Cape Town - Thys Loubser, the recently appointed chief executive of KWV, the wine and brandy producer, is a man of his word.
He has "flattened the structures'' at the company and purged the firm of its first executive, Johan Bestbier, a managing director of KWV International responsible for marketing and sales, and five other managers. Bestbier, an engineer by training, was appointed in May 2005.
When he was first interviewed ahead of taking the hot seat, Loubser promised he would review the structure of KWV to make it more efficient to compete in a competitive international and local market.
Niel van Staden, a spokesperson for KWV, said yesterday that Loubser had a team of nine people reporting to him now after he had flattened the structures. The nine people are in sales, marketing, production, finance, communications, human resources, strategy and supply chain management.
"Johan did not qualify for either the marketing or the sales job," Van Staden said. "Johan is a managing director, he is an engineer. They came to an amicable solution and he'll be leaving at the end of May."
Van Staden said a couple of people were made redundant. "One thing is sure, no one in ... the lower grades has been affected.
"Thys Loubser's philosophy is to listen to the voice of the customer and get that bottle of wine to the customer as soon as possible. Consequently, he flattened the structure to improve the efficiencies in the organisation and that's why he got rid of the duplication. The flattened structure therefore meant that KWV and KWV International no longer exist," Van Staden said.
Bonile Jack-Pama, a member of the KWV board, said Loubser had presented his ideas on restructuring.
"He has the full support of the board. I had a one-on-one with him, listened to his proposals and support him," he said.
Danie de Wet, KWV's chairman, said the restructuring was positive and was "going to make the distances between the north and the south of the company much shorter. Some chief executives prefer pyramid structures, some flat structures. I prefer flat structures.''
Bestbier could not be reached for comment.