LEADING supplier, Bearings International (BI), grew its countrywide distribution network by four branches this year alone and is looking to add a completely new complementary business unit to the existing four. This comes as BI celebrates its 65th anniversary in 2022.
“Growth into Africa has been good and sustained even during Covid-19 due to demand. It is just a matter of how we approach that market. We do not want to grow too quickly, as it must be sustainable growth giving us a solid foundation. I am very positive, however, and believe we will continue to go from strength to strength,” says BI MD Bart Schoevaerts.
At the helm of the business for two-and-a-half years, Schoevaerts came on board during the difficult Covid-19 period. Designated an essential services provider, BI was able to operate during the lockdown and even continued with its restructuring process. “It was the ideal time to drive change in the business. Although we had grown significantly up to that point, the existing structure was insufficient to support ongoing growth.”
Schoevaerts reflects: “We had transformed from being a bearings company to supplying ancillary products from motors to fasteners. We stepped back to refocus and segmented the business into four distinct business units, each with its own operational structure. This, in turn, allowed us to look much more closely at our customer service and support.”
A company specialising in technical products invariably ends up with a technical mindset. “Today the market has evolved away from the traditional concept of technical support to one where customers are much savvier in terms of trends and latest developments. They are now enquiring if specific products and technology are available on the market and how quickly they can access it. This has meant we have had to adapt on the retail side of the business as well,” says Schoevaerts.
The renewed focus means ensuring sufficient stock of all the latest products at branch level. “That was a mindset change we drove throughout the organisation and one that has definitely resulted in significant growth.” Turnover has grown since Schoevaerts became MD and is expected to increase by more than 50% this year.
“We achieved significant growth in difficult circumstances and against a backdrop of global supply chain disruption by firstly the Covid-19 pandemic and then the conflict in Ukraine,” says Schoevaerts. “All of our products are imported, and we had to contend w
ith issues such as ports being closed in China and no vessel or container availability.”
Another key factor has been price volatility. “Customers have been used to stable, incremental increases on a yearly basis but now are confronted with a situation where they have to review their cost basis at quarterly intervals to mitigate the impact of escalating prices,” notes Schoevaerts. A side-effect of this volatility has been a lot of smaller players falling by the wayside, which has separated the wheat from the chaff and levelled the playing field for the entire industry.
In light of all these changes, and especially Covid-19 ushering in a digital or remote age, Schoevaerts says the traditional sales approach of physically visiting customers regularly to introduce them to new technology or products and to gauge their specific requirements has given way to a new business model.
“If you see how quickly South African companies adapted to online shopping, from the retail to the commercial and industrial sectors, and how quickly they came up with new business models to remain relevant, we realised we had to go that route as well, even though we did not have any internal capacity at that time,” says Schoevaerts.
“I believe after successfully migrating to remote marketing we will end up at the point where 60% to 70% of our direct business-to-consumer and even business-to-business sales will be online,” Schoevaerts says proudly.
