Transporting school children has changed Ofumbi’s life

On the fifth floor of Prime Plaza, formerly (Barclays Plaza), is where I meet Oscar Ofumbi - the managing director of Whitelines.
Whitelines is a travel company that offers a variety of services including school children transportation, hospitality, mail and logistics delivery.
In my one hour of interaction, Ofumbi takes me through his journey into the private sector, which he entered after quitting his public service job in 2007.
Whitelines has been in existence for at least eight years now, according to Ofumbi.

Humble beginning
Just like all businesses, there is always a humble start somewhere and as Ofumbi says: “I left public service where I was an administrative officer for a number of years after I had realised that the kind of work I was doing was not that engaging.”
“I used to report to work at around 7.30am and by 9am, I had nothing much to do. I searched for something more engaging and that is how Whitelines came into mind,” he explains.

According to Ofumbi, he started Whitelines using only Shs1m in addition to a seven-seater van that he had borrowed from a friend.
“We used to operate in Nsambya [then] and we still have a small branch office there. I was the driver because I needed to understand how the business operated and for a period of more than seven years, I would drive children to-and -from school. This helped me to understand as well as plan in terms of business growth and expansion,” he says.

“Our company was built on the philosophy of understanding that people need to travel from one place to another,” he adds.
So through this, Ofumbi says they started a company that would transport mails, take and pick children to school as well as provide other travel needs for school children including taking them for retreats, trips and emergency services among others.
Therefore, with such a philosophy most of the company’s activities rotate around moving travellers and school children from one place to another, which has seen the company grow its working capital to more than Shs910m.

Company operations
Whitelines’ fields of operation mostly rotate around school, leisure, work, and emergencies.
The company, according to Ofumbi, has more than 350 clients, among them corporate customers, individuals, school children and tourists.
“We have 18 vans that transport commuting pupils and students to-and-from home from schools such as Rainbow, Kampala Junior, Green Hill, Agha Khan, Krystaline in Nalya, Silver Spoon and others.
Each pupil or student, according to Ofumbi, pays Shs500,000 per month, which is far lower than other means, considering that on average, according to his estimates, a parent spends about Shs1m on a monthly basis for a commuting pupil or student if they are using private means.

“…which means, we cut the cost by more than half. We don’t only cut the cost but also save parents’ time. Most parents have found it hard to take children to school and then go for work. They end up failing to fulfill one of the two’” Ofumbi says.
“We pick the children from their homes every morning at about 5 O’clock and drop them at their respective schools, before picking them again after school, which allows their parents to concentrate at work,” he explains.
Whitelines also offers travel services for educational tours in terms of organising right from transport and trip destinations up to catering for the pupils en-route.

Other services, which include transporting people to work, through corporate arrangements, are also offered
“We hire out vans to transport people for work through special arrangements with companies,” Ofumbi says.
The company also offers emergencies and tour and travel services through safari travels for tourists and through this segment: “Tourists can be taken to any part of the country using specialised vans for sight-seeing”.
The company, Ofumbi says, can also book accommodation or reservations for its clients.

Future prospects
Ofumbi plans to grow its client numbers since there has been growing school enrolments.
“We are looking forward to serving more than two million potential clients in a period of five years. This implies we have to come up with measures to ready ourselves for the task. We plan to expand through partnerships and perhaps acquisitions using bank support (loans and private equity),” he says.
The company also looks forward to starting driving lessons, which as Ofumbi says “will lead creation of a driving school section.”

Achievements

Whitelines currently has a staff capacity of 65 people some of whom are directly employed and others working as contract and support staff.
The company has over time won a number of awards with the most outstanding being inducted into the prestigious KPMG (a global network of professional firms providing audit, advisory and tax services) and Nation Media Group’s top 100 fastest growing small and medium enterprises in 2011 and 2012 respectively.
The company, Ofumbi adds, also feels satisfied that it has been able to growth the last eight years without any major breakdowns since majority of Uganda’s small businesses do not live to see their fifth birthdays.
However, Whitelines, just like any other firm, have had challenges seeing that the industry has become highly competitive.