Palace Group

It was in October 1987 that the first subsidiary company, Palace Engineering Services (now trading as Palace Technologies) was formed and began its twenty-five year journey with the first projects being Eskom powered Kendal and Sasol 2 and 3 tank farm automation and modifications at Beta substation in Dealsville, Free State Province. Taking a leap of faith, the founder and current executive chairman, Mbuso Dlamini, began his life as an entrepreneur and later became an employer of upwards of two hundred + employees in present day Palace Group. Palace had its first offices right in the Johannesburg city centre; in fact, the first office was located on the 5th Floor of His Majesty's Building at the corner of Eloff and Commissioner Streets, Centre of Johannesburg.

Palace Engineering Services (Pty) Ltd (now trading as Palace Technologies with the re-engineering of the brand focus of the Group in 2008), focused primarily on consulting engineering services electrical, mechanical, civil and structural) and instilled a sense of trust in their first customers who remain the firm’s customers even today. Testimony to their delivery of concise consulting services is the glaring fact that after twenty-five years, Palace Engineering still works on many projects for Eskom in various parts of the Republic of South Africa.

As you can imagine, during the late eighties, right at the height of apartheid, it was not an easy feat for a black person to run a business. Palace’s survival is a momentous occasion and points to the results of resilience that came with utilizing each opportunity Palace received in doing work, to showcase the excellence in service and assisting our customer to fulfill their objectives. However, the dawn of a democratic South Africa presented Palace with an even bigger opportunity to grow and thus the move from the city centre to what was fast becoming known as a potentially thriving suburb, Midrand. Here, the company saw expansion not only in terms of projects and scope but we added more offices ranging from setting up smaller offices in Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, East London, Bloemfontein, Mbabane (Swaziland) and others. The focus was no longer about mere survival, but was about expanding and growing our market share and footprint, being visible and within reach of potential customers. The landscape was fast changing in the Republic what with the promise and hope that the first democratic elections had brought. Being a black-led business was by this time, starting to become, sort of ‘fashionable’, something one took pride in.

The dynamics were further shifting in as far as services scope was concerned and as mentioned on the onset, the firm that was first incorporated was into consulting engineering services. After 1996, Palace expanded and started covering a variety of projects. Beyond consulting engineering, Palace began to cover architectural design services and had by now already began its involvement in industrial based consulting projects for example, water treatment plants. The company also had started participating in construction related works though this remains a secondary focus of the Group.

A brand defined

The new millennium saw the change in information consumption with the growth of the use of the internet and also the growth of brand consciousness even within traditional engineering firms. Palace was post 2000 still very much perceived purely as ‘Palace Engineering’ a provider of consulting engineering services. Yet, there had been an expansion on scope that was as yet undefined to our internal and external customers. That led Palace Group to resolve to commission project aimed at developing a re-positioning strategy of the company’s brand, to suit the changes that had been taking place. This was further aimed at communicating precisely what the Group was, matching that with the business strategy going forward, across all the relevant stakeholders, from employees, customers, business associates and the communities amongst others.

The project would culminate to a new corporate identity being adopted that continues to define who the company is, and plays a key role in growing the Group’s brand presence in the market place.

1. SWAZILAND POLLY-PACK PROJECT

The Government of Swaziland appointed Palace Engineering Services as part of a US$45m project for Polly-Pack Factory and Textile Factory. The two projects involved the scoping, engineering, architectural design, construction, project management of a 30,000m^2 factory complete with services (water, electricity, etc ).

2. THABAZIMBI SMART METERING PROJECT

The installation of 749 smart meters in Thabazimbi, ‘mountain of iron’, was one of the very first smart metering projects to be undertaken by Grinpal Energy Management Pty (Ltd), a subsidiary of Palace Group. Thanks to Grinpal’s system, the municipality was able to receive 900% more revenue from those consumers on the system compared to those customers where this system was not installed.

3. RICHARDS BAY HEALTH AND RISK ASSESSMENT

Gondwana Environmental Solutions, a member of Palace Group companies, was appointed by the Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs and Rural Development in KwaZulu Natal, in partnership with the uMlhathuze municipality to supply and install ambient monitoring systems as well as to conduct a health study and health risk assessment as a consequence of exposure to atmospheric contaminants.

4. INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS UPGRADE

Palace Consulting Engineers were appointed by ACSA for both the Durban International Airport Upgrade and the air conditioning and ventilation installation for the new domestic terminal at OR Tambo International. The rand value of both projects was in excess of four hundred and eighty five million.

This article was published for Palace Herald http://www.palacegroup.co.za/magazine