Trident Plumbers: Leading Mechanical Services Provider in Kenya and East Africa Discusses Strategy

Interview with Devshi Kerai, Managing Director of Trident Plumbers Ltd

What is your assessment of the sector? What do you see happening currently?

The construction industry and development sectors are generally slowing down this time of year. And the market is getting more and more competitive with local and foreign investors and stakeholders in general. But being a service provider, we are always working with both new developments, projects, as well as after sales service. So we have a considerably balanced split in this aspect. When developments slow down, we still have the strength to be in the market and sustain ourselves. Whatever has been installed already, we continue to provide the after sales services for our clients, while working on the maintenance and operations of our larger projects.

We also see challenges in our skill development with there being a gap between between what is required in the market and what we have. We are trying to upskill our own staff as well as other plumbers and mechanical workers with locally relevant training that meets a basic level of international standard.

Is the environment competitive? How do you distinguish yourself from the competition?

We do plumbing and drainage systems for residential, commercial and industrial buildings, fire suppression and fire protection systems, solar water heater installation, electrical boilers installation, industrial gas installation, compressed air systems, mechanical ventilation and air conditioning systems.

We have a lot of competition in the sector, even though we rank among the top three at the moment. Outside of actual companies providing similar services, there are a lot of informal freelance workers as well. The registration process for mechanical skills is also not yet well defined in the system, so we have difficulty gauging experienced workers and those who are not well trained. We differentiate strongly with over three decades of building partnerships in the market as well as most recently, ISO certification with clear strategic approach at board level which is then cascaded down with defined policies, processes and so on. The clear structure of service truly sets us apart in the market and drives stronger business growth with projects for us. Clients look for value for money. There needs to be a balance with money and service. This also brings the challenge of some clients only factoring in costs and not value for money. And of course there are contractors who subsidize costs to a much greater extent where our focus remains on not compromising quality of service. Contractors are able to go lower than the standard contracting company. Hopefully, the local authority would streamline by standardizing the groups into different classes.

What areas are you working in?

We are mechanical services providers, and have a number of segments. We do plumbing and drainage systems for residential, commercial and industrial buildings, fire suppression and fire protection systems, solar water heater installation, electrical boilers installation, industrial gas installation, compressed air systems, mechanical ventilation and air conditioning systems.

Who are your clients?

We have very diverse types of clients from statal, corporate and institutional like KPLC, Parliamentary services, the Ministry of Sports, the Ministry of Education and JKIA (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport), where all the new terminals works have been carried out by us. In the private sector, our major clients are Centum Group, Isuzu Kenya, Kenya Breweries, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, Proto Gas and Surge Energy. We also work with insurance companies such as CIC, Real Insurance, Apollo Insurance as some of our key clients. All their corporate headquarter works are done by us. UAP in South Sudan is also a very strong client for us.

How do you compete in the private sector?

We have the upper hand because we have worked with these clients before, and we have built strong relationships with flexibility to negotiate. Otherwise, we go by tenders for which you are qualified based on your capacity and capability. Then, we get recurrent orders because we have a relationship that we maintain with the clients.

How do you keep the relationship with these clients?

When we finish a project, we have different liability periods. Sometimes it is six months to a year. It is clearly stipulated in the contract. Even beyond that, if they have any issues or challenges they face, we actively support them wholeheartedly. We also have maintenance contracts that we offer so we are always in touch with the client to understand and meet their needs.

Describe your value engineering department.

Our value engineering department is based on our many years of expertise. As soon as the design comes from the consultants when we are awarded the project, we prepare our workshop drawings. We involve the client at the stage of drawings and design planning to understand their requirements and think towards a long term, effective solution. Instead of relying solely on the consultant’s designs, we also do our due diligence and design ourselves. Whatever the discrepancies are, based on the consulting designs and our designs, we can see what the gaps are. When we fix them, we come up with the proposition while looking at ways for minimizing costs to the client. We then present our reports to the consultants and the clients.

What is your international reach?

Internationally, we do projects based on the needs of some of our key clients. We do not open direct branches; rather, we send our project teams to execute and return when they are finished with the project. In Tanzania, we have done a number of projects in Dar es Salaam and Arusha. In South Sudan, we have done a project for UAP and a medical insurance company as well as residential apartments.

Are you interested in technological partners?

We are actually looking for those kind of partners because we want to use new, innovative and technology based ideas in our sector in Kenya. When you compare East African countries to the other parts of the world, we are quite different from what they do and how they do it. Here, we do something with many people and there, they do the same with only one or two people. There, they rely more on technology and equipment to improve efficiency. Here, we use the manpower and skill that we have over technology and machinery.

That is why we want to invite them to be part of us. They will bring their skill, their ideas, and their innovations and that is how we will develop ourselves. It is not limited to only us. We can get the right equipment to match an international level, but we do not have the skill of how to operate it to the level they would. That technology is lacking here and it is not developing in this country. We are open to partners in that sense. We do not have leakage scanning machines, drainage inspection machines and so on. Those types of equipment are normally used for hidden ‘unseen’ problems. If we could bring that technology here, we could move up to a higher level fairly quickly.

What is one of your success stories that you are proud of?

I think the journey to our growth as a company and individuals is what comes to mind. This company was established in 1989 by our current Chairman. He started the company with colleagues who are still working here today. I joined in 1995 as a part-time worker for two years. From then, I moved to a managerial post and then the company became a limited company. From there, we decided that we had two partners and were capable of expanding into different segments and growing. We started approaching government projects and big clients in the private sector. We had invested our own funding to grow. We grew very fast, got substantial projects from the government, and we delivered. Gaining that confidence at the government level, we have been given many more projects. Today, we have done three phases in Parliament. The main contract builders change, but we are the same main service contractors. This tells us that we are on the right path and it is something we are proud of. From there, there was no stopping.

So, we opened a new company called Astral Industries to support us with water storage solutions. In every project you need water storage. So, we started manufacturing water tanks and today we are among the top five water storage tank manufacturers. We started plastic water tanks in 2011 and steel water tanks in 2007. We then did a project with Kenya Breweries, that has opened a number of other projects for us. We have been given exclusive contracts under the recommendation of the consultant for Standard Chartered Bank hubs. The prices are competent. Once we finished that project, an even bigger one came up. We next got JKI Airport which was a 500-million-shilling project. It was a substantial project for mechanical servicing. We are now development partners with Centum. We sit together and go for tendering purposes and we bring our value engineering proposition to them. Today, we have six ongoing sustainable and high-end housing projects from them, mostly in Mombasa. We are going to start industrial parks soon as well.

Project yourself into the medium term. How do you see the development of the company in two to three years’ time?

We are service providers but we want to bring in new innovations to our company to make it a more institutional and practicing platform. We recruit from schools and we train people in our Trident Vocational Training Center on a path to grow. When they are under training, they go for internship within our organization or with partners. Whatever you learn in the classroom can be applied in the company and the industry. It will be totally balanced between quality, value and high standards. When we achieve that, there will be no skill gap left in our company. When you have already established that kind of culture where you learn within the company, the standards remain the same no matter the project.

So our focus is to grow ourselves for the next generation and what the world will need then in a sustainable way.

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