By Larry Claasen
US-based Carlyle Group has vastly broadened the range of services since taking over NOSA in 2018.
NOSA, which turned 70 this year and was generally known for occupational health and safety training, now offers testing, inspection, certification, and training (TIC) services, with a particular focus on food safety and occupational health and safety.
This acquisition by the Carlyle sub-Saharan Africa fund, which has since housed it in Safety SA, has helped balance the group’s revenue streams.
Previously, training made up about 70% of the company’s income. Now, revenue is more evenly split, with approximately a third coming from testing, a third from inspection, and a third from training, along with a smaller portion from certification services.
This diversification has made the group less reliant on any single income stream and better equipped to serve a broader range of industries.
The change of ownership has seen NOSA effectively become one of the brands operated by Safety SA, which includes food safety group Assurecloud, and SafetyCloud, which runs the NOSA’s services.
Though the group is now a broad-ranging safety services business, when the Carlyle Group bought it, Safety SA CEO Pieter Erasmus said it had initially acquired a training business.
“Off the back of that, we then set about building this TIC training business,” Erasmus says.
This has seen it develop its certification business, which provides services related to ISO standards in occupational health and safety. It also positions itself as a service provider offering end-to-end solutions in this industry under the Safety Cloud banner.
Overseas expansion
Aside from broadening its offering, Safety SA, has also expanded its operations globally.
“We service customers in South America. We are represented in every country south of the equator in Africa. We’ve got some representation in West Africa and East Africa, and then we’ve got a decent representation in mainland China,” says Justin Hobday, MD, NOSA Auditing.
The group’s origins in a developing country have served it well in its global expansion.
“The NOSA system is highly effective in developing economies. So if you think about it, sort of the southern hemisphere, probably excluding Australia, and up into Asia, that’s where our marketplace is. And we’ve seen significant growth in those areas,” says Hobday.
One key to the group’s international success has been its ability to tailor services to the needs of diverse industries and markets. The company’s system is designed to be flexible enough to adapt to different regulatory environments while maintaining the rigorous standards that NOSA is known for.
Creating a safety culture
Though the group has broadened its offering, Safety SA’s Erasmus says its overall mission of making the world a safer place has not changed.
“Fundamentally, what we said as a group, our bigger purpose here is to make the world a safer place. And for me, that harks back to the history of NOSA. And it’s almost the, let’s call it, it’s the next evolution of that.”
Hobday echoed this.
He says the key to creating a safer workplace is changing the broader society’s risk tolerance. But that is easier said than done.
“South Africans’ tolerance for risk is very, very high. And to change a culture is incredibly difficult and takes a very, very long time,” Hobday says.
He gives the example of employees working at a facility with strict noise controls, which would require them to wear ear protection.
“They work all day in this controlled environment around hearing protection. At the end of the shift, they jump back into their car. They drive out to the gate. The radio is nice and low. They’re not five metres out of the gate, and they crank that radio up and in the back. They’ve got the boot full of a subwoofer.”
He says by pumping out 4 000 watts before they get home, exposing themselves to a noise zone that is in excess of 100 decibels for half an hour.
“I don’t say it’s limited to South Africans, but that cultural change to realise, you really need to live in an environment where your workplace and your home space should be treated the same.“