Our product is small and light making airfreight a very reasonably priced option. “A lot of times we prefer to use airfreight. From customs processes to delivery delays there are more things that can go wrong when you are moving goods the size of tablets around the world. “You need to have someone at hand who is able to fix whatever the problem is, as quickly as possible.” Because things will go wrong at times, says Sutcliffe. “We have developed a very close working relationship and they truly understand what our business is about and how serious we are about getting things right.” While in all probability it will flow without issue nine times out of ten, when it does go wrong, it has severe consequences. He has used the same freight forwarder, a company that has specialised in the exporting of crafters’ goods, for the past ten years. Having a reliable supply chain is essential,” he says. “You cannot not deliver what you promised. These are not easy or cheap accomplishments from a longdistance destination like ours.” And then comes dependability. Then you need someone to represent you in that market, a local partner that you can create a synergy with. You have to go and show the market what you have and what you can give them and how you compare to others. “If you want to be in that market, you have to go to the exhibitions, fairs and shows. There were some huge hurdles to jump and it took years before we even considered ourselves close to being proficient at it.” Not to mention that it is an expensive endeavour. The international markets come with regulations and standards, product compliance and safety requirements that we in Africa are not always used to. On the last day of the show we signed some good clients and suddenly we were exporters.” He describes himself as a cautious businessman who believes in slow organic growth. We literally put all our cards on the table and went for it. “We took a chance, mortgaged the house, and took our home industry to a toy fair. “Exporting is challenging,” says Sutcliffe who signed his first contract after a trade show in Nuremberg, Germany. More than a 150 000 units of the product fill a container, and while the company mostly opts for LCL, keeping track of these beans is a full-time task. But moving thousands of tiny little beans from a factory in Cape Town to Namibia, Kenya, Germany, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, Norway, to name but a few countries requires logistical precision. Pink elephants, blue dolphins, yellow octopuses, orange crocodiles and any other animal one can think of are all on offer. In its place a cute sponge toy appears.” The magic? That somewhere, anywhere in the world, a child can take a bath with a bright African animal transforming a relatively ordinary, everyday experience into something extraordinary, informative and imaginative. “Buy a bean, put it in your bath and watch it vanish. The concept behind the beans is pretty simple, he says. For Sutcliffe it is about delivering something that is unique, truly South African and proudly African. Some call it creativity, others may refer to it as innovation. What makes the company successful is all the usual elements – a good quality product, a knowledgeable operating team, reliable workmanship, a sound strategy and a team of international agents that know their markets. Since then they have added another product range and become one of South Africa’s leading toy exporters. The company still manufactures the very same bath beans that Sutcliffe and his wife Sharon started off with more than 30 years ago. “To export and compete in the international market, you have to create an edge,” he says. It’s the same magic he applied to exporting when the opportunity arose. “We took them to market and the rest as they say is history.” But it was not the bean (read product), he says, that was the differentiating factor, but rather the allure of what it was, the magic that was being created that had customers coming back again and again. “We started as a home business making these little bath beans,” he recalls. It’s a lesson Chris Sutcliffe, founder and managing director of The Bean People, learnt early in his career.

Magic exporter