MASSLIFT AFRICA: Three Decades of Strong Growth for Africa’s Forklift Specialist

For three decades, Masslift Africa has been a powerful force, underpinning the performance of client business, elevating employees, raising the communities in which it operates, and improving itself year-on-year.

A company known for ultimate customer service and premier satisfaction, Masslift is the sole distributor of Mitsubishi forklifts in sub-Saharan Africa. Also responsible for the local distribution of Carer, the company boasts a formidable footprint and aftermarket offering.

Masslift is built on exceptional products from a world-class brand combined with unrivalled understanding and interaction with clients, and a level of community engagement that others can only dream of.

According to CFO, Thembi Mazibuko, Masslift saw in 30 years with a celebratory day of golf and a dinner where suppliers, clients, partners, and employees came together to pay tribute to a successful brand, with proceeds from the day donated to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital.

“It is an amazing milestone for the business,” she says. “Our donation was part of Mandela month activity – it was great and very well received; so much so that our suppliers matched our donation.”

Masslift handed over a cheque for R120,000 in August 2022, with Dr Stanley Maphosa, Interim CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, commenting: “We are truly grateful to companies like Masslift who are throwing their immense weight behind our cause.”

This success has all been made possible by the company’s intense client-centric focus, which CEO Marco Caverni puts down to Masslift’s employees.

“I believe we are now at the point where the majority of our people care about the company and it is more than just a job,” he says. “When you get that, you build the right infrastructure, and you treat people in the right way, you gain goodwill which translates into efficiency and productivity. We’ve seen an improved level of service and an improved level of profitability.”

PROUD

Attracting a number of new clients over the past two years, Masslift has continued to grow and thrive while others have struggled in tough economic conditions. Commercial property in South Africa is expected to grow as an industry by 5% to 2027. The rollout of new distribution centres and warehouses continues unabated as retailers look to meet the demands of a booming digital commerce economy. With Mitsubishi leading the world in design and features for its forklifts, Masslift has a solution to a problem.

“The growth is there, and it is happening organically through us following good business practices and strategy. The key now is to ensure we make our infrastructure and foundation as strong as possible by upskilling our people and ensuring our footprint is robust,” says Caverni referring to regional coverage across all of South Africa and into Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

“We have upgraded our staff count by 25% in the past 18 months – most are cutting down and retrenching but we are growing at a rapid speed. From a product perspective, we don’t have any major plans to expand as we are busy getting on top of what we have right now. When that settles, we can then go and look for additional products that can fit seamlessly into our infrastructure and complement our current brands,” he adds.

Through the lockdown periods, Masslift lasered in on customer satisfaction, when surety was required above all.

“We have moved from strength to strength,” confirms Mazibuko. “Our bottom line has grown by more than 60% and that is amazing. Our top line has also grown by more than 50%, and that speaks to how we have improved our infrastructure to better serve our customers – we are reaping those rewards and seeing good returns.”

In February, the company achieved its Level 1 BBBEE rating and this provide customers with scorecard boosts. Currently 71% black-owned, clients receive substantial points in the procurement spend when working with Masslift. The company has also opened up its BBBEE consultants to suppliers in order to assist them in their own transformational journey. This success resulted in recognition for Masslift.

“We were recognised as a top empowerment company at the Topco Media Empowerment conference, winning the Customer Focus category, up against many blue-chip financial service companies,” highlights Mazibuko. “That was a great win as we are small compared to the others. We were recognised for being customer-centric and that is a good thing and a pat on the back for us as we strive to offer the best service in the business. For an external party to recognise that, we were delighted. It was all based on how we measure our customer interactions and they felt that we had a comprehensive approach, focussing on customer voice compared to others in the running.”

Perhaps a driver of this is the company’s internal focus on people development. Not only recruiting the best people, but upskilling existing staff is high on the agenda at Masslift. In April, the company was accredited by MerSETA – the Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector Education and Training Authority – to run a learnership scheme.

“That has opened up our apprenticeship programme, enabling us to have a higher intake. We had our first intakes in Cape Town and Durban, and we are working towards further accreditation to allow us to roll out driver training and provide a turnkey solution when it comes to getting forklift operators licensed,” says COO Shaun Collins.

Beyond creating opportunity, Masslift is also concentrating on sustainability. Modern HR practices, and a genuine care for those that carry the brand has helped to drive performance.

“We have had a huge focus within the business around mental health and what we do for our staff to improve that. Things like a councillor on call for any staff member or any immediate family member, free to all staff. We have a mental health app which helps on numerous different fronts in terms of helping people to reduce anxiety,” says Caverni.

The result of all of this? The company is already ahead of its own growth expectations. “In fact,” says Caverni, “I would say that 80% of our problems have been caused by trying to keep up with infrastructure development and growth that we have seen over the past 18-months. Right now, it’s all hands on deck to ensure we offer the service that we promised to our customers when we did deals with them. It’s infrastructure building, footprint building, making sure we upskill and train our staff, upgrading our accounting system, updating our entire performance management programme – it’s everything.”

CHALLENGES

Keeping a company moving forward through a pandemic and economic slowdown is heavy work, and there have been challenges. Supply chain issues and transport costs have been the major stresses for Masslift.

“From our factory, our lead times have moved from the beginning of 2020 where were at 12 weeks EX Works. That is now six to seven months, with some things taking a full year. We recently ordered some stock which will only arrive next September – that makes things very difficult for us to plan accordingly. There has been huge disruption, and it is ongoing everywhere,” admits Caverni.

To combat the situation, the company has increased its stock holding which brings its own challenges for Mazibuko from a cost management perspective.

“Transport costs have escalated – freight from overseas and local transport, with the price of fuel, has added to the cost of how we markup and sell. There are now fuel surcharges that the ports levy on containers that arrive in the country. It is about keeping the cost base as low as possible in terms of the add-on cost around what is already quite expensive because of the exchange rate. It has been a juggling act trying to manage our stock holding and the cost that comes with that while managing the margins we are making.”

Collins explains how Masslift’s partnership mantra was again vital in mitigating against challenges in the supply chain.

“We had to bolster our stock to meet increased demand from our customers, but we also had to mitigate against a shortage of parts from a supplier point of view. We bolstered our stock holding by 20% in a lot of areas and we also looked at strategizing with our principals, Mitsubishi, around where the shortcomings were and what we needed to do to avoid those challenges. We split our orders and had more regular deliveries in smaller containers, and we had parts arriving more consistently – that has helped us a lot.

“Our stock holding also increased in the regions by a strong percentage to curb the logistics structures when it comes to getting parts from Johannesburg to our branches in Cape Town, Durban, Gqeberha and Mbombela. Our synergy with Mitsubishi has allowed us to mitigate against major upheaval but there have been challenges, without doubt.”

Going forward, the material handling industry that Masslift serves so effectively is expected to be disrupted. New fuel challenges, new pricing models, new brands, cost challenges, and changing market dynamics will undoubtedly create uncertainty, but Masslift – through its intense efforts around service delivery – will guide clients towards sustainable outcomes. Using everything learned over the demanding past two years, the team is well-placed to advise effectively.

“We now have a benchmark and we have set the expectation levels, and they are rising each year. Our goal is now to maintain,” concludes Caverni.