COLLIES GROUP: Historic Collies Focused on Future Growth
The Collies Group has overhauled the building blocks behind its growth, searching for a new period of sustainable expansion. Importantly, the culture in the business remains robust, and this is where MD Roland Hansen draws strength. He tells Enterprise Africa more about developments underway for this exciting manufacturing expert.
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Your brand is sometimes referred to as what people say about you when you’re not in the room. It’s an identity, a culture, an ethos, and a philosophy all rolled into one. Creating a strong brand is one of the hardest things for a business to achieve. It involves history, ambition, design, expertise, and so much more. Importantly, your brand allows customers to connect with your business on a different level, relating to a shared ideal, going beyond just the products or services you sell them.
Understanding this challenge, South Africa’s Collies Group plugs into the branding realm by manufacturing corporate clothing and branded uniforms. Proof of ability has been evidenced over the past three decades as Collies has picked up a number of Southern Africa’s largest companies as clients.
“Collies is a group of businesses that operate in different segments of the clothing market in South Africa,” opens MD Roland Hansen.
A corporate uniforms division is bolstered by school wear, hospitality, and fashion offerings as well as a blossoming wholesale operation.
Clients include major national and international retailers such as SPAR, the Walmart companies, Nando’s, and several large financial institutions.
Without Collies input, thousands of employees across South Africa would not be a part of a company mission; they would not be associated with a brand, and they would not represent the values of a company. The uniform offers up professionalism, shared identity, and family. It’s a source of pride, and Collies understands its role in developing this with each garment that leaves its facilities.
The group is made up of Collies Clothing, Colbar Clothing, Hloba Clothing, Morewood Clothing, and Rolando. Through each division, there is a concentration on ensuring the fabric of a particular brand is stitched into product. “Most of the product we do is bespoke, and we will design and manufacture based on a specific corporate identity,” Hansen impresses. “In men’s fashion, we work with a number of brands and retailers who distribute through their own channels.”
INTERNAL REFLECTION
Established in 1986 by Hansen’s father, Colin, Collies remains a family business today. Moving into corporate wear in 1992, the company boomed over the next decade as South African business thrived with an open and free economic backdrop.
But recent years have been a drastically different picture from the years of consistent growth when the country was the gateway to Africa for the world. Now, slow investor confidence and weak economic performance are fuelled by a number of macroeconomic issues. For Hansen, the pandemic, the 2021 KZN riots, and the 2022 floods that devastated the region are the latest pulls in a difficult time.
“It has been a challenging period globally. Covid impacted us quite a bit as people had to work from home and they didn’t need uniforms. We had to change tact and we started manufacturing PPE to help wherever we could. We are in KZN and we had riots which impacted the business. We then had floods and that added to a very challenging period.”
But during the challenging times, Collies regrouped, reassessed and re-established the foundations behind its success. In 2020, Hansen took the reins as MD and was keen on a rebrand and a re-strategisation. Using the group’s strength in existing markets, Hansen would focus on creating a culture of excellence to grow across new industries. He communicated with the entire team and ensured senior managers were bought into the vision of a business built around respect, honesty, and integrity.
“We have come up with the concept of the Collies Group Tribe – and what does it mean to be a member of that tribe,” says Hansen, who has been in the business for 23 years.
“My focus has been on empowering our staff, mentoring them, and allowing them to thrive in the specific area of responsibility. I want to support them as they grow rather that dictate to them how they should work. I am enjoying it and people are responding very well when given the opportunity to shine.
“Our focus is very much on our people,” he adds. “We believe if we get the right people in place and get them doing the right things, then the business will take care of itself. Our internal strategy works with the metaphor of the business being like a bus. We have been working towards changing what our bus looks like – looking at the people who are on the bus, rebranding, and seeing how it moves. If we get everything right, we think it will move forward fast. We are now shifting from an internal strategy to an external perspective – how do we expand in the market and win new business.”
To date, this approach has proved successful with a number of tenders for previous contracts retaken and many new customers coming to the company with new requests for innovation.
“We have put a big fresh emphasis on corporate governance, reestablishing the building blocks of growth as the global economy picks up again. We certainly see a lot of green shoots starting to reappear and we believe the market is turning, which is positive,” says Hansen.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Through its history, Collies has been a frontrunner in originality, with a strong focus on quality and excellent service. When it comes to the look and the function of products, there has always been a flexible approach from the team as they look to act as an extension of client’s businesses, delivering exactly what is required. It’s this approach that led to the development of the Collies Group statement, ‘We take direction [from our clients] to lead the way [in what we do]’.
Through 2023 and 2024, the group has been busy with several new developments, across all divisions, with the aim of capitalising on every opportunity.
“We are finding that post Covid, people are coming back to work and people are asking their employers for something fresh after wearing the same things for a number of years,” says Hansen. “There is a lot of design work going on at the moment, and the banks that we serve are approving their final ranges which we will launch soon.
“We have launched a new chef-wear range this year. That is something we never had in the past and that is starting to gain traction in the market, certainly in the hospitality space where we are doing more business with hotels.
“We have been working extensively on product development,” he adds. “Going back 15 years, corporate wear was very traditional, but we are seeing a massive shift with people wanting to be more fashionable and they want more choice in terms of the wardrobe they have. We have been bringing the fashion part of our business more in the corporate space to change that. That has been exciting to contribute to moving the market in a different direction.”
The Rolando division sells into the wholesale market and has been popular for many years under the name Colmart. The rebrand to Rolando was launched as Collies sponsored the Hillcrest Marathon, with models sporting various new pieces at the finish line. This type of marketing has helped to bring traction to the brand.
“It’s all about reimaging in the market to build marketing around that product,” says Hansen of the division that bears his name. “We see massive growth in the wholesale division, and we are well set to gain more market share against the two larger players in the country.”
BIG PROJECTS
Behind the scenes, to support future growth plans, multiple projects have just been completed to ensure seamless operations. A new ERP system is in the process of being rolled out to integrate finances, marketing, HR, and production. The company has also renovated its office building to offer a more exciting and positive atmosphere for staff.
At the same time, energy efficiency has been in the spotlight and a number of upgrades have been put in place to improve consumption figures and reduce reliance on the municipal resources.
“All of our sites have generators,” says Hansen, and the company is looking at solar at the moment. “We don’t believe we would be able to provide power to take our factory totally off grid, but we certainly could help smooth our requirements.”
New types of lighting, LED bulbs, and other improvements have resulted in a 25% reduction in overall power usage.
At the manufacturing facility in Tongaat, a new borehole has been installed following floods which ruined regional water infrastructure. Now, the company has no requirement for municipal water and has even been able to support the local community with emergency supplies. “You always have to adapt and change,” says Hansen.
All of this work will fuel the growth of the business, allowing for it to continue doing what it has done so well for so long – assisting clients in the creation and maintenance of a brand, nurturing a culture, and building a family.
“We would like to cement ourselves in the corporate wear space,” confirms Hansen. “We have noticed that, especially with banking clients, we are pioneers in the way that we service them. But you can only be a pioneer for so long before people start to copy you so from a product perspective we will be exploring different directions.
“I think there is a lot of opportunity in the hospitality industry for us to grow and we would like to become one of the stronger suppliers over the next five years.
“We are finding that a lot of corporates that we deal with here in SA are expanding their operations into Africa and that is where a lot of our continental growth comes from. We haven’t actively been going out and trying to get business in those markets but it is certainly growing for us,” he concludes.
Even through challenges, business continues to come together nicely for Collies. All industries, all customers, and – importantly – all employees are delighted with the success of the group. With the new foundations in place to support a new phase of growth, the future looks extremely bright for this historic South African manufacturer.