A grooming platform for black entrepreneurs

The Automotive Incubation Centre at the Silverton assembly plant of the Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa (FMCSA) in Pretoria is more than a production environment for components for Ford. It was also a production line for black entrepreneurs and potential future black industrialists, said Dineshan Moodley, the industry development executive at the Automotive Industry Development Centre (AIDC), which owns and manages the facility. Moodley said the facility was formally opened in February 2011, but admitted that there was then still a lot of apprehension and uncertainty at the time because there was not a lot of clarity about what the programme would entail and if it would achieve what it had set out to do. “So it’s quite a proud moment today, about four years later, to be able to look at some of the first success stories that we can brag about from this project,” he said last week at the graduation of the first incubatee from the centre.

Caiphus Mokotedi owns and manages Zig Enterprise, which has been awarded a tender for Ford’s new vehicle personalisation centre located adjacent to the plant. The facility will give customers of the South African built Ford Ranger the opportunity to equip their vehicles at factory level with a wide range of supplier branded accessories, including wheel nut locks, spare wheel locks, heavy duty seat covers and heavy duty bull bars. Mokotedi said he was privileged to be the first incubatee to graduate from the facility, but also acknowledged that this came with a lot of responsibilities because he had to pave the way for the other companies. He admitted to being inspired by Zig Zilar, who passed away in 2002 and was involved in the automotive industry before becoming a mentor. “During the start-up phase it was not easy, but through his codes and motivation he helped me pull through. I followed in his footsteps and his guidance. Today I’m standing here to say thank you,” Mokotedi said.

Zig Enterprise is currently in negotiation with Ford about other opportunities to use its services. Mokotedi said: “In closing, I will quote Zig Ziglar again: ‘There is no elevator to success. You just have to take the stairs’,” he said. The other incubatees are Kaizen Automotive, Babuthe Automotive Components, Rusticana Investments and Jamsco Automotive Assemblies. Moodley said the incubation programme was designed to have at least five graduating incubatees or small businesses out of the programme every five years and to replenish them with new incubatees and black industrialists into the sector. He said the AIDC, in partnership with the FMCSA, established five companies, which were allocated to five aspiring black-based economic empowerment entrepreneurs who could supply component’s into Ford’s production line. The incubation programme was established by the Gauteng provincial government in conjunction with the AIDC, a subsidiary of the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency.

FMCSA chief executive Jeff Nemeth, who is also president of Ford sub-Saharan Africa, said the incubation centre was the only one of its kind in the Ford Motor Company and it was not something the company normally did. He said one of their incubatees, Jamsco Automotive Assemblies, has had three tier one parents in the past three years, while Kaizen Automotive was also adopted by a new parent. Nemeth stressed it was important for the incubatees to understand what it meant to be part of Ford’s value chain and supply base, which comprised 66 plants worldwide and more than 4 400 suppliers in 60 countries that it was trying to manage. “When I compare the experiences that I’ve had in supply bases – and I have worked with suppliers in China, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan – I would put these five incubatees right up there with any of them as far as their expertise and ability is concerned,” he said. Nemeth added that they actually had six incubatees, because they had put a cafeteria in the incubation centre.

“Every day when I looked out my window across the parking lot at lunch time a whole stream of our employees would walk down the driveway on to the street where there were a bunch of food vendors. So we thought what a great opportunity to bring them inside and give them an opportunity to create a business. Relegbogile Catering was founded from one of our vendors out of the street. “She (Gwendoline Chikane) came in and started a catering business, starting with providing food for this facility. She has now branched out to many facilities beyond this centre. That was an unintended positive consequence that I am very proud of,” he said.