The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Business Correspondent
A local businessman, Mr Nickson Tala is part of the growing multitudes of the creative class who have managed to use their skills to start a successful and thriving garment and printing business contributing effectively to the country’s economy.
Despite the economy facing challenges, Mr Tala (42) has managed to keep his business, TSI Coloursel thriving through ingenuity and producing quality work.
Meeting customer needs has also proven key to TSI as they have seen more business coming from repeat customers.
He told Sunday Business he realised there were opportunities in the industry after serving established companies for eight years and the will to start his own business saw him acquire machinery from Indonesia before exporting his latest additions from South Africa.
He said the demise of major textile firms that include Cotton Printers, Merlin, National Blankets and struggles at Spinweave and David Whitehead saw them coming in and filling in the void although they are only able to operate at a lower scale.
TSI is into fabric printing ranging from vinyl prints, screen printing, sublimation printing and recently they ventured into manufacturing t-shirts.
“It is a lucrative industry that, however, needs creativity particularly at a time when the chips are down and the economy is not doing well. What has enabled us to thrive is our consistency in producing quality products which customers come back for.
“However, it has not always been a rosy journey as initially there were difficulties in being accepted in the market by big companies, we were mainly catering for individuals and other organisations,” said Mr Tala.
His company is situated in Bulawayo Central Business District.
Mr Tala ventured into business in 2011 after working for David Whitehead and Cotton Printers for a combined eight years.
He went into a partnership and set base in Victoria Falls where they felt their services would be needed and they would operate with little competition but a limited customer base saw them moving to Bulawayo.
“The customer base in the resort town was contrived as we mainly focused on river-wear designs and rafting shorts, with tourist merchandise being the main clients, while there were a few public customers.
“Setting up shop in Bulawayo in 2013 paid huge dividends as we expanded to service schools, tourists, general public, industry, Non-Governmental Organisations, churches and other companies. Servicing business has kept our presses running and coming up with quality products has enabled us to snare more clients,” added Mr Tala.
After moving to Bulawayo, he hired two workers as he started with only one coloursel printing machine, a heat press and a cutter but has now expanded his workforce threefold buying an additional coloursel printer, two more heat presses, sublimation printer and seven sewing machines.
TSI started off exclusively offering clothing printing services but with expansion now produces garments from fabrics.
A qualified textile engineer, who attained his degree at the National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo, Mr Tala is intent on expanding his business with the acquisition of new machinery and additional space as demand is increasing.
He said like every others in the industry they were facing challenges that include access to foreign currency.
“We are struggling to secure finance for expansion while accessing fabrics and inks is a struggle as we have to import them but getting foreign currency is a struggle.
“Companies that used to manufacture fabrics locally are in the doldrums and we have to import,” added Mr Tala, who also had a brief stint at Nortex Botswana, after being seconded by David Whitehead.
He said as small companies, particularly within the clothing industry, they were struggling with paperwork to be compliant with National Social Security Authority (Nssa) regulations and Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) regulations that have to be followed especially when supplying big companies.
