National Flag and Branding ‘gives wings to the biggest brands in the world’ and for the next five years this innovative organisation is planning a major growth strategy in Africa. This is a company that is truly flying the South African flag high!
Founded in 1982 as a simple flag making company in Johannesburg, NF Branding (previously National Flag) has come a long way in the past 33 years. Today the company is the industry leader in below-the-line branding and caters for customers all over the African continent. NF Branding has been involved with some of the biggest events in Africa and now has some of the best technology, facilities and a skilled team. The company is about to launch a huge drive into a new geographical market and branch out into the global landscape. Sales and Marketing Director, Aydonne Samuels believes that NF Branding has a great advantage over its competitors.
“Our focus has always been to be dominant on the African continent – this is our home and we wanted to make sure we cemented our business relationships here. We’re currently the market leader in Africa for below-the-line fabric products and in the next five years we would like to be a serious player internationally” says Samuels.
AGGRESSIVE EXPANSION
NF Branding is at the summit of the printing and branding industry in South Africa. Acting as the manufacturer and supplier of branding material for many important clients, the company offers complete coverage of the value chain, making life very easy for the end user. Branding materials are produced at factories in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth then transported and installed by a national service team. At the production factories, the company boasts some of the best equipment available as Samuels explains.
“We can now print direct to fabric. Currently in the market there is direct to fabric printing but the colour isn’t great. We can print direct to fabric up to 3.2m wide without a stitch line at brilliant quality and with brilliant colour-fastness and speed, this means better quality and turn-around time with the highest quality at competitive prices.”
Because of the success the company has seen in the local market, expansion across the border into the rest of Africa was inevitable. Today the target is not just to grow in a few African nations but to provide services in all of the 54 nations.
“Our focus for the next five years is to be present throughout Africa. Our strategy is not just to offer quality products but a holistic branding experience. Most importantly, we want to make ourselves accessible in all of the markets that we compete in,” says Samuels.
“We aspire to be seen as a complete international organisation that is serving the world and not just Africa. Because of our large operations we can afford the technology that others within the industry cannot which serves as a competitive advantage for us. We offer the largest infrastructure in the industry backed by a world-class sales and production team.”
NF Branding will also be looking at unlocking other key markets that have the potential for growth and with seven of the world’s fastest growing economies situated in Africa, Samuels identifies other areas of interest for the company.
“We will be looking at the Francophone countries in Africa in the next couple of years where we feel there is still much opportunity for growth. There are issues with the language barrier but these markets are very buoyant and we feel we should be investing more here,” he says.
Recently, NF Branding started a new division of its business, NF Support, focussing on an area of the market that has so far been neglected.
This new division looks to offer further solutions in below-the-line branding, bringing more products and services under one umbrella which makes life easier for customers.
“For instance, there’s a few dealers out there that have small printing machines to do their own printing so we’ve thus found that there is a gap in the market for supplying the hardware. This means the rods, the aluminium, and the steel products that go with the product.
“We exclusively manufacture these products in South Africa. Traditionally, these products would come from Asia which meant longer lead times. NF Support is an exciting division and has done very well in the market. It is certainly a division that we see a lot of potential in and will be much more prevalent in Africa in the coming years,” explains the Sales and Marketing Director.
A UNIQUE APPROACH
Today, NF Branding has a huge range of products to suit any customer requirement. Products include a full range of flags, banners, point of sale products, signage and display systems.
“We specialise in large events, mostly international sporting events. We were involved in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and subsequently all the large international sporting events including AFCON, CHAN, political rallies on the continent, and our organisation is also geared up to service a small shop that wants a single banner – we cover the whole range,” says Samuels.
“The differentiation factor in our organisation is that we own the complete value chain, from production, storage and activation of branding materials, and also our presence on the African continent.”
After the success of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the company’s capabilities were demonstrated for all to see and this has been a huge help when securing new contracts. With many high-profile sporting events on the horizon; including the 2022 Commonwealth games in Durban, the 2016 CHAN in Rwanda and the 2017 AFCON in Gabon; there is much opportunity for NF Branding in markets that it knows well. The company has secured the rights to supply the branding elements for the 2016 CHAN in Rwanda.
“We are talking to a few governments regarding international events. We do branding in stadiums and we also specialise in is the city-beautification in airports and along protocol routes to the stadiums and this has set us apart from what’s currently available in Africa,” explains Samuels.
“The 2010 World Cup helped us a lot as the rest of the African nations saw the capabilities of South Africa and that was a great expose for us, opening up many doors. We have found that many of the African nations would rather come and source these services from SA rather than Europe where they have gone in the past.”
In addition to the below-the-line branding products that the company is renowned for, NF Branding is also going to be launching new products to complement its already impressive portfolio.
“In 2016, our product offering will extend,” says Samuels. “We’re looking for products that have synergy with our existing portfolio. We’ve also invested in our IT infrastructure in SA and we will now offer all customers an enterprise system that gives them access to all their orders in our factory and gives them live tracking of those orders so they don’t have to phone the factory; they can just log on and track their orders live on the assembly line This allows us to be as efficient and customer focused as possible.”
NF Branding’s main outlet is through a dealer network. This dealer network was vastly expanded through Africa and South Africa in 2015 and this has been of huge benefit to all parties involved. The company runs the ‘Formal Dealer Program’ which allows dealers to grow and take on regional markets successfully.
“It also qualifies dealers for discounts to make business that little bit easier. We prefer a B2B model, mainly targeting dealers as opposed to end-users allowing us to sell at a dealer price rather than retail price.
“We have gold dealers, platinum dealers and exclusive dealers. This gives our dealers an opportunity to grow with us and eventually become the exclusive dealer of our products in a certain territory,” he adds.
AN AFRICAN SUCCESS
NF Branding has forged its own path on the continent and through innovation, investment and a customer-centric approach to business, the company has managed to become extremely successful.
Even with the planned growth internationally, NF Branding will not be neglecting its traditional market place – which has provided excellent returns over the past three decades.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve always recorded annual growth and the past year has been a very good year as our strategic approach was to focus on exports and to further cement our relationships in Africa and that’s gone well for us,” says Samuels.
“Product-wise, we have secured the latest technology in direct fabric printing which is currently still exclusive to our factory in Africa so the quality of our fabric printing is certainly still the best in the industry and we are also very competitive on price with these products. Market-wise, we’ve been very aggressive in opening the African markets and recently we’ve built a very strong position in markets from Nigeria to Zambia.
“In below-the-line fabric branding products, South Africa is certainly an international leader. However, the local companies are all looking outside of South Africa for opportunities but they don’t all have the skill-base to implement their strategies. We feel that the industry is buoyant, there is consolidation in the local market and we will be looking at further consolidating our market share in South Africa but certainly remaining very present in exports.
“The growth will come from exports as the local economy is in a bit of a slowdown but there are still growth opportunities with SA, however we are looking forward to the exciting export opportunities currently at hand,” he adds.
The last few months of 2015 and the next two years will be hugely significant for this South African success story. If the company can maintain its strength in the African markets, while growing into those where it does not already have a major presence, and also make a noteworthy impact internationally, then NF Branding could realize its vision of being a complete international organisation that owns and operates a complete value chain.