Bordic not shrinking focus on customer service

Bordic, one of South Africa’s longest-standing suppliers of raw materials to the flexible packaging and labelling sectors, has taken bold steps in its continuous focus on adding value and improving service delivery.

AS a key supplier to South Africa’s flexible packaging and label markets, Bordic imports various grades of films from around the globe and supplies them to converters throughout the country, as well as Southern and East Africa.

‘We supply films to suit all applications, whether for wraparound labels, shrink labels, printing or lamination,’ explains sales director, Craig Lloyd. ‘One key to our success has been choosing the correct suppliers to partner with us. We have established and fostered long-term partnerships with global leaders in their respective market sectors for each of our product offerings. Our shrink polyester films are from SKC’s plants in South Korea and China and our shrink PVC film from Bilcare in Germany. Our BOPP is sourced from Argha Karya in Indonesia, while our polyester is supplied by India’s Polyplex,’ says Craig.

He goes on to emphasise that Bordic has always had a strong focus on adding value and service delivery. ‘We strive to put our customers’ needs first and so we offer them several purchasing options – on a direct indent basis or through our holding dedicated stock for them in our warehouses.’

In line with this focus on adding value and responding to numerous requests from key customers, Bordic now offers a Level 4 BBBEE certificate. Craig comments: ‘As we all know, meeting the latest BBBEE regulations is critical to staying at the forefront of business in South Africa. We can honestly say that restructuring Bordic into a value-adding BEE company has benefitted the company in numerous ways.

‘We achieved this certification level by offering equity partnerships to two of our key staff members within the group. Bradley Moodley, who fills the role of financial manager, and John Mahlaba, who has been operations manager for many years, have joined us on a management and ownership level. We strongly believe in growing our own staff and looking after our own people, as opposed to bringing in “outsiders” as figureheads,’ he maintains.

New in-house services

Subsequent to these equity partnerships and working with BEE consultants, we have established a company that can proudly offer customers Level 4 BBBEE certification,’ Craig continues. ‘But we’re not stopping there in terms of value-addition for our customers, many of whom don’t have the capacity to slit the wide-format shrink films to meet their requirements. So instead of continuing to outsource this service – which has put the quality beyond our control and has cost us a lot of time and money – we are creating an in-house slitting operation at our Durban warehouse. The major benefits to our customers are consistently high-quality standards and improved reaction times to their needs.’

Bordic has converted 800m² of its 2 000m² Maydon Wharf film storage facilities into a custom-built insulated room kept at a constant 24°C because shrink films are a sensitive substrate. It will be equipped with a Karlville HS Pro slitter rewinder that can convert films up to 1 600mm wide at speeds up to 500m/min. The machine arrives at the end of January and will be commissioned during the first week of February. Karlville’s local representative, SArepco, is providing operator training and after-sales service and maintenance.

This in-house operation is creating two new jobs, with one experienced operator already appointed. They are being overseen by Carel Venter, who is relocating from the company’s Rosebank (Johannesburg) head office to Durban. ‘We have selected and promoted Carel to slitting manager because he has a strong understanding of the processes and products required,’ Craig explains.

The next step in Bordic’s quest to enhance customer service is the purchase of new trucks and the appointment of two drivers to transport slit rolls to customers. ‘This will allow us to improve control over the delivery process, currently outsourced, and to save on logistics costs,’ Craig concludes.