Doves’ investment starts to pay dividends

17 Dec, 2017 - 01:12 0 Views
Doves’ investment starts to pay dividends

The Sunday News

Doves

Allan Foti, Business Correspondent
THE country’s oldest and one of the leading funeral service providers, Doves Holdings has started realising benefits from the $2 million investment it poured towards the construction of a state-of-the-art parlour in Beitbridge through increased uptake of its services and products.

Doves Holdings southern region manager Mr Kudzai Nyika said the funeral service provider was overwhelmed with the business it was obtaining at its newly opened parlour.

The parlour which has a mortuary with a capacity of handling about 40 bodies, the biggest at the border town was opened in September. It has distinct Venda cultural tones and was designed by a young local architect, Mr Awelani Muleya.

“When we built the new facility, we were aiming not just at the Beitbridge market, but the South African market as well. We noted that bodies being repatriated from South Africa often arrived in a bad state due to long distances and high temperatures at the border town, so we created a unique market for services that help manage this situation,” said Mr Nyika.

Doves Holdings facilitates seamless repatriation of bodies from neighbouring South Africa. Prior to that, families of the deceased had to endure the decomposition of the bodies while waiting for them to be cleared at the border before morticians were able to attend to them ahead of burial.

The funeral service assurer has also introduced cash services to the Beitbridge community, making it arguably the only high profile assurer to do so.

The company is now offering its services to non-policy holders for all its services made possible by the construction of the parlour.

“Before the new parlour was built, we were only able to service our policy holders, but now we have both the capacity and personnel to take on cash customers who do not have policies with us,” Mr Nyika revealed.

Beitbridge manager Mrs Talent Mutiwasekwa said the new parlour has enabled the company to penetrate new markets that have been previously overlooked by its competitors further stating the number of bodies being handled at its mortuary continues to grow.

“We were only able to handle one or two bodies per month but now with our new parlour fully operational, we are currently handling an average of ten bodies. We can now handle multiple bodies at the same time because our mortuary has the capacity to carry up to 40 bodies at once,” she said.

Established in 1902 by David John Morgan, a wheelwright and blacksmith, Doves Morgan Funeral Services, was the first professional funeral services establishment in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia).

Doves Holdings now comprises four strategic business units specialising in the provision of dignified funeral services and funeral assurance products nationwide and globally. It also boasts of the country’s two major giants in coffins and caskets manufacturing, in both solid wood and steel.-@AllanFoti

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