Business View Magazine - April 2024

over 340 Saskatchewan-based supplier members, with over 34,000 employees, SIMSA provides goods and services to the industrial, mining, and energy sectors within the province and beyond. The association also works to build sustainable, productive, and transparent relationships among its members, their customers, government agencies, and all other stakeholders. SIMSA actively markets its members to procurement professionals through in- person events and its proprietary supplier database. MAKING CORPORATE CONNECTIONS SIMSA’s database was developed about six years ago, based on a request from BHP, an international mining firm that was originally founded in Australia in 1885 and, which, today, is the largest mining company in the world. BHP recently invested about $17 billion in the construction of a potash mine approximately 87 miles east of Saskatoon, known as the Jansen Potash project. “They needed a local supply chain, so we built a supplier database for them, as well as other companies, to sort and secure suppliers,” notes Eric Anderson, SIMSA’s Executive Director. “It’s a live dashboard, and it’s free for people to use. And, to date, BHP has done over 40,000 searches on it.” SIMSA has another successful partnership with an additional company on the other side of the globe. “We work a lot with Cameco, whose world headquarters is based in Saskatoon,” Anderson shares. “They introduced us to the government of Kazakhstan, which also has potash deposits that they’re interested in developing. They have potash, uranium, and agriculture, just like we do here, so it’s a natural fit. We’ve done several events with Kazakhstan and they’re wonderful people to work with.” In a bid to be more proactive in matching suppliers to companies, in 2021, SIMSA developed the position of Industrial Concierge. “The Industrial Concierge services were created to provide the communication path between the mining companies and the supply chain,” Anderson explains. Today, Industrial Concierge, James Bulmer, investigates the needs of interested companies and finds out what innovations they may require. “Then, he goes into the supply chain to find vendors that may have them, or brings people together to train our members on how to develop those innovations in the first place,”Anderson adds.“The other piece of his work is carbon reduction -- helping our members reduce their carbon footprint.” GROWTH DURING COVID Unlike some sectors, which contracted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the industries served by SIMSA were considered essential, and, as a result, the 91 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 04 SASKATCHEWAN INDUSTRIAL & MINING SUPPL IERS ASSOCIAT ION