Exxaro Resources is South Africa’s largest listed empowerment enterprise by a long way, a position it has consolidated in just five years of operations; and its mid to long term strategy is nothing short of visionary.

Yousif Mirjan, managing director of Dubai-based marble contractor, Dar Al Rokham, talks to Gay Sutton about creating the architectural heritage of the future, and expansion beyond the Middle East.

Alpine Lounge, South Africa’s premium furniture manufacturer, has survived four decades of dramatic changes. Now, its flexible and innovative strategies are taking it through a whole new set of challenges.

London, UK-based Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) has announced plans to acquire the shares of Kazak thermal coal producer Shubarkol Komir that it does not already own.

ENRC, which currently owns 25 per cent of Shubarkol, said that its directors have unanimously approved to exercise rights to acquire the 2,638,103 outstanding shares for up to $600 million, plus assumed debt of $50 million.

Canada’s Daylight Energy is to be acquired by Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corporation (SIPC) for approximately C$2.2 billion.

Daylight is a growing intermediate oil and liquids rich natural gas producing company with a high quality suite of resource play assets in Western Canada.

Dubai-based Dragon Oil has announced the signing of a deal through which it will earn a 55 per cent interest in the Bargou Exploration Permit offshore Tunisia.

The farm-in agreement, which has been signed with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Perth, Australia-based Cooper Energy, will also give Dragon Oil operatorship of the permit in any development phase.

The Bargou Exploration Permit is located in the Gulf of Hammamet in the Mediterranean Sea, covering an area of 4,616 square kilometres with predominantly offshore exploration prospects.

DuPont has announced the start-up of its $500 million Cooper River Kevlar facility near Charleston, South Carolina in the United States.

The new facility is expected to add an initial 25 percent increase in overall global production capacity for Kevlar, with a 40 percent increase expected after continued technology developments over the next two years.

Sumir Karayi, CEO of IT efficiency specialist 1E, discusses the ways in which businesses can reach a greater level of IT efficiency.

Alan Braithwaite, chairman of LCP Consulting and visiting professor at Cranfield, outlines what challenges he foresees within operations management for the coming decade.

Many businesses are confused by the diverse offerings of cloud computing. However, for next generation EDI, the ‘managed cloud’ is a simple notion, as Steve Rees explains.

Cloud computing is a remarkable phenomenon, with analysts at IDC predicting public cloud computing services to be a $73 billion market by 2015. However, many CIOs are still puzzled by the term and may not yet be familiar with how appropriate ‘the cloud’ is for certain business IT functions. Concerns over security, too, remain an issue for some.