September 2016
INSPIRATION JUNCTION
Don’ t despise the days of small beginnings
S tarting a business takes a lot of guts and growing it requires a lot hardwork, focus and dedication. The case study that follows is an extract from Bheki Zungu’ s book titled“ Don’ t Be Afraid to Try”, which was published in 2014. It is a story of Debonairs Pizza.
According to the case study that was published in the book titled Marketing Success Stories by Michael Can’ t, Ricardo Machado et. al, here is how this pizza business started:
Debonairs Pizza, founded in September 1991, was the brainchild of university students Craig Mackenzie and Andrew Harvey. Having seen the success of the pizza delivery industry in the USA, Mackenzie realized that this market in South Africa was, at that time, underdeveloped. On exploring the opportunities and discussing their proposed pizza delivery service, they were met with skepticism back home.
Regardless of this negative sentiment, they believed in their idea and started the business with their army savings, which was a sum total of approximately R6 000.
It is clear that once McKenzie and Harvey had decided to bring about the Debonairs concept, they fixed their minds on their goal and did not allow any form of skepticism or
negative sentiment to deter them. They were ready to try out their idea, and make it work. I like the way the company name came about:
One of their buddies came up with the name Debonair by paging through the Oxford dictionary.
What is very interesting is that Mckenzie and Harvey were not even studying business studies at university when they started the business:
The business was started in Pietermaritzburg where the two were studying as full-time students. Mackenzie was a BSc Agriculture student whilst Harvey was studying law. Mackenzie’ s brother owned a Spar supermarket in town.
This shows that people who are open to opportunities and are willing to use them can be greatly rewarded. It is not always about the background, but the willingness to take a chance on the opportunities that present themselves. The limited space at the Spar bakery also did not deter the two would-be entrepreneurs from pursuing their venture:
The Spar housed a typical supermarket bakery, which was positioned at the back of the outlet … Space was limited within the bakery and the only storage facilities available were the space on top of the oven and a small domestic fridge.
It is interesting that when Debonairs Pizza started, the entrepreneurs were introducing new things that most people were not used to at that time, for instance free delivery service by people with a unique dress code which was white shirts and bowties:
The first night of trading resulted in a total of eight pizzas ordered and delivered to suitably impressed friends around town. The next night a small pamphlet drops and more obliging friends resulted in a considerable increase in sales. From that day on, Debonairs Pizza’ s deliveries grew exponentially.
The rest is history. Debonairs Pizza grew and grew and in 1996 it was acquired by the Steers Group( now Famous Brands).
Article contributed by Bheki Zungu, who has started a YouTube channel called DBA Channel, through which he provides career guidance and workplace readiness videos, promotes reading as well as profile small businesses. To view the videos, you can search for Bheki Zungu DBA Channel on YouTube or Google.
The small business that would like to be profiled through DBA Channel, can contact Bheki Zungu by sending an e-mail to sbongoz @ gmail. com
Bheki Zungu( Programme Manager & Acting National Risk Manager – Transnet)