Casidra’s Newfound Strategy Points to a More Relevant Future

Casidra’s Newfound Strategy Points to a More Relevant Future

The Board of Directors recently appointed Stuart Symington as the new Chief Executive Officer at Casidra. His skills make him ideally suited to the current challenges facing South Africa, where strategic insight, diplomacy, and the ability to execute successfully will be highly prized by the company. Finding innovative solutions to tough challenges underpins everything Stuart does. So it is for good reason that the Board and the management team look forward to his leadership at the helm of the company.

At the start of the financial year, Casidra’s Board and Management held a strategic session with the aim of lifting its game and reflecting on what it can improve to stay relevant. The company’s leadership had to think out of the box to determine how it could keep the Casidran wheels rolling in what amount to a very challenging time in its history. It is now apparent that our current business model will not be sustainable under the new Covidian order – so our planning to reinvent ourselves began in earnest. There is nothing like a crisis to bring about much-needed change.

 Casidra needs to fast adapt its approach to its primary mandate – that of ‘implementing key projects to advance the quality of life of resource poor people in rural parts of the Western Cape’.

Casidra will need to champion the implementation of a broader range of projects to stay relevant and financially sound. This will include, in particular, stimulating economic development and job creation, and addressing land reform initiatives. 

Casidra’s renewed focus revolves around two priorities. Firstly, it is very clear that the organization needs to improve its performance as an implementer of projects in the Western Cape. There is a lot we can do to lift our game, which we will start concentrating on immediately.  

The second priority is to target our efforts more in line with our mandate, which is to involve ourselves in agricultural development and economic development in the rural (non-metro) space in the Western Cape. Since Casidra is a Schedule 3D business-aligned, State-Owned Enterprise, we need to optimise on this birth right and inject a lot more commercial acumen into our business dealings with our principals and beneficiaries.

We will not be able to achieve all of this alone. We strongly believe in building key strategic relationships most importantly with our main implementation partner, the Western Cape Department of Agriculture. We also want to extend our efforts in building Public-Private Partnerships in order to deliver rapid and effective services to the beneficiaries.

In summary, Casidra’s three strategic goals are: (i) supporting the Western Cape Government in nurturing agricultural development and economic development in the rural space; (ii) facilitating the implementation of world class projects, focusing strongly on smallholder farmers; and (iii) managing Casidra’s resources efficiently and effectively to achieve an unqualified financial audit every year.

Our newfound strategic objectives aim to: 

  1. Secure sustainable funding for the future of the business;
  2. Provide world class service delivery to all of our stakeholders;
  3. Implement integrated IT systems to improve organisational performance;
  4. Install a winning culture throughout the organisation;
  5. Ensure that equity prevails in all its forms inside the organisation; and
  6. Exercise regular and impactful stakeholder engagements.

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