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Business Editor
WHEN starting a business, often it is just you running the show. Shifting from the status of a solo entrepreneur to managing a team can be challenging.However, in pursuit of his ambition of being a successful entrepreneur, Francis Goreraza had to work his way up starting his journey as a commodity broker in 2002.

A commodity broker is a firm or individual who executes orders to buy or sell commodity contracts on behalf of clients and charges them a commission.

After obtaining sufficient funds, Goreraza opened a canvas and tarpaulins manufacturing company, Power Seven Investments (PSI) in Bulawayo in 2005.

He sought to pursue this trade after realising that there was a market gap in the provision of a wide range of canvas and tarpaulin products. Goreraza had once worked for a firm that produced the same products.

Seven years down the line, the ambitious entrepreneur had to change the trade name of his company to Power Seven Canvas and Industrial (PSC) as its abbreviation was easily mistaken to the one which is used by Population Services International, a global health organisation dedicated to improving the health of people in the developing world.

As part of its strategy to access a wider market in the country, PSC opened another branch in Harare last year, becoming the biggest producer of canvas and tarpaulins products in the country in the wake of the collapse of lint processor, David Whitehead.

The company’s Bulawayo factory which remains among the few vibrant in the city is located on the once-bustling Manchester Road in Belmont Industrial sites.

“At the moment we are doing quite well but let me hasten to say that in 2008 we really felt the pinch of the economic meltdown just like any other business but we managed to weather the storm largely because it was the same time when we started to export mainly hospital tents to Malawi,” said Goreraza.

“As a company that envisages growth we had to open another factory in Harare so that we can grab a bigger market since the market in the southern part of the country which includes Bulawayo was a bit on the down side.”

The company manufactures and repairs a wide range of products for the mining, transport, tourism and manufacturing sectors.

It has invested over $300,000 acquiring machinery for its two factories including its state-of-the-art canvas products manufacturing machine that would arrive in the country from Japan in two months and installed at its Harare plant.

PSC has set sights at spreading its tentacles into Southern Africa and beyond.

“The machinery which we are shipping from Japan will make us one of the biggest players in the Southern Africa Development Community with our capacity utilisation even surpassing our competitors in neighbouring South Africa as we will probably up our production by more than six times.

“We are manufacturing about 200 tents and tarpaulin products a month but upon the arrival of the new machine we will increase to about 500 and hopefully in two years’ time we will be exporting overseas because there is a lot of demand for tents for relief purposes mostly in the war ravaged Middle East region,” Goreraza said.

In 2012 PSC’s life jackets were ISO certified by the Standards Association of Zimbabwe and it is with this vein that the company seeks to have all its export destined products certified.

“We import our raw material from an ISO certified supplier and our objective is to ensure that all our products that are meant for export are certified thus we are forever working towards improving their quality as well as improving the working conditions in our factories,” Goreraza said.

The PSC director said efforts by the government to revive the tourism and mining sector were likely to enhance the company’s business as level of productivity and income generation largely hinges on the improved performance of these two sectors.

“We are very optimistic that improved performance by the tourism and mining sector will bring us more business. We are also fully behind the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation as we are guaranteed of spillovers from its successful implementation,” Goreraza said.

He said the government should continue implementing stringent laws to limit imports, thus protect local industry.

“The government should put stringent goods importation regulations to curb the influx of cheap products into the country especially those that can be readily manufactured by local companies. The influx of imports is one of the factors that have led to the demise of Bulawayo’s industries.

“This city used to be an industrial hub for the whole of Southern Africa but all that is now history and one of the reasons is largely due to the fact that cheap imports are still being allowed into the country and as such de-industrialisation has reared its ugly face in Bulawayo,” lamented Goreraza.

He took a swipe at the country’s financial institutions for derailing the government’s efforts of promoting empowerment and indigenisation through unveiling stringent loan regulations.

“As much as we have the brains to resuscitate industries, the access to capital remains a stumbling block. The banks’ repayment periods are very unrealistic. Imagine being given just six months to remit a loan when it actually takes one about three months to source raw material. When will that person have the opportunity to realise income from the product that they might have produced?” he said.

Although the company is a major player in the tourism sector, it failed to obtain business when the country hosted the United Nations World Tourism Organisation general assembly in Victoria Falls last year as most service providers were struggling due to liquidity shortage.