CobraAssist mans up to sell
the market on the idea of
compliant products
BUSINESS AND TRAINING
17
By
Eamonn Ryan
The challenge facing South African plumbing manufacturers
is how to respond to a plumber who goes into a merchant
looking for, say, a Cobra tap, and being offered a cheaper, even
rip-off, import.
While nobody can prevent that from happening,
Robbie Webb, technical manager at Cobra with
33 years’ experience, says it can only be countered
by educating the professional plumber and the
merchant’s staff on the need to be compliant. He
explains his company’s response to massively
increased competition: there has been a shift in
strategy at the Lixil plumbing brand, as the company
has sharpened its focus on training the plumber
through an initiative called CobraAssist, established
late last year.
Part of the message, says Webb, is to educate plumbers,
architects and engineers that local manufacturers
are relinquishing jobs daily as they cannot match the
significantly lower prices of imported goods. There is also
a misconception in South Africa that locally manufactured
goods cannot compete with the perceived ‘better quality’ of
some imports. Cobra says on its website. “As lower priced
imported products may be appealing on the surface, the
quality and production processes of these goods are often
not of the same high standard, but more importantly they
are not fit for the South African built environment conditions.
“The plumbing sector is in trouble. During the last six
months of 2018 it is reported that an average of 25% of
finished goods in the brassware plumbing sector was locally
manufactured as opposed to 75% that was imported during
the same period.
“This is not unique to the plumbing sector. In today’s time
and with South Africa’s current economic situation it is
more important than ever to ensure we are supporting and
promoting locally manufactured goods. Part of the GDP
of any country, manufacturing should constitute at the
very least 24% of the fiscus. Currently, manufacturing in
South Africa reports a paltry 12% of GDP and continues
to decline. As quoted by President Ramaphosa at the Job
Summit, ‘If we do not buy the goods made by South African
hands, there will be no factories and no workers’.
All photos by Eamonn Ryan
Robbie Webb, technical manager at CobraAssist.
“The unemployment rate is currently sitting at 27%.
Manufacturing has a multiplier approach of 5 – 8 times.
This means that for every one person employed, five to
eight people are directly empowered and therefore, social
return vs private return is outweighed by three to one.
This is something that is close to our hearts. As a local
manufacturer of Cobra and Vaal, we have been in South
Africa for 70 years, providing jobs and investing in the
growth and development of our citizens.”
Webb notes that one of the reasons imported plumbing
products are cheaper is the volumes they are able to
August 2020 Volume 26 I Number 06
www.plumbingafrica.co.za