Arguably one of the biggest business stories last year, Sadolin and Kansai Plascon were involved in a bitter war as the two paint companies went throat-to-throat in a highly-publicised stand-off.
The Sadolin brand owned by AkzoNobel was previously manufactured through a licensee agreement with Sadolin Paints East Africa Limited. At the height of the stand-off, AkzoNobel cancelled its license agreement with Sadolin Paints East Africa which was operating as Kansai Plascon.
However, this left AkzoNobel with no manufacturing plants thus virtually no products but only a popular brand name ‘Sadolin’.
About a year later, while speaking at the launch of the fourth ‘Colour Centre’, a supermarket-style Sadolin paint shopping outlet at Jonan Lumum Church House Building, Deon Nieuwoudt, the AkzoNobel Planning and Execution Manager reflected on their gains.
“After the great trouble we got in the market (last year), we have since made steady progress. 95% of our products are locally manufactured with our recently finished plant in Namanve. We are at a good pace. If I look back in a year’s time, we have actually done very well considering the fact that we virtually had no products, we had no plant. Currently we can supply the market with all the products. I am also pleased to announce that we have made progress in terms of expansion of our products. We shall be launching the second phase of our products which we are very proud of”, he stated.
When we inquired about the current state of the economy especially with increasing dollar rate, he did not mince his words.
“We are experiencing a downfall in the market…there is not much money at the moment making it tough for distributors. We had to take severe actions a couple of months ago by retaking stock and replacing with fast-moving ones to make sure we support distributors with cash flow”, he revealed.
The colour centre is a partnership between the company and an individual investor to set up a mall-kind-of set-up with a display and counter from which a client’s preferential colour(s) is automatically mixed and dispensed in real time.
“The concept of the colour center aims to extend Sadolin product to customers through experiential shopping and to give local entrepreneurs the opportunity to expand their business frontiers by being part of the Sadolin chain while tapping into our rich expertise. To us, this is a stride in enhancing our customer care, proximity of the Sadolin product as well as partnerships with local entrepreneurs”, Deon stated.