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Yoliswa Dube-Moyo, Senior Features Reporter
LEADING motor vehicle spares and accessories enterprise, Solatek Marketing, recently scooped the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) Small to Medium Enterprise of the Year Award at national level.
The company’s general manager, Mr Gerald Dube, said the honour was humbling considering the establishment’s modest beginnings.
“The recognition is very humbling. From where we’re coming from and the volatile environment we operate in, this is quite humbling. For SMEs, when you decide to look at the glass as half full instead of half empty, it goes a long way,” said Mr Dube.
He said some of the company’s competitive advantage strategies have been the ability to make important decisions promptly, embracing technology and learning from others’ successes and failures.
Solatek Marketing, which sells motor vehicle spares and accessories for both wholesale and retail, has set its sights on harnessing e-commerce to grow the business.
“With big companies, bureaucracy inhibits the making of decisions at a fast pace. But with SMEs, you have to make the right decisions, fast. It helps to propel the business. We’ve done a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis and since May have gone live on SAP (Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing). Our system is now centralised. We’ve upgraded our IT software, which has solved our problems with access to information. We’ve addressed the control aspect which will improve the quality of the information we gather,” said Mr Dube.
The general manager said lessons learnt from the country’s 2008 economic meltdown had kept the business afloat in a challenging economic environment.
“Lessons learnt in 2008 are still fresh in our minds. The whole point has been to preserve our capital and stock. We have to know what’s happening on the ground and create strategic partnerships with banks. We’ve also tried to protect what we have,” said Mr Dube.
Poor financial planning usually leads to businesses getting expensive money, which always leads to disastrous consequences, he said.
“That’s why it’s prudent to plan ahead and do it in good time. Most SMEs don’t plan on cash flow challenges; desperation causes bad decisions. We’ve become proactive in our planning; you have to have a reserve for a rainy day,” said Mr Dube.
Turning to projections for the future, Mr Dube said the company was preparing itself for the economic boom set to be experienced in the country.
“Industry is going to grow. We want to penetrate corporates such as mines and players in the agricultural sector as opposed to just concentrating on walk-in clients.”
He attributed the company’s success to its customers and loyal members of staff.
“For us to be where we are today, it’s because of our customer’s unwavering support. Our marketing team has also been proactive. I’d like to thank the Solatek team for their loyalty. Things have not always been perfect but they’ve stood by us and they’ve understood our predicament during the hard times. We appreciate the team work and hope it stays like that,” said Mr Dube.
He added, “As management, we want to strike a balance between tasks and workers’ needs. We also have to be sensitive to our workers’ needs.”
Having opened its doors for the first time in 2009, Solatek Marketing has continued to scale to greater heights as the leading supplier of motor spares and accessories.
Driven by the motto “with Solatek you drive home”, the company endeavours to give the ordinary man on the street “more for less” because they believe it is every Zimbabweans’ right to access genuine motor vehicle spares at the lowest imaginable price.
Their vision is to build a solid customer oriented motor spares business that will meet the needs of their customers.
“We’re embracing e-commerce and would want for example, someone in Binga to be able to place an order with us and we courier the goods to them. They must feel our presence even though we’re not there physically,” said Mr Dube.
Solatek Marketing sells motor vehicle lubricants, filters, batteries, engine parts, body parts, complete engines and suspension parts among many other products.
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