The annual reception for its customers  hosted by De Beers during the first  sight of every  year in January,  which has  become something of an institution,  was held yesterday January 17th.

The other tradition is the CEO’s speech at the event, looking back at the year gone by and taking stock of the situation.

Beginning in a lighter vein, Bruce Cleaver, CEO of the De Beers Group of Companies  listed  out a few  incorrect predictions made in 2016 by many,  including that the UK  would never exit the EU and that Donald Trump would never win the US Presidential elections – and his own forecast on the  European football championships! 

“Beyond this, some events were so surprising that no predictions were made about them whatsoever – no one even saw the potential for them to happen,” Cleaver continued on a more sombre note. “Of course, the most serious of the surprises for many of us in this room, Prime Minister Modi’s demonetisation programme in India, falls squarely in this category. Demonetisation is likely to have an impact on several of our businesses so we need to respond with care and in the right way, and I will touch on this topic more later on.

Clearly, not everything went quite as expected last year. 2016 saw an increase in volatility across the world and perhaps my prospects of becoming a professional fortune teller have diminished somewhat. But what can we learn from what we saw last year?”

And amongst the lessons learnt in 2016, Cleaver saw a few nuggets: the power of collaborative action; the need to prepare to meet the situation; and the necessity to cater to collective progress.

Stressing the importance of   all segments of the diamond pipeline working together, “following the unpredictable events of a volatile year in 2016”, Cleaver said: “We have made some good steps in this direction, with greater collaboration across the value chain to stimulate demand, to share industry insight and to support pipeline efficiency. But we must continue on this path and maximise the impact of our combined efforts to grow industry value.”

On the other hand, he also noted that it was “vital  for all parts of the value chain to benefit from industry progress”. He said: “None of us in the diamond industry can succeed sustainably in isolation. We must find ways to progress together, and we must continue to view challenges and opportunities from each other’s perspectives.”

The third aspect Cleaver highlighted was that of preparation: “Just as the world turned on its political axis as a result of the level of preparedness of the competing camps, so we in the diamond sector must control our destinies by making sure we are ready for what is coming,” he said.

He added: “And this is exactly why we at De Beers continue to implement a strategy of putting in place the building blocks for all of us to thrive in the long term. We started this process several years ago and it’s vital we all continue to take the necessary steps for long-term industry success, even if they can be challenging or expensive in the short term.”

 Cleaver stressed that the medium to long term fundamentals of the industry were very positive, and that there is an opportunity “for investing in financially robust and transparent diamond businesses”.

“The commercial environment in which we operate is changing rapidly and…if we can find ways to compete more effectively in this evolving environment, then the change becomes a great opportunity,” he exhorted.

Cleaver reiterated De Beers’ commitment to investing in  both proprietary and category-based consumer marketing activities. He also said that De Beers would launch a new and improved diamond verification instrument later in the year to help maintain trade and consumer confidence. “Our new Automated Melee Screening instrument, the AMS2…will be a significant leap forward in the technological response to product integrity challenges and we believe the AMS2 will play a major role in bolstering confidence across the value chain,” Cleaver revealed.

And underlining just how important the  Millennials are in the current scenario, Cleaver also made a reference to them saying: “We also heard a louder and more confident voice emerge from the younger Millennial generation. They will soon be the ones shaping the whole world in which we live, so we must continue to listen to their views and interests. Just as they influence the societies in which they live, we must ensure that we create diamond jewellery propositions that reflect their outlooks on life.”