allAfrica.com: Botswana: From the Classroom to the Boardroom (Page 1 of 1)

Airfficiency Chief Executive Officer, Douglas Letsholathebe, is our Boss for the week. He talks to ZEPH KAJEVU about the challenges of penetrating the market for medical, pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment and industrial chemical supplies, dominated by stiff local and expatriate competition.

Being a career teacher, why did you go into laboratory and medical equipment supplies business?

I entered teaching - in the natural sciences, physics and chemistry in secondary schools - in the late 1980's after graduating from the University of Botswana with a Bachelor of Science degree. During my early days as a teacher, I was disillusioned by the poor condition and quality of some of the calibration equipment such as thermometers, measuring cylinders, pressure gauges, scales, to name a few, available in schools that I used for demonstration purposes. The majority of the equipment was not in good working condition because it had been in use for the past decade and had not been replaced except in the event of breakages. The idea to go into this type of business started at this stage, although I could not at that stage state the time that I would raise enough capital.

When and how did you get the brainchild up and running?

Starting a business venture is an arduous and that can at times be frustrating, especially if one is depending on personal savings to make it operational. Despite hardships in the formative stages, I finally registered Airfficiency as a wholly owned citizen company in 2005, initially supplying laboratory equipment for schools, generic chemicals to homes and industries. Operating from the humble beginnings of a single office, which accommodated administration, sales and marketing staff and served as an ad hoc storeroom, we were able to meet orders for our customers. However, because of shortage of storage space, the majority of deliveries were done directly from the suppliers to the customers.

What are the challenges that the company faces in its business operations?

From the outset, the laboratory and medical equipment supplies business has been a monopoly of a few established companies owned by expatriates who can rely on sister companies registered in their home countries or abroad if they experience financial or logistical bottlenecks. For instance, if they run short of supplies due to dispatching delays in the exporting countries, they can obtain additional stocks from sister companies in neighbouring countries. I am referring to South African companies that my company has to compete with. More often than not, they have a cutting edge for making expedited deliveries. I, however, have gone the extra mile to ensure that payments for orders are made on time. I made a trip to London end of 2007 to familiarize myself with calibration equipment market. I will also visit Germany in July 2008 as part of the familiarization programme, because these two countries have been identified as some of the renowned manufacturers and exporters of calibration equipment.

The other challenge lies in the fact that since the majority of our products only have standard certification of the countries where they were manufactured, they may not give fairly accurate readings when used in warmer climatic belts such as Botswana. This applies to calibration equipment designed to function accurately in countries experiencing cold weather conditions.

How are you getting round the problem of product certification if you are you do not manufacture them locally?

I have already finalized plans to manufacture the bulk of the equipment including some industrial chemicals locally so that we supply to schools and the industrial sector with home made products designed to meet specification. When manufacturing goes on stream, the biggest challenge is to have the most favourable environment climate that will encourage coming up with marketable quality products that can be sold both at home and abroad in line with our international counterparts. This obviously calls for a very huge investment in terms of capital and expertise. I have already researched on the feasibility of the project and current market indicators show that it will be a cost intensive but high-profit yielding project. The market is there and end users are prepared to pay as long as the products benchmark with those manufactured in the rest of the leaders in developed world, the US, Europe and Japan, in particular.

All products manufactured locally will have to receive Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) certification, as a strategy of to harmonise them along international standards. I will be applying for BOBS certification for all products in before the end of 2008. I am geared for the market challenges because I don't only supply laboratory and medical equipment but I also repair and maintain them. Part of reason why I went to London was to familiarize myself with some of their equipment and how they are serviced. I will also be going to Germany in July 2008 on a similar mission.

How about your pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals?

Although I started with laboratory equipment for only schools, as the company grew, I realised that there was a yawning niche market for chemicals apart from those used during experiments in schools. I added this to the list and again in the process received orders for cleaning chemicals, detergents, insecticides and veterinary pharmaceuticals. To be a fully-fledged entity, I also tested the pharmaceuticals market and although there is scope for expanding in that direction. At the moment the company only supplies pharmaceutical drugs that can be purchased without a doctor's prescription. A more exciting development is the upcoming mines in the Francistown area that will keep our supply lines for laboratory equipment and chemicals stretched to the limit. We have already approached some of the more established suppliers of industrial mining chemicals who have assured us of constant stocks.

It's indeed a different world from teaching?

What sets the supplying of laboratory equipment, pharmaceuticals business apart from the teaching profession is that by looking out for buyers and understanding what they need, our company is able to provide products of high quality based on market trends. I had to undertake a Masters Degree in the Sciences to ensure that I understood full well the dictates of the market. Although government still remains our largest customer, we have a role to inform of them of new products so that they can outsource only the best.

How do you see yourself in the next five years?

The company is growing and there is scope in having a geographic spread so that we can serve our customers within a short turn around time. At the moment I have identified Francistown and Mahalapye as the upcoming centres for effectively marketing our products based on the nearness of our clients. Again as mentioned earlier, the Francistown hinterland is becoming home to a lucrative mining community that will require our services on demand. We have done the market research and will in due course expand our capacity to match the ne developments.

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