By Nelisiwe Mabutyana, Head of Finance: SPM
Cost control is an essential element of financial governance. In infrastructure-heavy industries, its purpose is ultimately to support the protection of long-term asset value and operational reliability.
Power systems, substations, transformers, and switchgear do not deteriorate in neat financial cycles. They age over time, often under conditions that are difficult to standardise or predict. Decisions taken years earlier surface gradually through asset performance, maintenance intensity, and operational resilience. By the time financial impact becomes visible, the underlying judgment has usually already been exercised.
Finance, therefore, operates on a different timeline from the reporting calendar. The most consequential decisions are often preventative. Deferred maintenance, extended operating cycles, and interim interventions tend to sit outside headline financial metrics. They are referenced in engineering assessments, site reports, and operational discussions. Yet their cumulative effect determines future cost and reliability far more than short-term variances.
Protecting value requires an understanding of how failure develops. It rarely occurs as a single event. It emerges through incremental compromises, shortened outage windows, access constraints, skills stretched across multiple sites, and long lead components arriving later than planned. These conditions shape financial outcomes long before costs escalate.
Prioritisation in this context cannot rely on expenditure alone. Lower upfront costs may perform well in isolation while increasing exposure elsewhere. Unplanned downtime introduces financial consequences that are not captured in procurement comparisons. Emergency mobilisation, standby crews, accelerated logistics, contractual penalties, and reputational pressure follow decisions that initially appeared efficient.
Some of the most complex judgements arise when the financial case is sound, but the operational margin feels narrow. These moments demand careful consideration of consequence rather than certainty. Finance leadership involves assessing where risk accumulates, who carries it, and how resilient systems remain if assumptions are tested under pressure.
Life extension strategies illustrate this challenge clearly. Decisions to refurbish, monitor, or replace critical assets depend on residual life, operating conditions, site access, and the availability of skilled resources. Financial evaluation is only as reliable as the operational inputs supporting it. Engagement across disciplines strengthens decision quality and protects value over time.
Preparedness is another area where value protection is often underestimated. Standby capacity, specialist teams, and spare parts carry visible costs. Their benefit becomes apparent only when systems are stressed. In outage scenarios, response time directly influences financial impact. Organisations that invest in readiness tend to experience fewer disruptions, even though these investments attract scrutiny during budget cycles.
The interface between finance and operations becomes particularly important when incidents occur. Decisions must be made quickly, often with incomplete information. Governance structures that enable timely authorisation without compromising control support effective response. Financial frameworks that accommodate urgency protect value when time is the most constrained resource.
Planning for the year ahead, therefore, extends beyond allocating budgets. It requires clarity on risk appetite and intent. Which assets carry the highest consequence of failure. Where resilience is being reinforced. Where exposure is being accepted deliberately rather than by default. These choices sit at the centre of financial strategy.
Performance measurement must reflect this reality. Traditional financial indicators remain important, but they require operational context. Asset condition trends, outage frequency, response times, and incident patterns provide early signals of future cost and reliability. Integrating these indicators strengthens financial oversight and improves long-term outcomes.
There is also a human dimension to value protection. Experienced engineers, technicians, and operators carry institutional knowledge that cannot be replicated quickly. Investment in capability, training, and retention safeguards decision quality during periods of pressure. The absence of this investment becomes evident when systems are tested.
These considerations shape finance leadership in high-risk infrastructure environments. It requires discipline, judgement, and the ability to hold a long-term view in conditions that reward short-term certainty. The role involves restraint, but also decisiveness when it matters most.
As the year closes and planning begins again, the most important financial decisions are often those that prevent failure rather than respond to it. Their success is measured in continuity, reliability, and resilience. This is how finance protects value in practice, by supporting systems, people, and assets long before pressure makes their importance visible.
