There is absolutely no doubt that Sprint Couriers has grown by leaps and bounds but, as Michelle Gebrial, the Projects Director recalls, the early days were “extremely painful.”
In one respect that pain manifested itself literally. She remembers working from six in the morning, way past midnight and sleeping for only four hours for 10 straight months. Upon conviction that there was a huge gap in the local courier market, Gebrial and her business partner, Pinkie Setlalekgosi, had pooled their knowledge and skills and were taking on DHL and FedEx. The two women had met at DHL and were confident that with Gebrial’s background in financial management and Setlalekgosi’s in operations, Sprint Couriers would do brilliantly.
Not too long ago,Gebrial had been put in charge of the financial control of operations in Southern
Africa and had managed to turn around loss-making operations in countries such as Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. This buoyed her confidence that she could start her own operation and she invited Setlalekgosi on board. “I knew that with her operational background, she would be bringing strengths that I personally didn’t have,” she says.
However, what from a distance had appeared like success beckoning turned out to be a mirage that kept retreating farther and farther into the distance as Sprint Couriers took baby steps towards it. Gebrial says that banks were not willing to give a loan to new business entrants who had yet to prove their mettle. Everything else having failed to set the company on course, it was time to try desperate measures. That took the form of the two ladies “banging” (Gebrial’s word) on the door of then First National Bank Botswana CEO, Danny Zandamela.
“We made a brief and precise presentation,” recalls Gebrial, adding that something about that presentation triggered Zandamela’s “sixth sense” and he decided to “take a chance with us.” The CEO’s sixth sense was right on the money and he never regretted opening the bank’s vaults to render the assistance that Sprint Couriers so desperately needed. At this point in time, the company, which had a 12-vehicle fleet, maintained physical presence in Botswana only and with the loan it got from FNBB, was able to meet operating costs and stride sure-footed into a still fluid future.Other than finance, the other challenge that Sprint Couriers had to contend with in its early days was of staff members whose work ethic wasn’t exactly compatible with this type of business.
“This industry operates on strict deadlines but that understanding was not in people’s minds. Those who understood that to be the case were working for competitors but we didn’t want to poach staff,” Gebrial says. Not poaching from competitors meant that Sprint Couriers had to train its own staff of young Batswana which in itself presented its own challenge: training these greenhorns ate into the time that would otherwise have been spent attending to the still new business. When the directors’ perseverance did pay off, it did so in a really big way. From being a small operation of 12 vehicles, 16 employees and five offices in 2006, Sprint Couriers now boasts of 75 vehicles,over160 employees and 16 offices. This growth had made it possible for the company to expand into South Africa and Zimbabwe.
With this growth also came the evolution of the directors’ roles. Originally holding the position of Finance and Administration Manager, Gebrial is now Projects Director while Setlalekgosi has evolved from Commercial Director to Operations Director.
One of Gebrial’s roles as Projects Director is to quarterback the formation of strategic partnerships. One such partnership was with FedEx, an American global courier delivery services company with global reach; however this relationship later came to an end because Sprint Couriers wanted to build its capacity. A peaceful agreement was reached and the relationship was dissolved.
At the same time, a global logistics and transportation solutions provider calledAramex had been undertaking extensive research with a view to partnering with asimilar operation in this part of the world just as Sprint Couriers was also doing thesame thing. The fruits of this exercise were negotiations which were finalized lastyear led to the formation of Aramex Botswana, a sister company to Sprint Couriers which will be officially launched next month ÔÇô May 19 to be exact.
Aramex is as big as they come. Based in Dubai, the company is listed on Dubai Financial Market. It employs more than 13 900 people across over 60 countries, and according to its website, has “a strong alliance network providing worldwide presence.” Aramex chairs the Global Distribution Alliance, which brings together over 40 leading express and logistics providers from aroundthe world, each specialising in their own region and together covering the world with the same, unified quality standards and technology of Aramex. Aramex Botswana will be part of this network which has more than 12 000 offices, 33 000 vehicles and 66 000 employees serving alliance customers and attending to their business around the clock in more than 240 countries. Gebrial says that they have already visited Aramex’s office in South Africa and Dubai to familiarise themselves with its operations.
Aramex Botswana is now fully resourced in terms of staff and equipment and will open its doors on May 10, with the official,launch coming nine days later. What the business world has known as Sprint Couriers will not expand its footprint anymore. Gebrial says that such expansion would amount to duplication of what Aramex Botswana will do: the coming into being of the latter essentially means that thecompany has expanded its footprint internationally.
Even as Sprint Couriers spreads its wings, it continues to do business locally. One might be led to think that far too many Batswana prefer non-official methods of transporting goods and parcels over long distances. Everyday consignments that should be in Sprint Couriers vehicles are in numerous long-distance buses travelling to different parts of the country. While acknowledging that does indeed happen, Setlalekgosi, who joins the interview much later, says that in the main, Batswana are aware of the service they offer. “Even in villages, Batswana know about us, the services we offer and they use them.That is why we have 16 offices spread out across the country,” she says.
Oddly for a company domiciled in a country with a pastoralist majority, Sprint Couriers doesn’t convey animal products. The explanation from Setlalekgosi is that such conveyance is problematic because other countries require veterinary permits for such consignments. She adds that this is particularly the case for Africa which is associated with “too many diseases.” Like her partner, Setlalekgosi is satisfied with what has become of Sprint Couriers.
“That is why we have won so many awards,” she says.
Numerically, “so many awards” works out to nine. Going back to 2009, Sprint Couriers has been winning the PMR Award every year. This Award celebrates excellence as well as acknowledges and set a benchmark for others to aspire to. In 2012, it won the Diamond Service Award from Debswana Mining Company which honours outstandingservice providers. Last year, the company was presented with the International Star Award for Quality at the Inter Continental Gen├¿ve Convention Centre, Switzerland. The Award honours recipients’ merits in innovation, quality, excellence and good practices. Next month, Sprint Couriers will add another trophy to its cabinet when it gets the International Platinum Quality Award at a two-day summit that will be held in New York. The Award recognises the prestige of outstanding companies, organizations, and leaders in the business world.
Unlike some business partnerships, this one looks healthy from all angles. Setlalekgosisings praises of Gebrial whom she says has spearheaded a lot of projects that she has seen to fruition. Inspiring though Sprint Couriers story will be, there are some details of it that are guaranteed to give one pause. By Gebrial’s account, the courier and logistics industry is highly capital-intensive: she gives P1 million as the ballpark figure of how much it costs in just one month to buy fuel for the vehicles that have to crisscross the country 24 hours a day every day.
As Projects Director she also has to give divine future growth points for the company.At this point she sees the need to diversify outside courier and logistics and has identified hospitality and property as possibilities for such diversification. However, as everybody else in Botswana with such ambition, she is experiencing the frustration of finding good, serviced land in areas where such ventures would thrive.
