Diversification pays dividends

Accepting bad news proactively and making fast if difficult decisions has kept Chrisilda Transport not only functioning but growing, despite a “double whammy” of the loss of a key client and the global recession. The biggest business news story this year in Swaziland has been the closure of Sappi’s decades-old operations in Bhunya. Transporting paper pulp had been a large component of Chrisilda business. Sappi’s closure hit just as another of the firm’s big clients, the garment industry, scaled back following a recession-fuelled decline in orders from overseas. “There was a lot of talk about Sappi’s fate – others possibly running the company. But we made a decision – we sold the truck (dedicated to paper pulp transport), closed the depot that specialised in tree harvesting, and sold the equipment in a timely manner. We didn’t see Sappi coming back,” Chrisilda managing director Sikelela Vilakati told FTW. For one of Swaziland’s largest and most reputable road freight firms, securing new business was a matter of reminding local and overborder shippers of who they are and what they do. “We embarked on a programme of new business acquisition, and it’s working well. Before our main export was mostly pulp, but now I’m moving clothing, timber, sugar and coal – and citrus in season. You might say the closure of Sappi was a blessing in disguise because the company is spreading its wings.” That includes more work in SA. “The bulk of my trucks are registered in South Africa, which means I can pick up and deliver goods in South Africa. My local competitors don’t have that.” Coal, for instance, is moved by Chrisilda trucks from Middelburg to Durban. The company moves Swaziland’s main export, sugar, from the lowveld plantations to destinations throughout Southern Africa. Wheat is brought in from Maputo now in such volumes that Vilakati sees the necessity of registering vehicles in Mozambique as he does in SA. “We are working on that. In Mozambique they hammer you for foreign-registered trucks. It’s US $100, compared to 50 metical for local trucks,” he said. “2009 was the year we closed the (Sappi) depot. 2010 I am taking on new guys. I think it may be that other transporters are going under, because I’m getting calls to move goods left and right. Here it is October and I am thinking of getting new vehicles by year’s end to keep up with demand,” Vilakati said.