Having taken hydraulic hose and fittings supplier Genflex from the humblest of beginnings in 1991 to a nine-figure yearly turnover in 2014, Genflex MD and founding member, Bruce Garner, will soon retire.

He notes that the company has come a long way since it was established and that it now boasts an average 30% yearly growth rate, more than 160 permanent staff and 17 Southern Africa outlets.

On October 19, 1991, Garner and Genflex Hydraulics’ cofounding member, director David Michelle, manufactured the first hydraulic hose assembly at the company’s 20 m2 Alberton premises.

The company held no agencies and relied on their competitors for stock. The racks and bins came from scrapyards in the form of old angle iron and rejected paint tins. An initial first month’s turnover of R2 600 had to sustain four people – two of whom were unpaid – as well as rental and associated running costs.

Garner recalls: “With one van between us, we would comb Johannesburg, Richard’s Bay and Durban, sometimes leaving our premises at 02:00 in the morning and not arriving back until after midnight [the following day].

“The customers that we attracted seemed to be the customers who could never pay us. I can honestly say that we lurched from crisis to crisis in the early years of Genflex.”

After much negotiation, Genflex convinced hydraulic pipes manufacturer Gates SA to supply Genflex with hydraulic hoses. When Gates SA closed shop, South African Rubber Manufacturing Company (Sarmcol), in Howick, replaced Gates as Genflex’s supplier. Some fittings were made locally but most of Genflex’s stock requirements were bought from competitors, with a small amount being imported.

“Then, without any notice at all, and with 125 000 m of hydraulic hose outstanding, the Sarmcol hose manufacturing plant in Howick closed down [in 2004]. We heard this on December 13 and, by December 17, we had booked ourselves on a flight to Shanghai, China, to find a source of hydraulic hose supply,” says Michelle, adding that the next few years were a constant battle to get manufacturers in China to improve the quality of their product.

Garner and Michelle continued to visit different Chinese manufacturing plants, which resulted in improvements to the quality of the hydraulic hose being imported.

During its life span and especially over the past ten years, Genflex has expanded, opening branches in strategic areas in all the big South African cities, as well as in Welkom, Vaal, Pinetown and New Germany, which has increased the company’s exposure and resulted in improved sales and profits.

Major contracts similar to those that were previously won in the face of stiff competition from international companies within the mining, automotive and trucking, original- equipment manufacturing, and processing industries, are still being won today.

Michelle says: “Genflex is nearly 23 years old and many new opportunities are presenting themselves to us, enabling us to expand our footprint.”

Garner highlights that Genflex’s story has proved that it is possible to take R50 000 and turn it into many millions of rands in the face of local and international competition.