| 23/04/08 – Outstanding Performance by CCDI's Corporate GIFT Warehouse |
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Wednesday, 23 April 2008 Outstanding performance by CCDI's Corporate Gift WarehouseThe exceptional demand in South Africa for handmade corporate gifts have been proven by the latest sales figures released by GIFT, the Cape Craft and Design Institute’s corporate gift warehouse. GIFT started trading in May last year, and performed outstandingly, within 9 months exceeding their sales target of R900, 000 by over 21% in actual sales.The GIFT Warehouse offers buyers of corporate gifts, conference accessories and banqueting décor, access to local craft and design pieces. GIFT is a trading initiative of the CCDI that has been developed in partnership with the Old Mutual Foundation. GIFT Manager, Rosemary Reddy, says that the CCDI were doing great work in introducing and training designers and crafters to generate business locally and internationally. “But together with the Cape Town International Convention Centre and the growth of convention centres throughout the Western Cape and other parts of South Africa, it became clear that the corporate gift and Meetings market, including the Business Tourism market, were an untapped opportunity for craft producers. The GIFT warehouse creates a bridge between the corporate buyer and the small producer. The buyer places his order through GIFT and GIFT ensures that the order is successfully carried out and delivered. GIFT products range from beaded lanyards and branded wire radios to homeware, décor and high-end pieces for VIP recipients. Profits are ploughed back into skills development, training, and entrepreneurial education, effectively giving more craft producers the opportunity to become economically self-sufficient. Reddy says GIFT’s outstanding performance since its inception comes as no surprise. “However, our immediate challenge is to build our capacity in order to translate the overwhelming numbers of enquiries into sales volumes.” Reddy agrees that GIFT’s financial performance proves that there has been a demand for hand-made corporate items, and that the market is slowly becoming more aware of showing a preference for hand-made gifts, rather than cheaper, mass-produced products. “GIFT provides a solution to corporate buyers looking for innovative, customized, high-quality locally-made gifts that support their broad-based BEE and social responsibility mandates”. Reddy says the best selling items are custom-made items with corporate identity, as it gives corporate companies an opportunity to present their identity in a creative form, while leveraging their in-house nation-building and corporate social investment objectives. Mostly buyers are national, provincial and local government departments, corporates and the Meetings Industry, which includes conferencing accessories, stationery and banqueting décor. Reddy says they initially focused on the Western Cape markets, but have had large orders nationally. An interesting and exciting trend that has emerged during the past year, is the customizing of ceramics, wire and beaded products with corporate logos, and other interesting themes, that was developed with the assistance of the Centre for Innovation, the CCDI’s state-of-the–art resourced venue aimed at promoting cutting edge design, product support and process technologies. Reddy says the toughest challenge facing GIFT is building capacity at the same rate that these exceptional products are demanded. “This entails integrating with CCDI's other programmes, namely the Centre for Innovation’s product support, Enterprise Development and continuously strengthening the supply chain and logistics management capabilities to a level that would see GIFT being agile, flexible, resilient and prepared to respond to the ever increasing demands of the market. GIFT, therefore, not only provides access to a specific niche market for craft producers, but also plays a significant role in the development of the craft producers and enterprises, the majority of whom are previously disadvantaged individuals. Notes to the Editor: The CCDI is a joint initiative of the Western Cape Provincial Government and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and is also funded by the City of Cape Town, the national departments of Science and Technology and Trade and Industry and a number of private sector funders for specific projects.
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