Discover how three female South African entrepreneurs have thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic. By pivoting, creating new products and expanding operations, a caterer, traditional healer and butcher have endured through adversity.
I believe that you need to introduce yourself to the market because it won't just come to you. There is no reason to be ashamed of your hustle.
Facts:
- According to NIDS-CRAM, of the three million jobs lost in Q1 and Q2 in 2020 in South Africa, two million were held by women.
- Government resources such as unemployment funding and business relief have been particularly hard to access for women in informal employment, as found by NIDS-CRAM.
- By May 2020, South Africa accounted for 30% of Africa’s COVID-19 tests, although it has less than 5% of the population.
The nice thing about being a small company is we can adapt very quickly. Every time the rules changed we could adjust accordingly.
What I've learnt from my business is that you have to keep adapting, you can't get too comfortable, and you can't predict anything now.
ike many nations around the world, in March 2020 the government of South Africa introduced a hard lockdown in an attempt to control the COVID-19 outbreak. This involved shutting down all businesses that were not essential services, closing the borders except for repatriation and banning the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in supermarkets. Initially announced as a 21-day measure, the lockdown was extended several times and restrictions at various levels were in effect through 2020.
The prolonged lockdown had an adverse effect on an economy already struggling with high unemployment. Statistics South Africa reports that unemployment increased from 25.16% in 2015 to 28.48% in 2020. Without customers or access to financial aid, many businesses closed permanently during the lockdown. Women were disproportionately affected, with the National Income Dynamics Study Coronavirus Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) reporting that of the three million jobs lost, two million were held by women.
But even in such difficult times, some entrepreneurs not only survived but thrived. Through a combination of agile thinking and resilience, three women expanded their businesses.
Preparing for change
Viki Mangaiso is based in Langa, Cape Town. Nomzamo Butchery was started by her mother in 1978 and Viki took over when her mother passed away in 2003. When the state of emergency was announced, Viki reached out to friends and family in England, where the virus was already having an impact, to ask how they were coping with daily life. She also immediately applied for a permit to trade as an essential service.
“I had a strong feeling that I am an essential service, so I got myself ready,” she says. “I realized that with all my customers being confined to this location, they were not going to be able to go to the malls outside where they used to go to. With their movements restricted, I was going to be center stage for them and I had to be ready for that.”
In the days before the lockdown, officials from Western Cape Province Health Department gave Viki’s premises a brief visit to educate her on quarantine best behavior, what cleaning agents are effective and how and when to sanitize. She says that they left an information package and some posters and directed Viki to their website if she had follow-up questions.
While Nomzamo Butchery is a well-established business with a long legacy, it is also a small one, meaning it was able to be agile. “The nice thing about being a small company is we can adapt very quickly. Every time the rules changed we could adjust accordingly,” Viki says.
Pivoting to online
Not far away, another entrepreneurial woman was making her own preparations. Gogo Magosha is a traditional healer based in Cape Town. Since 2012, she has provided dream interpretation, cleansing ceremonies and communing with ancestors. When COVID-19 became a risk, she decided not to have clients visit in person, not only because of the lockdown regulations but because she lives with people at elevated risk.
She started thinking about how she could continue providing services while adhering to the new laws. The easy win was online consultations via Skype, FaceTime and WhatsApp. She explains that healing is about energy and for certain practices she does not have to be with the person. If Gogo needs to throw bones to divine the wishes of the ancestors, that can be done through a video call. She also prescribes remedies for physical and psychic ailments, which the clients can pick up without contact or have mailed to them.
“Of course tradition and culture is important,” she says. “But I have discovered through my practice that your intentions and the effort that you put into it matter wherever you are. So I modified that form of healing to be accessible digitally.”
Rethinking the business model
Ncumisa Mkabile is an entrepreneur in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. In 2019, she started a catering company that supplied food for weddings, baby showers and traditional ceremonies. With large gatherings banned, Ncumisa knew that her company would go out of business during lockdown.
Her first thought was to sell chickens door-to-door. She quickly and easily obtained a permit to do so because her business was already registered at the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, an agency of the Department of Trade and Industry in South Africa. Once she got underway, Ncumisa soon realized there was a healthy market for deliveries and expanded to supplying other vendors. She also started growing spinach to sell, despite having no prior knowledge of farming. “I gathered all the information from the internet. Everything I knew about my first harvest I learned online,” she says.
I believe that you need to introduce yourself to the market because it won't just come to you. There is no reason to be ashamed of your hustle.
Doing business in uncertain times
As the year passed, the lockdown was extended several times. Levels were adjusted, sometimes going back to more stringent rules because of an increase in positive cases. The uncertainty forced business owners to constantly think on their feet.
Viki says that there was a steep learning curve in enforcing staff members to use the new hygiene protocols. This included daily temperature checks, wearing masks and regular sanitizing. She made sure to have one-on-one conversations with them to make sure they understood the protocols and to monitor their health.
“As I spoke to them, some things did come up,” she says. “It was quite nerve-racking, especially in the beginning when I assumed the worst. Sometimes it turns out someone has sinusitis and their nose is blocked. Or one who normally doesn't drink has been drinking and today the evidence is in their red eyes.”
She also checked in with staff members about how they were interacting with their families and how they were socializing. Langa is home to around 52,000 people, and there’s no such thing as private space here. Many people live with extended families in small houses, others live in informal settlements without indoor running water.
In this context, the emphasis had to be on looking after each other. Viki organized carpooling to avoid staff members using crowded public transport and also provided nutritious meals at work. She laughs when recalling how hard it was initially to enforce the new rules. “I resorted to walking around with signs because I was tired of talking,” she says. “I had a sign that said ‘put your mask on’ that I regularly paraded through the business for both staff and clients to see.”
Facts:
- According to NIDS-CRAM, of the three million jobs lost in Q1 and Q2 in 2020 in South Africa, two million were held by women.
- Government resources such as unemployment funding and business relief have been particularly hard to access for women in informal employment, as found by NIDS-CRAM.
- By May 2020, South Africa accounted for 30% of Africa’s COVID-19 tests, although it has less than 5% of the population.
Sowing new seeds
Ncumisa was contemplating how to grow the spinach-growing aspect of her business into something bigger. Knowing how much social media had helped her catering business, she decided to leverage the power of the internet.
In July 2020, she made a Facebook post announcing her spinach crop was ready and encouraging customers to take advantage of her reasonable prices. It proved a savvy move, leading to her selling 1,000 bunches of spinach in a day. And it wasn’t beginner’s luck – as word of her harvest spread, demand increased to the point where she was supplying the largest supermarket in the area as well as street vendors.
Ncumisa eventually needed more space than the three hectares she originally planted. She moved to Eastern Cape, where it was easier for her to lease land, and expanded operations. In November 2020, she won the Against All Odds award at the community StarQt Awards, and has since been profiled in local media. “I believe that you need to introduce yourself to the market because it won't just come to you. There is no reason to be ashamed of your hustle,” she says. “My dream is to be a commercial farmer, so this is the perfect opportunity for me to expand and learn from other farmers.”
The nice thing about being a small company is we can adapt very quickly. Every time the rules changed we could adjust accordingly.
Rethinking existing products
Gogo Magosha used her time to develop new products. One of her clients lives in a residence that does not allow candles or any flammable objects but she needed to burn imphepho (Helichrysum petiolare, a plant that is considered sacred and is often burned as part of traditional healing practices). “It felt like someone was whispering ingredients to me, which is how I ended up making an imphepho spray,” Gogo says. “It was born out of necessity.”
Throughout the lockdowns, Gogo Magosha has retained all her clients and also noticed an uptick in interest in her services. “I have found that certain people are actively interested,” she says. “They want to come home to the more traditional parts of them but they found it difficult because before this nobody had the time to take a week off from work to do this.”
What I've learnt from my business is that you have to keep adapting, you can't get too comfortable, and you can't predict anything now.
Expanding to new premises
To cope with the limited numbers of people allowed in the butchery, Viki acquired another store a short distance away. “The initial thought was to social distance by moving production to that side,” she says. “Then it made better sense to make that our value-chain shop.”
Fuelled by an increased demand for fresh affordable meat, the second butchery sells chicken hearts, intestines, trotters and pork heads. “We never used to sell those kinds of items but there's obviously a demand for it,” Viki says. “The community responded well to the convenience and price point and it’s gone from strength to strength.” She notes that even when the lockdown restrictions were eased and people could shop further afield, she retained customers and also attracted some from outside the area.
With the lockdown extended indefinitely as the pandemic persists, Gogo, Ncumisa and Viki are working hard to continue trading in an unpredictable business environment. Based on how they’ve navigated the challenges so far, the odds are they’ll prevail. Operating any business carries some amount of risk but those willing to learn and adapt are more likely to survive.
“What I've learnt from my business is that you have to keep adapting, you can't get too comfortable, and you can't predict anything now,” Viki says.
