RISE UNIFORMS PRODUCES OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOCAL WOMEN

Rise Uniforms turns the global pandemic into a success story for many in Philippi.

Cape Town is among the world’s top garment manufacturing cities with a robust clothing and textile sector. Ntombekaya Nonxuba – affectionately known as Ntombie – pursued her desire to uplift Philippi, an area in Cape Town with an unemployment rate of 38%, by creating jobs through her clothing manufacturing business. In 2007, Ntombie opened shop and began manufacturing superior quality uniforms, corporate wear and complementary garments. In 2010, she formally registered as Rise Uniforms.

Since then Rise Uniforms has seen year-on-year growth, supplying well-known brands such as Pick ‘n Pay,  they’ve increased their operating space from 154m² to 504m² and invested in state-of-the-art machinery. Not losing sight of why she began this journey, Ntombie offers training opportunities to groups of women (and remains a 100% black, woman-owned establishment with a BBEEE Level 1, which currently employs 46 people from the township.

Through the Vuselela programme, funded by the Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT) and the Western Cape Government, interventions are being implemented at Rise Uniforms to help improve; workplace cooperation, production, productivity and overall organisational processes,  quality, safety, employee morale, effective workspace utilisation, and cost optimisations.

We caught up with Ntombie to find out how the continues to achieve success and has turned the pandemic into an opportunity to help more people in her area and the Western Cape.

Tell us a bit more about your business and what it offers? 

Rise Uniforms was founded in 2007 and formally registered in 2010. The company manufactures and supplies corporate wear, workwear and school uniforms as well as protective clothing.

What important role does your company play in Cape Town, and abroad? 

The major role our business plays in Cape Town is job creation for women and youth from the surrounding areas of Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Delft and Mitchells Plain. We chose this area as it is impacted by unemployment and makes it easy for our workers to commute to and from work without any major transport costs.

When considering Cape Town, what factors made you choose to start here? 

The main reason was the fact that Cape Town was, and still is to some extent, regarded as the Clothing and Textile hub. Plus the fact that it is easy to do business in Cape Town due to the advanced infrastructure and the direct access to suppliers and major retail organisations.

What do you enjoy most about operating your business in Cape Town? 

Cape Town offers many opportunities in doing business with both the public and private sectors, whether directly or indirectly, especially with our business playing in the manufacturing space.

Highlights/success stories you can share since starting your business in Cape Town?

2014 – Awarded national contract for staff uniforms by Pick ‘n Pay.

2017 – Received funding for business expansion from the National Empowerment Fund (NEF).

2018 – Awarded national contract for Boxer Superstores.

2020 – Won Western Cape Entrepreneur of The Year and Western Cape Women of The Year awards.

What challenges, if any, have you experienced in setting up your business?

As a small business, getting access to competent staff is a huge challenge. The corporate environment is not easy to crack as it demands years of experience and a solid reputation to supply on a national level. Other challenges we met, like getting access to public sector procurement opportunities and South African labour laws and tax implications, hindered the growth and success of a small business like ours.

What challenges, have you experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic and in what ways are you planning to help alleviate those challenges?

We experience reduced revenue on our corporate uniform and retail sales and had trouble accessing raw material suppliers as most companies were not operational. We also had issues with the transportation of our goods from Cape Town to other regions. Getting our products tested and getting access to accreditation organisations to assist us, as per the requirements to supply medical PPE (personal protective equipment), was not easy. We needed to move fast and it made it difficult for us to access the market, especially when we were competing with cheap imports and locally-produced goods from non-compliant suppliers.

How has your business plan changed in response to Covid-19? 

It became clear to me and my team that it was not business as usual and we needed to do something. We used the opportunity of the lockdown to change our business focus as we could not proceed with our year plan as it was. We had to innovate for the survival of our business and we decided that we could be a solution to the country’s access to capacity. We’ve aligned our business with the current needs of the country by identifying opportunities presented by the pandemic. It seemed like an obvious decision to make use of our equipment and produce disposable PPE’s. They were in high demand and the response was overwhelming as we were one of the few companies in operation.

What health and safety protocols has your business put in place for customers and staff?

It was imperative to us as a business that we follow the health and safety protocols set out by government. We quickly familiarised ourselves with the Covid-19 safety procedures. The first thing we did was ask our older staff members, over 45 years-old, to stay at home for the duration of level 5 and 4. We operated at 50% capacity to accommodate social distancing and immediately issued all staff members with cloth masks and encouraged them to take more masks home to their family members. We also assisted our immediate community by distributing cloth masks twice a week to people who were queuing at the ATM for grant payments nearby.

Education was very important to us and we had information sessions with staff members whenever there were Covid-19 updates and we printed and distributed pamphlets too.

When it came to ensuring staff safety at the factory we took temperatures on arrival, sanitised when coming in, during every interval, while working and when leaving.

What have you got planned for the future of your business? 

We have invested in a PPE manufacturing plant which caters for a variety of PPE products, from 3-ply masks, coveralls and gowns. We would like to strengthen this business as it has the potential to create many more much-needed jobs for the country. What makes it interesting for us is the fact that the raw material is 100% local, giving support to our local procurement means we can create and sustain more people in the Western Cape and introduce more health compliant products. So far it has been difficult to get our 3-ply masks to the market due to the cheaper imports, therefore our aim is to keep manufacturing PPE.

If you’re looking to start your own business, consider Cape Town, the number one metropolitan municipality in South Africa for Ease of Doing Business.

This was pulled from their website, they did not expand on it and it was just stated as groups of women (co-ops) – “The owner also offers training opportunities to groups of women (co-ops).”