Imperial Armour CC was established in October 2000 and this year, celebrates 21 years in business. The company’s experience, excellent quality, and continual innovations has made them the leading manufacturer of personal protective equipment in South Africa.

With exports to more than 75 countries, customers include private security, military personnel, the United Nations, police, fire fighters, emergency medical services and demining officers. Imperial Armour’s focus is to save lives and does this by providing the latest technology within its innovative designs.

Imperial Armour’s mission statement epitomises its brand by:
• Being predominately an all women company
• Developing and nurturing relationships with customers based on trust and integrity
• Aiming to protect lives through a long-standing credibility in the expanding global market
• Ensuring its products are of the highest standards
• Constantly researching and developing products so that customers receive the latest and most advanced technology, suitable to their needs

Ethical Culture
Imperial Armour’s management team is guided by Louisa Garland, the founder of the business, who has always stood for strong effective moral and ethical business practices. Her example had laid the foundation for an entrenched ethical culture within her management team when making decisions and treating the employees with dignity and respect. This flows through to the Imperial Armour employees who are guided by the ompany’s code of ethics which encompasses integrity, competence, responsibility, accountability, fairness, and transparency.

Annual training of ethics and anti-corruption and bribery also take place to ensure all employees are aware of this business requirement. This material is reviewed yearly to ensure it is still in line with applicable legal and other requirements.

Value Creation
The business value is the employees who in turn create quality products on a consistent basis. Imperial Armour plays an important role in KZN by employing women from the local communities as well as their young family members who have recently matriculated.

The company recognises the importance of training to ensure that their employees become empowered in their roles. This year a buddy system was introduced so that each employee can learn the importance of the other person’s role. This system has also allowed the employees to grow in themselves by learning a new skill as well as learning new aspects of the business, thus empowering them.

External training is also provided such as first aid, firefighting, and quality. This training empowering the employees in the workplace and in their communities where skills can be transferred.

Trust, Good Reputation & Legitimacy
Being in business for 21 years Imperial Armour has built up a solid customer base that includes; Fidelity ADT; Bidvest Protea Coin; National; local government institutions and recently the newly acquired Thornburn Security Solutions.

Imperial Armour has developed extremely good relationships over the years with their existing supplier. As repeat customers place their trust in Imperial Armour to provide the ongoing professional service, 78% of its business comes from repeat orders of existing clients.

All products delivered are stringently checked through our quality and control process. The company ensures that it provides customers with the highest quality products possible. In addition, Imperial Armour ensures customer focus through meeting customer’s legal requirements, understanding risks and opportunities relating to its product and service conformity.

Good Performance
Imperial Armour is ISO 9001: 2015 certified. The system is maintained on a day-to-day basis by key personnel, with internal and process audits done at set regular intervals by on outsourced consultant, and once a year by the external certification body to ensure they are still on track and in line with the international quality standard.

The South African Bureau of Standards also does an annual capability report which the company passes with flying colours. All the manufactured products follow the SABS standards and are tested by an Independent Testing House in USA, to ensure conformance to product specification, resulting in internationally recognised certification.

Community Support
Imperial Armour covers a wide variety of different areas within the community. These projects cover the welfare element by examples of offering great deals and discounted prices for the Community Policing Forums and Neighbourhood Watch Teams across all provinces.