Plumbing Africa Plumblink's first hundred stores | Page 23

eradicating waste in all its forms within
the distribution centre (DC) – improving
the layout to reduce time and fuel
consumption, whether from a labour or
equipment usage viewpoint. The idea
behind every action was to do more with
less. Shrinkage in the DC, for instance, is
way below the industry average – and less
than the target of 0.025%.” Stealing and
fraud, for instance, is negligible, he says,
in fact it is virtually impossible. Reducing
shrinkage at the DC was facilitated by
introducing a sense of accountability
among DC staff; looking at corporate
governance and ensuring all the controls
were in place.
Efficiencies come in large measure from the
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system
running the DC, a customised Warehouse
Management System (WMS), which
Matsoso describes as ‘absolutely world
class’, and which reduced timelines and
lowered costs within the DC. “The quicker
we can pick stock and load delivery
vehicles, the greater the efficiency. We
thereafter introduced a telematics system
which tracks our delivery vehicles with live
monitoring of all our vehicles journeying to
our branches or to customers.”
One of the biggest changes for staff with
the implementation of the WMS involved
the introduction of a paperless environment,
www.plumblink.co.za
replacing paper with scanners.
Thereafter the focus turned to extracting
synergies from the relationship with
Bidvest, which has within the group. any
number of business divisions able to
assist other divisions. Matsoso explains
that Plumblink was able to use this
network to customise vehicles to the exact
specifications it needed for efficient delivery
of plumbing materials, using Bidvest-
owned Isuzu dealerships.
From supply chain to sales
“From my current sales perspective, this is
all-important from the viewpoint of offering
to the market world class products with a
high level of customer service. My present
role in sales involves a move from supply
chain to having my finger on the pulse of
what is happening economically with the
Inland area, and what opportunities this
presents,” says Matsoso.
While still in the distribution centre,
Matsoso had kept an eye on sales,
participating on the Manco team, for
instance, with a view to the future. “I liked
sales, and when the opportunity arose,
I was granted that opportunity. The job
involves the contracts side of the business
(tendering for government and major
private sector construction projects, as well
as insurance business). This is done via
both an internal and external sales team,
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including sales reps situated in each of the
major provincial capitals – Bloemfontein,
Nelspruit, Polokwane and Rustenburg.
We have a team that is focused entirely
on each of these categories, establishing
relationships, educating them on our
value proposition, dealing with prices and
payments, and in the case of insurance,
handling claims and invoices.
“Our objective right now is to continue
increasing our distribution footprint, and
to increasingly evolve into a plumbing
convenience partner to the industry. We
are growing into new areas as our footprint
grows, and with that we place dedicated
reps there to call on the contracts side
of the business.” While these reps report
to Matsoso, there is a matrix -type
relationship whereby they also assist the
local stores and liaise with them.
Matsoso was part of a project team
established last year to assist the rapid
expansion into new, informal sectors
such as in townships such as Soweto,
Hammanskraal, Soshonguve, for a start.
“We have been analysing trends in these
areas to acclimatise ourselves and assess
whether there is room for growth in
townships. Soweto alone is a R1-billion
economy – so there is considerable
scope. We’d like to quadruple this
business,” he says.