Woman to lead funeral industry
AS TENSIONS SIMMER IN THE FUNERAL SERVICES INDUSTRY,A BUSINESSWOMAN HAS BEEN ELECTED TO LEAD TRANSFORMATION OF THE SECTOR IN KZN, WRITES
ISIPHELELE BUTHELEZI
N RECENT months, the funeral services business has come under the spotlight with smaller players and older, more established bigger players in the industry at loggerheads.
They have clashed over providing funeral services to mourners in the townships.
This led Kwazulu-natal’s Economic Development MEC, Sihle Zikalala, to establish a task team, while calling for the industry to transform.
Recently, the SA Funeral Practitioners’ Association (Safpa) in KZN has paved the way for transformation after it elected businessperson Nomfundo Mcoyi as its first woman chairperson in its 20-year history.
Mcoyi, who is the owner and founder of Icebolethu Funeral Services, was elected alongside three other women – Thembi Monese, Nomusa and Thembi Sibanyoni – who were elected as secretarygeneral, deputy secretary and chaplain respectively.
In an interview with KZN Business Report, Mcoyi said she was committed to creating stability in the sector by ploughing back her expertise to help grow new and small businesses.
“I don’t want to say I was elected because I am female. I was elected because I am excelling in what I do, there couldn’t be a better candidate than me,” she said.
Mcoyi, a former school teacher, ventured into the business space in the 1990s after a divorce that almost left her bankrupt and in debt.
A teacher at the time, she started a catering business that eventually gave birth to her ambition to opening a funeral parlour.
At one point, her house in Glenwood was a home by night, and the premises of her fledgling funeral services business by day.
She joked that her son, still young at the time, would embarrass small business owners and walk around the house half naked, looking for lotion.
Mcoyi said she had to start her life from scratch after the divorce, and she persevered until she finally got Icebolethu Funeral Services off the ground nine years ago. Her business has a total of 65 branches in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and has a presence in the UK.
Now as KZN chairperson of
Safpa, part of her plan is to introduce the idea of starting a business consortium for funeral parlours.
“I want to bring peace and stability and growth with educational and business programmes. I want to introduce a business we would do together as undertakers, to say let us work as a consortium,” she said.
Mcoyi said she planned to run numerous entrepreneurial workshops to canvass her ideas.
Her business also provides catering, tombstones and floral services.
Touching on the controversies of the past few months, where members of the National Funeral Practitioners Association of South Africa (Nafupa-sa) have called on white, Indian and coloured businesses in the funeral services realm to be banned from operating in the townships, she said she understood the grievances.
“While I agree with 80% of the grievances raised by Nafupa-sa, I am against their approach. You cannot force people to do business with you,” she said.
“But as a business, you can improve and market your business so that clients are attracted to you. The government has intervened and is willing to assist. The steering committee that was set up is looking good,” she said.
The provincial governmentappointed steering committee was proceeding with its work.
Mcoyi said funeral parlours needed to comply and build a reputation to grow their brand.
She said while older more established funeral services had old and trusted reputations to back them in the market, smaller businesses had to work hard to establish reputations and market themselves. She said government agencies such as the Road Accident Fund, which introduced a tender system, only favoured big business.
“Many black clients support those big and well-known funeral parlours because they have been in the industry for a long time. I also believe other races are not doing business with us because of trust, and of course transformation hasn’t been applied enough and they have a reputation.
“Honestly, some of our guys in the industry are not doing good work, and clients group us all together. During my three-year term as chairperson I want to educate members and ensure they comply with the regulations of the business,” said Mcoyi.
She added that the success of her business was due to dedication and also understanding and respecting people’s cultures.
Last year, she was one of the winners at the Business Partners Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
In May, she could clinch an international award by scooping the Lioness of Africa category award at the African Women Awards in London.