Liberty sharpens its focus on Africa as it prepares for next growth phase

Liberty has announced a number of organisational changes that will enable the group to fast-track the implementation of its growth aspirations into Africa and other chosen markets. Liberty intends to continue its business line and geographic diversification path by focusing on its core capabilities.

Liberty Group CE Thabo Dloti has highlighted the group’s areas of focus over the next five years as well as a revised business model that supports Liberty’s shift towards becoming a more customer-led organisation.

More customer-led business focus

Under the revised operating model, the current business mono-lines will be integrated into three core customer facing business clusters, focused on understanding and fulfilling the needs of their respective market segments. The reorganisation will allow each business to benefit from the power of a bigger group and leverage the core capabilities developed over the past few years.

Liberty has established the Individual Arrangements unit, which will focus on defined individual customer markets in South Africa and Nigeria. This unit will be led by John Maxwell, a Liberty Executive previously responsible for the Direct Financial Services business unit and the integrated Programme Management Office. This unit is to develop a holistic client proposition that will enable Liberty to continue its dominance in this market segment.

A Group Arrangements unit will focus on all corporate, institutional and group customer markets in South Africa and the rest of Africa. The unit will encompass Corporate, Health and Africa businesses and is expected to spearhead Liberty’s growth into new markets through organic and non-organic strategies. An external candidate has been identified to lead the unit, with further details to be announced in due course.

Liberty’s Asset Management unit, STANLIB, will continue focusing on institutional, wholesale retail and high net worth individual clients. STANLIB will also continue to expand and align its operations across the continent under the leadership of Seelan Gobalsamy.

Continued focus on expansion initiatives in Africa

The group will prioritise growth in fast growing and large markets in the rest of Africa such as Nigeria and Kenya where there are opportunities that complement Liberty’s core skills. Other growth markets on the continent have also been identified and future expansion plans will include geographies where Standard Bank has a presence.

Liberty Executive Mukesh Mittal will dedicate his focus on the group’s business acquisition initiatives across the continent, with the support of Samuel Ogbu, who continues to drive expansion in West Africa.

Creation of an enablement function

Liberty has identified the need to create group-wide enablement functions in order to reduce complexity and improve the speed at which the company responds to change and deploys resources into new opportunities. In order to expedite the implementation of the growth strategy and improve performance of the current business, key functions that are not part of customer delivery will be managed centrally to maximise economies of scale and leverage expertise across the organisation.

In addition to his role as Deputy CE, Steven Braudo, who was instrumental in championing the turn-around of the Retail SA business over the last five years, will assume responsibility for the enablement areas across the group, where his vast experience and operational management expertise will be further leveraged. Braudo will also manage the relationship with Standard Bank which remains a key imperative for Liberty’s growth strategy.

Commenting on the strategic rationale for the changes, Mr Dloti said:

“The reorganisation is vital to our drive for growth and sustainable earnings by becoming the trusted leader in insurance and investments in Africa and our chosen markets.

“The new structure sharpens our focus on our core businesses to, in time, reduce complexity and improve our agility while allowing our customer-focused units to benefit from increased scale and efficiencies. Importantly, the reconfigured customer facing units have the freedom to focus on a clearly differentiated customer value proposition within a framework that enables them to win and to grow.”

The changes will be effective from 1 January 2015.