Introduction
This is not your usual “Letter from the CEO”, as Andreas Krensel, our CEO, is currently on a well-deserved holiday in Kruger National Park. I’m Kristin Rasool, Head of Client Acquisition at IBN Immigration Solutions, and was asked to make a guest appearance in this months’ edition.
What makes it extra special is that I am typing these words from a tiny village in Schleswig Holstein, Northern Germany (my hometown), which I left 16 years ago to go abroad for a gap year of “one year”. I am spending 7 weeks in Europe with the family, attending 3 weddings and taking advantage of an extended trip before my firstborn starts school next year.
I understand that a mere 3-4 years ago, the request to be working remotely for a couple of weeks would have taken much more convincing from my side, but the last few years have changed the way we work immensely. That being said, I am 100% convinced that in our line of work, you benefit so much from sitting together in an office, being able to share ideas and thoughts, and I look forward to walking over to my colleagues again instead of waiting for a MS Teams reply.
June Alignment Sessions
June was a busy month for IBN Immigration Solutions. We had our quarterly strategic management session in Cape Town, joined by our colleagues from Johannesburg. We thoroughly enjoy these sessions where we openly discuss any pain-points in the company, review our annual goals to ensure we are still on track to reach them, and set new goals for the quarter. We were quite pleased that we managed to achieve most of our goals and tasks from the previous quarter. We continue to thrive for transparency and thoroughness and always adjust our processes to ensure this.
June has also been the month where we finally introduced our Case Management Software, and our clients are now able to use this great platform to communicate with our consultants. It has chat functions per topic, upload functions for documents, and generally makes it much easier to find any previous communication. As usual, change is not easy, but implementing it now means great things for the company and our clients alike.
Update on our Lawsuit
Our lawsuit that we launched in November 2022 against the Department of Home Affairs for long-pending Permanent Residence applications has also been very successful (unfortunately 2 parties that submitted overseas are still awaiting for their outcome, but the rest has received their outcomes). We have just announced the 2nd round. We wish we didn’t have to take this route and that PRs would just be issued in an acceptable time frame, but we are glad to see that this pressure is fruitful.
South Africa Business Investment Visa
We are also excited to see the interest in the Business Investment Visa rising again. After many years of uncertainty and scepticism, it seems like people are happy to invest in South Africa again. The current exchange rate also has helped our clients immensely to reach the ZAR 5 million investment amount.
We often joke that a Business Investment Visa consultation is 20% business visa-related and the other 80% is general advice on running a business in South Africa. Many of our clients have been able to tap into our extensive network of professional services, including real estate agents, tax specialists, and even pet travel.
Office and Staff
The Cape Town region was hit by one of the worst storms in over 20 years. Many areas were badly flooded. Most of our own staff were affected by leaks, some so severe that it forced them to stay at home for a couple of days to await professional help.
Our Marketing team has been making great strides in improving our updates for the country and visa-specific web pages more frequently, ensuring we are staying on top of all the changes happening in Africa. This is especially true for our Namibia Long-Term Work Permit page!
Conclusion
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this far. I hope you enjoy our other articles, and as always, we hope to continue to meet your service delivery expectations and provide you with the best immigration experience possible!
Written by Kristin Rasool, Head of Client Acquisition
Edited by Simon Carletti, PR and Creative Supervisor
