Precious and battery metals miner Sibanye-Stillwater has achieved second place in innovation consultancy Innocentrix’s 2021/22 South African Innovation League awards in the large organisations category.
Sibanye’s innovation strategy is focused primarily on creating a diverse and inclusive innovation environment in which it can harness the collective intelligence of the organisation in pursuit of solutions to deliver superior value to all stakeholders, the company says.
“Sibanye-Stillwater is a prime example of excellent innovation management with a focus on key enabling practices that will ensure they stay at the edge. It is an inspiring company that is building an innovation premium every day and a company that makes the innovation community proud,” comments Innocentrix CEO Henra Mayer.
The 2021/22 league, for the first time since its inception in 2014, aligned with the series of International Standards Organisation/South African National Standards (ISO/SANS) 56002 Innovation Management Standards, which incorporate seven elements that are considered key to growing and managing innovation capability in organisations alongside eight innovation management principles, as advocated by the guiding ISO/SANS 56000 Innovation Management series of standards.
“We are pleased to be recognised in this manner for our broader innovation strategy and initiatives. More so that we excelled against some of South Africa’s most innovative organisations in industries which generally are associated with innovation more than the mining industry,” says Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman.
The company's strategy is enabled by multiple ongoing and recently initiated internal and external innovation initiatives, including its continuous innovation processes and continued support of fundamental and applied research and development through partnerships with the universities of Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand, which is home to the Sibanye-Stillwater Digital Mining Laboratory.
Further, the company's innovation strategy is supported through its continued support, in partnership with the broader industry, of the Mandela Mining Precinct and its enhanced internal and external digital enablement capacity and capability, as well as the launch of the iXS programme – a technology incubation programme and development fund specifically focused on South African technology development.
The SA Innovation League is a collaborative initiative between Innocentrix, the Milpark Business School and the Da Vinci Institute’s Technology Top 100 Awards, which assesses organisations’ innovation management strategies and practices.
The SA innovation League awards are determined through a two-stage process in which finalists are selected based on self-assessment and are then assessed by a panel of innovation experts in line with the ISO/SANS 56000 series of standards.