Each of the following Business Challenge sessions is designed to focus on a specific problem area. Coached by professionals, participants will get the unique opportunity to gain years of experience in two days. 

… You've got the talent, but lack the skill and confidence that only comes with experience? This Challenge gives you the opportunity to act as the manager of your own business. You will develop a better understanding of the bigger picture, and how your decisions impact on the bottom line of your company. You will learn how to analyse and interpret management information (forecasts, sales reports, financial statements) and develop a feel for the longer-term impact of your decisions. You will develop a profound insight into the complex dynamics at play in the business environment - your competition, the markets, the industry and external factors. You will understand what the important issues are and how to focus your effort. Most important, you will gain confidence in making business decisions in high stress situations - dealing with inadequate information, time constraints and people dynamics. An experienced businessman and entrepreneur, Hoffman van Zyl, managing director of Enterprise Insight, will coach you through this challenge. 
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The easiest way to change people behaviour is to change the way that they are being measured. Eli Goldratt said "Show me how you measure me and I will show you how I perform". During this workout, you will learn how to leverage management information across the Supply Chain. Performance Management is about having the correct information in place to ensure that the correct decisions are made. You will learn how to achieve exponential improvement through better information flow design and utilisation. One of the key messages of Supply Chain Management is collaboration and integration. This will however, never be achieved without properly aligned performance measures. What are some of the characteristics of a properly structured performance management system?

• Drill down capability for root cause analysis

• Measures aligned across functional silos

• Balanced measures within each area 

Join a very practical workout - and learn how to better manage and enable performance in your supply chain. Louis Pieterse, Manager for Supply Chain Strategy from DNA Supply Chains, will facilitate you. 
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Do we need to have another warehouse? How do we decide on the best location? What would the potential impact be to open a new depot or close an existing one? As a member of the management team of your business, you will have to develop your supply chain strategy and design your logistics network accordingly, taking into account the realities of the broader economic environment, the market dynamics, the characteristics of your field or industry, your own company strengths and weaknesses and the actions of your competition (which off course is represented by the other player teams). You will have to decide on the number and size of the depots in your supply chain network. You will have to close or open depots where required, determined by centre-of-gravity analyses, and practically monitor the changes in stock holding and transport costs. Meanwhile you have to run the business, managing your supply chain towards business success: showing a healthy profit and gaining market share. Gerard de Villiers, Director at Khuthele Projects, will facilitate this session. 
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This challenge will focus on the art and science of buffer management. You will learn to deal with tough issues such as planning frequency, how to calculate lead time (or rather, how to practically apply the formulas you've learned…), how to calculate safety stock, long term vs. short term forecasting, how to apply the 80:20 principle in demand planning, how to decide about centralisation vs. decentralisation in demand planning and how to integrate inbound and outbound planning. You will be coached by a professional from industry, somebody who's been there, done that: Thinus Hermann, Group Logistics Planner: Clover. 
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Thinus Hermann is currently responsible for supply chain planning in the Clover Group as Group Manager: Supply Chain Planning. Thinus has achieved near wonders in improving supply chain efficiency in his company. During last year a record-breaking service level of 96.7% was achieved and all indications are that it is still on the increase. He did several study tours during these years, focusing on: 

• warehouse and distribution systems, to the UK, Ireland and USA.
• optimising infrastructure, to the UK and Finland. 
• benchmarking planning, to Spain and Finland

Louis Pieterse is the Manager responsible for Supply Chain Strategy at DNA Jumpoint. He started his career as an industrial engineer in the power generation and automotive industries. After a few years he joined one of the Big Five consulting firms where he assisted various companies, solving Supply Chain issues on a strategic level. He has worked at all levels of the Supply Chain from the operational level through Planning, to Strategy.

Hoffman van Zyl is a decision support analyst of 15 years standing, advising senior decision makers on strategy and policy-making. He studied engineering and also completed his Masters in Strategy. He held several management positions in a production and engineering environment and then founded Enterprise Insight, a company that for the past ten years had been focusing on helping management cope with complexity.

Gerard de Villiers specialises in transportation planning, solid waste management strategies, logistics and supply chain management. He also lectures at the University of Pretoria and Technikon Witwatersrand and acts as consulting editor for Logistics News. During his career he accumulated a wealth of experience with employers such as Transport Services (Transnet), Jordaan and Joubert Consulting Transportation Engineers (later called African Consulting Engineers), Viamax Logistics, LGA Logistics Consultants and BKS Engineering and Management. He also served three years as Director of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He is currently a Divisional Director at Khuthele Projects.