Business Entity of the Year Award — Medium and Large

This award is given to a business entity that has shown significant growth and development while contributing to the upliftment of the community.

The finalists for the 2011 Medium and Large Business Entity of the Year Award are:

First Choice Fabrics
The Solwa brothers, Mohamed, Yusuf and Ashraff, learned the textile trade while working with their father Hoosen in a clothing manufacturing business. After he passed away, they established First Choice Fabrics in 1994. Initially, the business sold traditional African fabrics from a store in Durban’s Leopold Street but it has grown to five retail stores and a wholesale division. It supplies an extensive range of fabric and haberdashery to approximately 500 retailers, garment manufacturers and other wholesalers in the textile industry. The company also has a manufacturing division which supplies school wear, fashion garments and linen for the catering industry.

Solwa says: “Challenges are inevitable when running a business, but the key to success is managing them creatively. As importers, currency volatility affects our business but we have established strong relationships with First National Bank and benefit from the best foreign exchange rates and access to regular financial updates. This helps our team to make day-to-day strategic decisions. We have developed relationships with reliable local and overseas suppliers which ensure we can source and supply high quality products at competitive prices.”

Operating from a 3 000 m2 premises in the Umgeni Business Park with a team of 200 full time staff, First Choice Fabrics has established itself as a leading textile wholesaler in the country. The team recognises that business is a journey, not a destination and that one never arrives. Their journey continues to be successful as a result of their progressive approach to business. The Solwa brothers have maintained a competitive edge by focusing on quality, customer service and delivery time. These strategies, coupled with their unquestionable integrity and the relationships they have nurtured with customers, built on trust, co-operation, dedication and team work, will help First Choice Fabrics become the first choice of an increasing number of wholesalers and customers.

As a number of local manufacturers have closed their production plants, preferring to import finished products from foreign markets, retrenched workers with sewing skills have started their own home industries. The supply of good quality fabrics has helped create employment in the textile industry and continues to contribute to job creation and sustainability in the informal entrepreneurial sector. Solwa quotes Orji UzorKalu: “A good businessman must have a nose for business the same way a journalist has a nose for news. Once your eyes, nose, ears and heart and brain are trained on business, you sniff business opportunities everywhere. In places where people see a lot of obstacles, I see a lot of opportunities. A good businessman sees where others don’t see. What I see, you may not see. You cannot see because that is the secret of the business.”

JJM Hardware Wholesalers CC trading as Classic Trading
Classic Trading was founded by brothers Arief and Nizam Moosa in 1992 and soon developed into a highly respected company with the head office and new state-of-the-art flagship store in Springfield Park Durban, KwaZulu-Natal and branches in Johannesburg and Cape Town. In their capable hands and through their dedication and commitment, the company has become synonymous with luxury bathrooms and offers the widest and finest range of imported taps, tiles, sanitary ware and accessories on the African continent.

With a wealth of local and international experience and expertise, the company strives to deliver product excellence and unrivalled personal service. Whether the customer requires timeless classic, contemporary class or streamlined sophistication, Classic Trading’s sales teams are trained and equipped to provide advice and assistance from the selection phase through to project completion. The projects division provides an exclusive service to developers, architects and quantity surveyors which offers affordable, imported and cutting-edge alternatives to standard, locally manufactured bathroom finishes.

Classic Trading’s impressive client list includes major prestigious projects such as the ICON development and Mandela Rhodes Place in Cape Town, The Sails in Durban Point Waterfront, The Pearls Umhlanga (all phases), The Oysters in Umhlanga, Ballito Manors and many international resorts, spas and business developments. Classic Trading is the official supplier to all Virgin Active Health Clubs.

The plush showrooms in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town are stocked with local and exclusive imported ranges offering a comprehensive selection. Customers need not feel overwhelmed because they are encouraged to relax and enjoy a cappuccino while they consider their options. However, Classic Trading’s strength lies in the team they have developed: people who are willing to go the extra mile to serve their clients.
The Moosa brothers travel extensively, keeping up to date with bathroom technology and trends. Classic Trading is actively involved in many social responsibility initiatives and staff development programmes.

R&S Consulting
In 2004 South Africa’s largest mobile operator awarded a tender requiring on-site support and leading-edge field-based customer relationship management (CRM) to an unknown company, giving a young entrepreneur and his partner the opportunity of a lifetime. They embraced it with gratitude and humility, devoting themselves to surpassing client expectations. This rags-to-riches story started with Farhad Mohamed borrowing money from his father while his partner dug into the last bit of credit available to travel to Johannesburg to deliver their tender response. Securing the contract, they knew they lacked internal capacity to deliver but within days had networked with friends and former business associates to establish a team of core outsourced contractors.

R&S Consulting is a niche business, specialising in supplying conceptual solutions and the corresponding enabling technologies to support the mobile data and wireless connectivity offerings for mobile networks. It is a unique company – the only enterprise globally that derives its primary revenue from supporting the data initiatives of mobile network operators. R&S Consulting provides a seamless, borderless service, partnering with the Vodafone and Vodacom Groups as well as Telkom’s 8ta, to deliver mobile data support and convergence product support to corporates and consumers.

R&S Consulting supports the vendor and their product through a national footprint, offering specialised resources and consulting expertise throughout SA and in international countries including the UK, Spain, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. Year-on-year revenue grew exponentially and the company established its uniqueness through its approach of solving problems with tailor-made solutions. The team has grown to 200 and is forecasted to be almost double its size by the third quarter of the 2013 financial year.

R&S Consulting has developed a strong network of strategic alliances and partnerships to support web portal development, systems integration, hardware procurement, support and maintenance, training, and infrastructure deployment capabilities. R&S Consulting manages close to 80% of the touch-points in its customers’ mobile data delivery and honours the after-sales service pledge which is built into the product at point of sale. So attractive is the company that numerous acquisition approaches have been received, resulting in a JSE-listed ICT entity acquiring a 50% share earlier this year. As the only service provider in their sector to specialise in mobile data and convergence technology support, R&S Consulting has to create its own benchmarks and constantly improve on performance, productivity and efficiency, to raise its standards every day.

Phoenix Cash and Carry
The legend of the phoenix rising from the ashes is particularly apt when reviewing the challenging history and success of Phoenix Cash and Carry. Ahmed Dhai’s first general dealer business, established in 1975 in Inanda, burned down in 1985. The second store on the same site also went up in flames in 1990. On both occasions, the Dhai brothers picked themselves up and started again. The origins of the group had already diversified into contract packing, ice manufacturing and property investment during this period.

In 1994 the Dhai brothers, Ahmed and Ismail, purchased a cash-and-carry store in Phoenix against advice (due to the political uncertainty at the time). They subsequently established a bakery which produced 30 000 loaves a day and continued their investment in property. In 2002, the group purchased eight cash-and-carry stores, but a business partner’s tragic death forced the group to downsize. This rationalisation left a store in Phoenix and one in Pietermaritzburg, which subsequently became the biggest financial contributor to the group’s annual turnover.

The group now has three stores in Phoenix, the flagship store in Pietermaritzburg, the ice business (which has grown both organically and by acquisition to become the biggest ice manufacturer and distributor in KwaZulu-Natal), a substantial farming business as well as the contract packing division. The most recent addition to the group has been a successful logistics company. In March 2011 Phoenix Distribution was launched in Pietermaritzburg to streamline product movement directly between supplier and customer.

The group is currently developing its new flagship 8 000m2 cash-and-carry store, which will open in February 2012 in Empangeni. With visionary insight, when few family businesses had embraced the concept of engaging the services of a management consultancy, Phoenix invested in these services to professionalise and corporatise the group. For two years they focused on implementing strategies and now a careful combination of systems and staff is delivering a rewarding return on this investment. The group is positioned for substantial expansion. Phoenix Cash and Carry is quick to respond to disasters by assisting communities with food hampers and is also actively involved in many different community upliftment initiatives.

IslamicFinance launches dedicated Advice Centre in Cape Town
IslamicFinance is proud to announce the opening of the first dedicated IslamicFinance Advice Centre, situated in the heart of the Muslim community in Athlone, Cape Town. Designed as a replica of the prestigious head office in Johannesburg, the Advice Centre was opened on 1 July 2011 in the Kromboom Convenience Centre and has already become a mecca for customers who need advice or guidance on any of the Shar’ia compliant banking and finance offerings. Always looking for innovative solutions to assist customers and make banking easier, the Advice Centre is open seven days a week and well beyond conventional banking hours. Monday to Friday the team is available from 8am to 6pm, on Saturdays from 8am to 4pm and from 9am to 2pm on Sundays.