Akandi (Pty) Ltd
What does your company do?
Akandi is a distributor of a wide variety of locally made office furniture and office accessories. Almost 90% of our office furniture is manufactured in South Africa which gives our clients the flexibility for customisation. We work with leading office furniture manufacturers. We get the furniture manufactured according to the clients’ specifications, as each company’s needs vary. Our services include furniture delivery & installation, space planning, office relocations and office seating re-upholstery. Akandi is based in Gauteng, Centurion. The Company supplies to different provinces all over South Africa.
Our responsibility is to thoroughly understand our clients’ needs, then guide them through the process of choosing the most effective office furniture that will be suitable their work environment.
What is your biggest success?
In mid 2020, one and half years after Akandi’s inception - we started constructing an office furniture showroom, where we wanted to display some of our office furniture so potential clients can have a look and feel of the furniture before making a purchase. We have been working on the showroom for the past four years now from mid 2020 – mid 2024. We are excited that we will be officially launching our showroom to the public on 26th July 2024, as we have had many requests from clients asking if we had a showroom. This has been a capital-intensive project, that has required a lot of commitment, sacrifice and planning. We are proud to have come this far and by Akandi having its own showroom, we will be able to compete more effectively in the market as many of the big office furniture companies have their own showrooms.
What has been your biggest hurdle?
Akandi is still heavily reliant on our manufacturers to deliver the furniture on our behalf to the end users. With Akandi not delivering to the end-user the biggest hurdle is a lack of control in the delivery process since we do not yet own delivery vehicles. When a product is delivered, we only know that it was successfully delivered the day after delivery once we receive documentation from the factory “proof of deliveries”. If there are any problems with a delivery, we will only know of these problems the day after. To run a business where we do not have control of one of the most important functions “deliveries” can be stressful. As the company makes more money we plan to reinvest in the business – by getting our own delivery vehicles where the factories will deliver the furniture to Akandi, and we will deliver directly to the client.
