 21 February 1975
PROFILE
Nicholas John Frangos, better known as Nick, is managing director of Business Equipment Corporation. Ask business people to describe him and you'll hear worlds like, “tough”, “aggressive”, and “brilliant”. Ask anyone who has played opposite him in cricket or rugby, and you'll probably hear the same words __ tough, with a few rude adjectives thrown in for good measure!
With a sporting background highlighted by Rhodesian cricket and first league rugby, and coaching background with Old Hararians rugby and Mashonaland rugby for five years, Nick has made it both ways.
With enough sporting, accolades for three men, Nick has gradually given it up to devote more time to his family. “My family is my number one interest,” he says, “followed by my business career.” His business career shows as much promise as his sporting career.
In August, 1972, BEC ahd been in the TA group for less than a year, but already problems were showing up __ especially at the bottom line of the profit and loss sheet. BEC needed a miracle-man, problem solver, profit-maker: enter Nick Frangos with a B. Comm from Cape Town University nine years solid experience with Unilver.
One of his first jobs was to come to grips with the financial control side, but the job wasn't to be a simple one. “When I came here,” says Nick, “the company was in a shambles. There is no other way to put it!”
He smiles and waits for that to sink in, then says: “Let me put it this way, if somebody got a foolscap notebook and wrote down everything that could possible go wring with a company, I would say that this was the classic example.”
Frango's job was to turn the company around. He had to make the company a long-term proposition and to get away from purely short-term policies. This meant changing the deterioration conditions with overseas suppliers.
Today, BEC's employee relations are the envy of many. Customers __ on the whole __ are satisfied and happy, although BEC is by no means complacent. Customers are neither over-sold, nor undersold, thereby eliminating the prime source of customer dissatisfaction.
When Nick first took over, the company had no Government contracts. Today, a good proportion of these prestige contracts have gone to BEC.
Yet, the strangest twist of all to this modern-day “Midas story” is that prices have been consistently reduced over the last three years. Nick reasoned that the only way to build up BEC's reputation with personnel, suppliers and customers, was to be the best company going.
The whole orientation of the company became biased in the direction of service. This bias, combined with a policy of reasonable markups, united to make part one of the BEC success tory one that showed up where it really counts __ on that bottom line of the profit and loss statement. The picture has improved to where, today, profit is measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Part two of the success story is still unfolding. That part embodies an objective that “BEC is not to be thought of as an UDI company.” |
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