Quality is Hertex’s heartbeat

Cape Town – The Herrmanns don’t go home before each day’s orders are complete. What comes in must be sent out the same day.

Hard work, excellent service and great products are the building blocks of textile wholesaleer Hertex Fabrics.

The enterprise that textile engineer Peter Herrmann started with a business plan and hard work more than two decades ago has become a giant.

The business came second in the open section of the AHI and Santam Business of the Year competition. Businesses with a  turnover of more than R20m qualify for the open section.

When at the time Herrmann told his wife, Coba, that he wanted to have a showroom in every South African city, it was a big dream. Hertex’s first step was a small shop in Epping, which grew to a showroom in Cape Town.

Now, 25 years later, South Africa has no big cities left for his showrooms. Premises in London also serve as access to Europe. Herrmann exports to places like Australia and Dubai, and the first consignment recently arrived from New York. 

Locally Hertex is the industry market leader and has more than half the market share.

Herrmann says they started small and built the business up brick by brick. He saw the gap in the Cape Town market for a greater range of materials than was then available. The company grew slowly but always with its ear to the ground.

From the start Hertex was like one of the family in which Herrmann’s three daughters, Carla Herrmann-Van der Merwe, Pauline Herrmann-Keys and Katrin Herrmann-Van Dyk grew up. They are now respectively operations, human resources and sales director.

The advantage of having a family business is that there is total trust. They have no hidden agenda, says Herrmann-Van der Merwe.

While Coba Herrmann is not directly involved in the business’s management, she recently designed a fabric that is now on the shelves, to her daughters’ great excitement.

We chatted in Hertex’s head office in Durbanville. It’s much more than a mere showroom – it's a  textile, texture, design and colour experience.

It's part of the company’s policy to make a buying experience something special – something people will remember and to which they will return. Twenty-five years on the first client is still one.

Herrmann believes that a client should always have a good buying experience. This applies not only to the products and the prices, but also to the shopping environment.

The watchword for keeping customers is, he reckons, offering good service, quality products, a good buying experience and value for money. No order is too big or too small. Customers must feel that a transaction is good value and that they can trust the company, he says.

One of Hertex’s strong points is a keen sense of quality and fashion. To keep up with global trends it has a specialist buyer who attends all the international textile exhibitions to bring the latest fashions to the shelves for South African customers. Sometimes Hertex is too ahead of the market, says Herrmann-Van Dyk.

According to the daughters, it’s characteristic of their father that he always sees the bigger picture. If they get caught up in immediate operational issues, he always tells them to stand back and plan for the longer term. 

And he’s not afraid of taking chances.

No-one is just behind them any longer, he says. They are too far ahead. 

This confidence in the business comes, says Herrmann-Van der Merwe, from hard work. They never turn business away. Nor do they watch what their competitors are doing. They do what’s best for the business and their customers.

With 25 years’ business experience behind them Herrmann reckons that good cash flow and good staffing are key to any business’s success. 

He wanted to hand the business over to his daughters free of any debt - and has managed that.

It's important to keep your ear to the ground. Hertex is already on Twitter and Facebook.

Future plans are to expand wider into Africa – the Mozambican and Angolan markets, for instance, are beckoning to have their hotels and luxurious properties beautified.

The other objective is total market dominance. The Herrmanns don’t believe that goals are finite – there is always opportunity for more development and growth.

 - Sake24

For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com

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