Kimuli eyes energy business

It is 2018 and for Mr Ismail Kimuli, a clear vision of where he wanted to be in business is still fresh in mind.
“We had envisioned to be the best energy specialists in the country,” he says.
He says “we” because this vision was borne by two minds. Mr Abubaker Nsubuga’s and his. Mr Kimuli had known Mr Nsubuga since his high school days at Kibuli Secondary School, at Makerere University where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1997 and they had gone on to work together after school.

While they worked, Mr Kimuli began thinking about starting a business but his would be professionally driven. He had not done any business before, neither did he have any role models he looked up to. He just thought he could do it having identified gaps within the pricing of energy equipment supplies on the market. He thought if he could do things differently, he could earn himself some cash.

“People who were delivering the service were doing it at a high cost and I thought I could give it to them at half cost. So we began from there,” Mr Kimuli says.
After working as a service engineer, he founded Intertek Enterprises with a colleague.
Seven years later, challenges forced the two partners to dissolve the company.

“Some of my colleagues were done with this engineering especially the maintenance part. It is like you do not have a life because we deal with power and there are emergencies anytime and people get tired and want to move on to do something else,” he explains the first company’s demise.

Starting new company
But for the love of business, Mr Kimuli founded Global Link Associates Limited with Mr Nsubuga. With Shs10m split between the new partners, they ensured the company secured its place on the market. At the time, power outages were routine so they began by supplying and maintaining thermal power generators. Their biggest challenge was resource mobilisation, just like many startups.

Friends, close family and commercial banks came to their rescue although he admits getting financing from the banks took persistence. Human resource management was a bother. The business required highly technical workers and these were hard to come by. The uphill task was then to train workers on the job.

When it came to marketing their service, they relied on the promise of trust in their product offerings. His first client came through two months after starting out and this he explains, was through relationships he had created from his past company. “We had met some of them before so it was informal relationships where someone knew I could do something for them. Slowly, we moved on to getting clients through formal channels,” he says.

From the onset, clients paid 30 days after the delivery of a project. Sometimes clients waited up to 60 and 90 days to pay. In 2010, the company broke even. Today, with a turnover slightly above Shs3b, Mr Kimuli says the company is on a smooth trajectory. The company emerged 10th in last year’s Top 100 midsized companies’ survey organised by KPMG and Daily Monitor, which says a lot about its performance.

The market, over the years, has pushed the duo to expand the scope of the company’s business, from thermal power generators to air conditioning supply and maintenance and maintenance of electrical facilities at Shell petrol stations and substation works for Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited and Umeme.
“Our business is based on specialised services and equipment that you cannot easily go and shop downtown. We do not deal with things that people can easily trace,” Mr Kimuli says having found the importation business from France, Germany, United States of America, China and United Arab Emirates tolerable.

Remaining in business
It has been ten years of business and as Mr Kimuli reflects, he says their survival is attributed to the ability to know and do what their clients want within the shortest timelines and at lower costs than competitors.
“Where we got business, it has been given to us as lowest bidders,” he says. But how does he keep afloat? “It depends on where you have sourced your equipment because that determines at how much you sell to your clients,” he says.
“The idea is to know where to get what somebody wants, at a good cost and when it comes, you are able to bid fairly and win,” Mr Kimuli explains.

But they are not yet there after doing over 50 projects. “We are at 50 per cent. From this level, we want to go into building a new substation and that would take us to 80 per cent. Maybe this should be in five years because our economy is not moving fast, there should be a need and government should have the money,” he says. He also believes Global Link Associates Limited would be at 80 per cent if it were not for the corrupt procurement process

The oil is coming and the 45 year-old engineer says the company is preparing itself, both financially and technically to get its portion of the cake. It is not just the oil he is eying. He says within the energy sector, there are still gaps to be filled. A section of Ugandans are using electricity, oil and gas products but majority are also charcoal and firewood as energy sources. For Global Link Associates Limited, providing energy solutions for this majority will be a step in the right direction, Mr Kimuli says.

Success tips
You must identify a gap because to do business, you must have what clients want. There are so many solutions someone can deliver as engineering services and they get money out of it. You must position yourself best and deliver it at a reasonable cost.
You must be good at something. Patience and perseverance are very critical so you have to work through the challenges because they are there.
If you have a vision, focus and wait, you will get there.