Streamlining contract workflows for one of South Africa’s leading manganese exporters
Ntsimbintle Marketing and Trading is the marketing arm of Ntsimbintle Holdings, one of South Africa’s most successful mining companies. Through its 74% stake in Ntsimbintle Mining, the Group is the majority shareholder (50.1%) in Tshipi é Ntle (Tshipi Borwa), the country’s largest manganese producer. Other assets in the Group include Mokala Manganese, Hotazel Manganese Mines, and Khwara Manganese.
With complex sales agreements and high volumes of trade activity, the company needed a more efficient and accurate way to manage contracts — one that could keep pace with its growing commercial operations. Ntsimbintle turned to Chinsay to digitise and streamline its contract creation and management process.
From manual coordination to connected collaboration
Before Chinsay, contract creation often involved manual coordination between departments — a process that introduced delays and left room for error. The switch to Chinsay’s platform has fundamentally changed the way the teams at Ntsimbintle work. In January 2025, we sat down with Aileen Li, Operations and Trade Finance Manager, to discuss their experience with Chinsay and the impact that Chinsay has had on their operations. “Chinsay has significantly enhanced our efficiency and accuracy in processing sales contracts,” says Aileen.
“The platform facilitates a seamless workflow: Different teams can work on their specific tasks and pass them along to other teams for additional content, review, or approval. With Chinsay, our team can collaborate concurrently without needing to forward draft contracts to each team for review and approval.”
The ability to work concurrently, rather than sequentially, has accelerated every step of the process — from deal capture to drafting to final approval. This shift not only improved internal collaboration but also strengthened control over the contract lifecycle.
Standardised templates tailored for flexibility
Managing a multitude of contract templates and clauses across multiple teams and trade types can be a challenge, particularly when every contract must meet strict legal and operational standards. For Ntsimbintle, Chinsay’s intuitive document templating system helped bring structure to complexity.
“Our team can access all templates on a single platform and customise them for various scenarios. By saving different templates within Chinsay, we can easily retrieve the appropriate one without the risk of mixing up different templates.”
With every clause, variations and document templates stored and versioned in one place, teams can now act faster without compromising on quality.
Improved accuracy and faster contract turnaround times
Speed and accuracy are central to Ntsimbintle’s commercial operations – and Chinsay has successfully delivered on both fronts.
“The most significant benefit has been the efficiency boost in contract processing.
Our team can now create, review, and approve contracts without unnecessary delays.
This has directly contributed to better accuracy and faster turnaround times for important documents.”
What used to take days can now be completed in hours — with more confidence and fewer risks.
Trusted support from the Chinsay team
The proper execution of the discovery, onboarding and go-live phases are critical to the successful implementation of any IT system in any organisation. For Ntsimbintle, the Chinsay team’s responsiveness and expertise played a huge role in the successful rollout.
“Our experience with the Chinsay team has been exceptional. If we ever encounter an issue, their team acts promptly and professionally, addressing our questions and concerns with effective solutions. Their responsiveness and expertise ensure that we always feel supported and confident in using their platform.”
Looking ahead: Advice for others in the industry
When asked what they would tell other commodity traders which are thinking of implementing a contract management solution for their businesses , Aileen is clear on the benefits:
“We highly recommend integrating Chinsay into your workflow.
The platform is incredibly user-friendly and makes collaboration easy across teams.
It reduces the risk of errors and speeds up the documentation process, which saves valuable time and resources. By adopting Chinsay, businesses can see a noticeable increase in productivity, leading to better decision-making and, ultimately, improved profitability.”
