TOP 100 SMES AWARDS: How Arusha’s HansPaul scored quick wins in a row

Dar es Salaam. In a space of a week, HansPaul, the Arusha- Headquartered Company with expertise in various manufacturing fields has scooped two awards.

The firm has expertise in manufacturing paper corrugated carton boxes and assembling tourist vehicles that have been enabling tour operators to get new cars that can compete with neighbouring countries.

Just seven days ago HansPaul had a reason to smile as it emerged an overall winner of the President’s Manufacturer of the year awards (Pmaya) of the 2018, beating 61 others to come top. The day before yesterday (Friday) was another cheering day for the company as it stood a chance to feature in the club 101 graduating class in the Top 100 Mid-Sized Companies Survey.

This suggests that the company has graduated from the mid-sized status into higher level as their annual turnover surpassed the Sh20 billion mark.

While Pmaya is coordinated by the Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI), Top 100 Mid-Sized Company Survey, which kicked off eight years back with a view to identifying the fastest growing mid-sized companies and reward them, is a brainchild of Mwananchi Communications Ltd through The Citizen brand, and KPMG, an audit, tax and advisory firm

HansPaul Group chief executive officer Satbir Hanspaul attributed their victory to discipline in service delivery to clients. He said as a company they kept their customers front by offering them with quality services at affordable price.

“We believe in value for money,” Mr Hanspaul told The Citizen in an exclusive interview shortly after being announced the Pmaya overall winner.

“We were caught by surprise as we had no expectation to emerge the overall winner.”

The firm had been participating in Pmaya since 2014 but never appeared in top three in overall winner category, according to its top boss.

The company exports vehicles to African countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Namibia, Ghana, Ethiopia, Angola and Zambia.

It also sells its products to Europe.

Meanwhile, Mr Hanspaul said his company has participated in the Top100 Midsized Companies five times and has been attaining top positions before graduating to the 101 club. Without being specific, he said last year his company featured in the list of top 10.

“It is a great honour for the company to move to the next stage. The secret behind to the success is discipline and focus,” he said. “To turn a company to more than Sh20 billion turnover requires dedication, hard work, team work and producing quality and affordable goods in the market.”

Other companies which scooped the 101 club are ADL Logistics Ltd and SoftNet Technologies Limited.

ADL Logistics Ltd country manager Fred Mlay said the secret behind for the success is embracing innovation and technology as well as team work. He noted that he has been participating in the Top100 Midsized Companies Survey for nine years.

In 2016 the firm scooped the second position. “We are a logistic company. Discipline, hard work and good service to our customers is what has brought us where we are today,” he said.

“We have been good at keeping records.” For its part SoftNet Technologies Limited, the 2015 first overall winner, has been participating in the survey eight times----since 2012.

Like his counterparts he said the secret to their success was hard work and dedication. He noted that the company provides ICT services in a number of applications including infrastructure, cable fibre among others. “We started business in 2006 and we are glad to see that we have been growing,” he said.