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MABATI ROLLING MILLS
Revolutionizing Kenya's Roofing Industry
MABATI ROLLING MILLS CEO, MANISH MEHRA ON THE COMPANY'S 60 YEARS OF ROOFING EXCELLENCE
BY ELLY AKOKO
istory of Kenya’s roofing industry cannot be
Hcomplete without the mention of Mabati Rolling Mills. Starting two years of before Kenya gained self-rule, the company has pretty much dominated the industry for the 6 years that it has been in operation. From its humble beginnings in Mariakani, near Mombasa, Kenya, the company has arguably churned more roofing sheets over the years and roofed more homes than any other roofing company in the country. With many companies in Africa hardly living to celebrate their 10th anniversary, CEO Business Africa Magazine was curious about the secret behind the company’s success over the past 60 years. Chief Executive Officer, Manish Mehra had only two things to say: innovation and consumer trust. REVOLUTIONIZING KENYA’S ROOFING INDUSTRY
To help us understand how the company became the giant that it is today, Mehra takes us down the company memory lane, right to when it started. “The founders of MRM and people who have worked here in the past have consistently built relationships with the customers and always sought to enhance the trust which the consumer has in the brand by delivering on the quality,” Mehra says. Delivering on quality requires investment in the right kind of technology and this is one area that MRM has always been a step ahead. “MRM was the first company to bring the ‘aluzinc’ technology more than 20 years ago, and before that, all the sheets were galvanized,” he reveals.
Before this, MRM had launched other technologies in the Kenyan market that were revolutionary at the time. In the sixties, for example, MRM was the first to introduce and use sheet-to-sheet technology in roofing production material. Later in 1982, the company commissioned the Hitachi 4 Hi- Cold Rolling Mill in Mariakani. According to the company, this Cold Rolling Milling was the first of its kind in the region. 7 years later, MRM added aesthetics to roofing with the introduction of color coating technology. A little bit of character was added to homes now, with homeowners given the choice to pick the color that best reflects their personality, feelings, or likings. Apart from the beauty, these coated roofing sheets came with an additional fade-free warranty of up to 15 years.
MRM ushered in the 21st century with a style, becoming the first in Africa to produce the world’s leading patented aluminum-Zinc coated steel, branded as Dumuzas, on painted roofing. According to the company, Dumuzas which offered cooler interiors for homes due to its better heat reflectivity quickly become a market success in Kenya’s coastal region where elevated temperatures are the order of the day. The company has gone ahead to launch other new products in the market including Versatile, a premium, lightweight tile-like roofing sheet that serves as an alternative to the bulky brick tiles that can be a burden to install and maintain. The love for colors also saw MRM commission a new color coating line in 2016, enabling it to produce a variety of colored roofing sheets at world-class standards.
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
Part of the force behind MRM’s success is the unflinching drive of its people. Today the company boasts of a workforce of over 700. Leading a such a huge team is no mean task. Manish says that a leader is as good as his or her team and one has to lead by example, guided by personal values and ethics, which one has to demonstrate to the team members so that they know they can look up to that. The other aspect, according to Manish, is to provide clarity to the team about the goals of the organization and ensuring that everyone understands that they play a part in achieving those goals. “It's an issue of ownership and accountability. In whatever actions they undertake, they are accountable and own them.”
Manish says individual ownership does not mean one does not have back up from his or her superiors. “People
make mistakes but they also need to take risks because in an environment like this, we need innovative solutions to problems and the environment has to be such that people have to feel comfortable,“ he explains. That COVID-19 pandemic disrupted businesses is not news anymore and the CEO tells that not a single person lost his or her job during COVID-19 at MRM and the pandemic enabled people to work differently and learnt new ways of working.
“We did not have a bad period; it was a good period for business. A lot of people went back to their farms or the villages and started constructing houses,” Manish reveals. With heightened demand, MRM needed all hands on deck, a tall order as Covid-19 management guidelines required some level of social distance between employees. “The management was very clear that safety of the people comes first and everything else comes second and the employees stood with us and helped us ride that period and that is why we are here looking forward to the future.”
ALWAYS OPEN TO FAIR COMPETITION
The roofing industry has become more competitive as the years go by, at times eating into MRM’s share. A confident Manish however says that the company which he has been leading for more than a year now is not afraid of competition. In fact, he tells CEO Business Africa Magazine that MRM is always open to fair competition because it makes companies become better in terms of servicing their customers and improving their quality.
What is not correct, according to Mehra, are the counterfeits. Counterfeits, according to the CEO can be of two kinds; one that includes brands passing off as MRM products and the other involving cheap products from overseas which do not give the same quality that the consumer thinks he or she is buying.
“There is a basic element of fraud which comes into
play where the consumer thinks he or she is buying a product that will last for five years or ten years but after two or three years, the product starts failing,” Manish explains.
To mitigate against unfair business practices, Manish says that they are working closely with government agencies such as Kenya Revenue Authority and Kenya Bureau Standards to ensure that standards are implemented in the marketplace. Counterfeiting does not however seem to go away. “It's like a pipe with leaks, you plug one leak hidden somewhere and a leak starts somewhere else, but I think it's a continuous process.”
Manish is however optimistic that a recent move by the government of Kenya to enhance duty on imported coated steel coils from 25% to 35% will have an impact on unfair competition from substandard foreign products. MRM is also launching a campaign that will bring back the debate on quality and it is continuously engaging with different stakeholders to educate the consumers about the right quality. The company has successfully done this campaign in the past with its popular ad back in 2013 reminding consumers that mabati si mabati and that cheap can at times be expensive.
Apart from unfair competition, Mehra points out that high energy prices also need to be addressed as energy contributes a significant chunk of their operational costs. As passing costs to consumers is becoming increasingly difficult due to inflation, MRM is at times forced to absorb the costs which end up eating into its profits. In such a scenario, Manish says it is very important that they look at costs in manufacturing and other elements like transportation costs and they use their logistics more efficiently.
“This is one area where more brainstorming is required with the government and other agencies because we need to explore more ideas on how to make manufacturing more competitive because we cannot just keep passing the prices to the consumer as that will affect the performance of not just our organization but all industries,” Manish adds. Other areas that could be looked at, according to Mehra, are County fees and advertisement fees to the governments which, individually look insignificant but in the end pile up into one huge cost that makes business uncompetitive.
As government intervention can take some time
before realization, MRM under Manish is looking inwards for solutions to enhance manufacturing efficiency and cut production costs. One intervention is solar to address the high power costs. Manish says that they are exploring a solar powered solution for their Mariakani Plant and are in the final stages of negotiations with the service providers. If successful, future plans exist to extend solar to other locations including at the Athi River plant. “The other initiative is how to use waste. We have an efficient waste management systems and waste generated is either disposed of or sold to make bricks.” In an environment where many companies are struggling waste management, MRM is also lucky that its main raw material is steel which is the most recycling recyclable material on the planet. Mehra tells us that 98% of it main input can be recycled. “We are fine in terms of carbon footprints.”
MOVING THE NEEDLE
MRM has built its success on innovation and the company is not about to change. Over the years, it has always anticipated and appropriately aligned itself to meet the ever-changing consumer tastes and preferences on roofing materials. What’s trending in the market according to Manish is a technology that allows for different combinations of metals to produce superiorquality roofing sheets with an even longer life period. This technology is already in use in some developed countries like Japan, Mehra reveals adding that plans are underway to bring in those products when the local market becomes ready.
“The other areas which we are focusing is looking at tie ups with certain companies to bring new technologies, whether in the area of regional buildings, cold rooms,” he adds. “The other part which we are looking at is institutional segment like infrastructure development. Large projects like steel building. We always want to be at the leading edge as far as technology is concerned.”
To take advantage of the expanded market in East Africa community, Manish says that MRM is in the process of making a separate business unit to handle export market. “We are putting a senior manager in charge of that beginning in 2022 in terms of putting a separate focus and structure. We will be looking at the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda and the southern part of the continent; Zambia, Malawi to an extent and even Somalia.” Mehra believes that as these countries recover from their civil wars and other issues, opportunities will open up, and the company will be able to double its export numbers in the next five years. A CUSTOMER CENTRIC COMPANY
For 60 years, MRM has dutifully roofed homes in Kenya with its ever-expanding range of quality roofing solutions. Overtime it has built a reputation of quality and gained the trust of its customers.
As the company charts a new path into the future, Mr. Manish tells us that the primary focus will be on growing this trust even further while of course expanding its share of the increasingly competitive roofing market. “That is going to be the primary objective,” he stresses. Manish has a plan on how to make this a reality. “We have to do this through innovative ways of reaching out to the consumer and putting consumer right at the center of what we are doing,” he says. “So we are embarking on an ambitious plan of customer centricity, realigning our processes to make sure consumers interests are served first.”
Manish believes that more engagement with customers will enable them better understand their needs in terms of roofing sheets. The CEO also sees a future where MRM participates in more areas of the building and construction sector. “What are some of the other solutions that the consumer is looking at? We will explore not only the products and services in these related areas, but also going to some other areas in the building materials sector.” Manish reveals that the company is already some projects beyond roofing and will make suitable investments at the right time. We can only wish MRM the best as it enters its next phase of growth where it seeks to be a much larger organization known for more than just quality roofing material
