When Edwards and Van Wyk set the company up, they identified an opportunity in clothing and related products. As everyone knows, fashion is a fickle business and rapid response is essential for retailers and design houses. “The manufacturers actually act as design houses,” says Edwards. “They ship the production work out to CMT (cut, make and trim) operations, who deliver back to the design houses. From the start, we focused on that transport space.” Prime Invest was in very much the right place at the right time, with a strategy that harmonised with the clothing sector’s development. “Edcon, the retailer, decided to outsource their distribution centre and delivery work in the Western Cape in 1998; we tendered for the contract and got it.” That win effectively doubled the company’s size. At the time it had six trucks, it acquired six more from Edcon with the contract and proceeded from there, region by region and state by state. “They outsourced the Free State at the time we were looking to expand, and we got that contract, too. Then we got northern KwaZulu Natal; then the
222 Transport & logistics