A model in business and leadership

BY: CATHERINE NDIOO

Eva Muraya has fought off competition to grow a model branding company, Color Creations. Her focus in business and leadership roles has won global recognition

Things can begin from nothing and form into something. That is the story of Eva Muraya the founder of branding company, Color Creations Ltd. It is a story of hard work paying off handsomely.

When she started Color Creations in 2001, it was a small below-the-line supply business. She did not invest much in it. Now, that business has won a number of global acclaims. Development organisations like International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank and GTZ have also used it as a role model Small and Medium Enterprise (SME).

Ms Muraya says success has been brought about by “investing in business processes, values and passions that support our mission and vision.”

Lessons in growing a business

SMEs in Kenya face a myriad of challenges, key of them, lack of funds for expansion. For the longest time, banks also shunned women as not creditworthy. Ms Muraya says human capital has been her biggest fuel for growth. She makes use of staff development programs that help employees realise that whatever they are doing at a section or department level has a direct bearing on whether the company makes money to grow – and grow them.

“Internally our team has gained the skills of thinking as entrepreneurs as opposed to being just employees,” she says. “I think it’s a great achievement, when during management meetings, I listen to people mirroring the passion that drove me into investing in the business seven years ago.” Colour Creations is a branding company supplying merchandizes like t-shirts, bags, caps and handbags, and serves clientele comprising of government, NGO, multinationals and SMEs. It employs close to 100 people.

The company was awarded ISO 9001:2000 certification, becoming the first business in the branding industry to have gained the global quality standard in Sub Saharan Africa. “We have been able to significantly improve production capacity to fully automate all our production processes,” says Ms Muraya a Bachelor of Arts Degree holder, in Journalism and Marketing the United States International University (USIU) in Nairobi.

Taking up leadership

Perhaps most admirable is Ms Muraya’s ability to wear many caps, and still push each of her projects to success. She serves as Chairperson of the Kenya Association of Women Business Owners (KAWBO) that pushes for an enabling environment for women entrepreneurs. She also chairs Zawadi Africa Education Fund, an initiative that provides premium academic opportunities to disadvantaged Kenyan girls. Beneficiaries get mentored through workshops, before receiving scholarships to study in premium universities in the US and Canada. Local universities like USIU and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) also recently joined in. The initiative was reinvented from the 1960’s President J.F. Kennedy/Top Mboya airlifts that sent local students to access quality education in the US. The current US President, Barrack Obama’s father was among beneficiaries at that time.

Among others, Muraya also serves in the African Advisory Board of Vital Voices Global, an initiative that invests in developing leadership skills for women in the areas of economics, human rights, and politics. Her portfolio is education and economic empowerment.

In recognition of these efforts, Ms Muraya has been awarded multiple leadership awards among them by Gorman’s Fortune 500, and named among the top 100 global women leaders by the International Women Alliance. The global recognitions she says have also helped in her company’s brand recognition.

Growing from micro to corporate

And from all these interactions, she has learned a lot. To entrepreneurs she says, professionalise your business, and have an international certification. They are winners. “These leave no doubt in the mind of a customer of your ability to deliver,” said Ms Muraya. Other key thing, she says are observing proper business registration, responsible borrowing, operating profitably, proper marketing and promotion, and right pricing. Ultimately, acquire business management training. “It is the only way we will begin to get out of micro enterprise, to middle level and ultimately large level businesses,” she said.

One of their recent products for instance is an innovative retail product dubbed Be (Building Entrepreneurs) where branded merchandises are produced – with different themes (Christian, humor, tourism, cultural, anti-HIV messages) targeting small business people. “We have developed an entrepreneurship training model based on our experience as SMEs,” she said. “We have learned a lot, made mistakes and gained significant success – so that forms an exciting cocktail of experience to share with other emerging entrepreneurs.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that African economies need to do everything possible to promote entrepreneurship. It’s the perfect way to create employment and wealth,” says Ms Muraya. “It is the best way that innovative ways can be tapped, inventions realised, and jobs created.” Challenges like poor infrastructure, lack of affordable credit and access to technical skills, abide in the local market. Delayed VAT refunds also pose a big challenge to SMEs whose liquidity is a big deal.

Not everybody is cut out to be an entrepreneur Ms Muraya however warns. You need the right passion, resilience, innovativeness and hard work. It has worked for her and the business. “I think there also needs to be a lot more education around opportunities that are beginning to unfold even in the region,” she says.