expansion, these business units currently function as divisions in Namibia.
Their Civil Division has capabilities spanning the spectrum of national infrastructure including municipal infrastructure such as environmental rehabilitation, servicing of infrastructure, water storage reservoirs, municipal roads and stormwater drainage. Transport infrastructure initiatives including roads, bridges, gravel roads, airport terminals, aprons and runways, labour based projects and railways are also a speciality.
The Building Division covers the full range of conventional construction, providing infrastructure including hospitals, airports, retail and development of parking lots, residential, office accommodation, educational institutions, stadia, hotels and leisure and industrial facilities. They also undertake select residential developments for major institutions and industrial clients as well as low cost and affordable housing for the public sector.
Plant and Equipment is continually invested in to maintain the high level of service and support to their stakeholders and keep up with the continuous demand for excellence. Either by regularly maintaining or upgrading their fleet, they are able to ensure that they are always in the best position to deliver.
Organic growth has played a significant part in the expansion of Nexus. In Namibia, they operate in all construction related industries including roads and earthworks, property and concessions, mining services as well as the construction and building sectors. They even carry out operations that cover shop fittings, refurbishments and construction. Having dominated the Namibian market in such a sterling and all-encompassing fashion, they now seek to expand further into Africa to not only offer services already established but also to put themselves in a position to learn new things and develop new products and ranges of expertise. This falls in line with their overall vision, which is to become a flagship in the construction industry in Namibia, while penetrating and creating a niche in international markets.
Nexus Group is a dedicated leader in providing excellent, value added construction services to their customers with the aim of exceeding customer expectations, while establishing a genuine, lasting and superb customer experience. To achieve this, the company has in place a number of objectives that govern their actions and decisions on a day-to-day basis. They are all equally important and include; focussing on continuous and sustainable top and bottom line growth, creating a desirable place to work, being a natural home for creativity and enthusiasm and offering a safe working environment to strengthen human capital through training and development for the growth of the organisation so as to benefit shareholders and other stakeholders.
For Nexus, their 700 employees are the driving force behind the business and the source of all their capabilities and achievements. Their country-wide presence and expansion beyond their borders would be impossible if not for these highly skilled individuals and so the company has the strategy of focusing on each staff member as an individual. Instead of marginalising all the employees to merely a number on a spreadsheet, the company addresses each staff member’s needs and personal ambitions within the company and look to make these things a reality. The general consensus within Nexus is that you cannot expect fantastic work from people who don’t believe they have fantastic opportunities ahead.
BEE PARTICIPATION
As a company they are motivated by the potential to be harnessed through celebrating diversity and incorporating empowerment into our business culture. They have surpassed the implementation of the Black Economic Empowerment policy in Namibia and in empowering the previously disadvantaged groups and communities. This policy presents an effective solution to addressing historic economic and social inequities, and to this end they support the BEE Policy and practically participate in its implementation. A BEE group has 30% shareholding in the company and are active members of the management cadre of the group.
MANAGEMENT
The company employs a flat and hands-on management structure, which is led by a managing director together with his management. Both are based at the head office Outjo with the administration staff varying from finance, purchasing, human resources, payroll as well as quantity surveying and tendering. The head office employees 20 staff members altogether.
Each of the two construction divisions are led by a General Maager, ie. Jan Hendrick Engelbrecht (Building) and Johan Smit (Civil) who oprate from the company’s satellite office in Ongwediva, while the plant hire division is operating from he Oluno workshop is managed by paul Schoonbee. The remainder of the team consists of highly skilled technicians, site agents, foremen and artisans who are operating from various sites across the country.
In conclusion, Nexus Group is not a business purely focussed on the bottom line, but one dedicated to the improvement of the lives of everyone associated with them. Their values represent the finest understanding of what it takes to be a brilliant company and their focus on teamwork to achieve common objectives, despite contrasting opinions, values or lifestyles is exemplar. Their integrity is directly linked to the inherent expected honesty and truthfulness of everyone’s action and let’s not forget excellence. This is a company that seeks to deliver and exceed what they promise.
