Enhancing supply chain collaboration among mining companies to drive national manufacturing growth in South Africa

Abstract

The study explored how supply chain collaboration among mining sector companies can be enhanced to drive national manufacturing growth. The mining sector is one of the sectors contributing significantly to South Africa’s economy. At the same time, the sector has the potential and opportunity to actively foster and develop the country’s local manufacturing. However, there is a lack of effective collaboration between mining companies in South Africa, negatively impacting their potential to provide local businesses with economic advantages. This reflects the Mining Charter’s failure to achieve the desired outcome of ensuring inclusive business deals, where low-income and local suppliers are not marginalised. At the same time, there is an enhanced value chain governance. Interpretivism beliefs and philosophical assumptions guided the research methodological choice for this study. The qualitative research methodological approach was applied, and purposive sampling was used. The sample included 15 participants, including procurement specialists, regulatory agencies, and policymakers. Interviews were used to collect data, and the data was analysed using thematic analysis. Significant findings from the research highlights the potential and challenges of intercompany collaboration within the mining sector in South Arica to drive manufacturing at a national level The research revealed that while mining companies do recognise the benefits of collaboration, which vary from enhanced supply chains, operational cost reduction, local supplier development, there is still a high observation of the competitive attitude amongst the industry, infrastructure limitations and regulatory misallignment that hinder effective collaboration.