Pule Monama (right) talking to some of his staff members

Responsible for putting food on the table for close to forty families from previously disadvantaged communities of Polokwane, the company seeks to be the most profitable BEE Company in the furniture manufacturing industry. By the look of things this dream will be realized soon as traces of success can be seen already in the company’s short life. Some of the highlights of Dezzo Designer Cupboards include; achieving Excellence Awards in staff development and training, winning the Provincial Small Enterprise Award (technology excellence), winning the Premier’s Accolade Award (Technology Top 100) and being nominated by the Royal Danish Embassy to be the only BEE Company in the country invited to participate in the world-class Danish International Furniture Fair.

The company has done its best in terms of investing in its staff in the area of skills development in order to achieve the above goals and has made a significant investment in new technology in order to advance the quality and efficiency of the production process. “After making profit from my initial sales, I had to make a choice between a fancy car and machinery…and I opted for machinery”, said Monama. The choice that he made has indeed proven to be the right one because the company has now become a beacon of pride in Polokwane, having furnished the premier’s office amongst other major clients.

However, at some stage, like any other business things weren’t going very well at the company as it was not meeting its targeted profitability and the company was forced to retrench. In analyzing the challenges, Productivity SA realized that this was due to a number of reasons from quality management systems, leadership skills within employees and the lack of scheduled job rotation in the factory. The overheads were too high due to the introduction of the showroom and low productivity as the production drive of the labour force was at its lowest. Productivity SA is now in the process of addressing some of the challenges faced by Dezzo.

Employee Business Orientation Training has already been conducted by Productivity SA to improve business understanding amongst the staff and lessons on Capacity Building have been given to the staff. “The training has helped a lot because already you can see that attitudes have changed for the better…morale is high. The staff now have an understanding of the value of the business and the importance of their input”, said Monama. He aims to write a business book in future that will inspire South African, mostly the previously disadvantaged, and has a word of encouragement. “It is possible to make it in the business world, yes there are enormous challenges out there, but there’s huge market as well. Previously disadvantaged groups must not be afraid to take up the challenge”, concluded Monama.

By Olwetu Gwanya

April 2007