The Covid-19 pandemic has opened doors to some unexpected business challenges, writes Shirley le Guern.
It was a short paddle from manufacturing high-end scuba equipment to producing masks and ventilator components in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but owner and director of Endless Summer Technologies, Rhys Couzyn, says a dash of luck, flexibility and hard work has enabled the company to navigate the unexpectedly bleak period.
Speaking from his 2 500m² production facility at Dube TradePort – complete with its sparkling blue dive pool – Couzyn says he only experienced a single day of true lockdown as the company swivelled into Covid-related projects.
“I haven’t worked quite that hard in a very long time. Some days we started at 5am and worked until midnight. It was pretty intense.”
Couzyn says he wanted to dive since childhood and, after spending a year in the navy, completed a dive instructor’s course before beginning his B Comm studies. While studying, he taught diving. After getting his family to start diving, they spotted a gap in the market to import and distribute top-notch American brand SCUBAPRO products in South Africa.
Couzyn ran the family business, Scuba Equipment Africa, with his mother from 1995. While growing this company, he also invented a new dive fin. Unfortunately, it didn’t really take off so he set up Endless Summer Technologies in 2005 as a sideline business to develop and produce the product which went on to win multiple awards and is now exported worldwide. He has since developed new products, including more award-winning fins, buoyancy compensators and dive accessories.
Endless Summer Technologies started in a garden shed in Johannesburg but, 14 years ago moved to KwaZulu-Natal and increased its staff from one to 70. Today, 99% of his output is exported with the bulk going to the United States and Europe.
Couzyn believes that, over time, more and more opportunities have emerged in export markets simply because many first-world countries were seduced by the cheaper prices offered by Asian manufacturers and gave up developing and manufacturing their own products.
“We ended up with a massive gap for companies like us who can invent, design and manufacture a niche product,” he said.
Couzyn moved his business to Dube TradePort in November 2017 and hasn’t looked back. Even when it seemed that lockdown spelled an end to the exponential growth of recent years with cancelled, reduced or delayed export orders, there were opportunities. Because he was known for providing dive gear, as Covid hit, Couzyn began receiving calls from people looking for full face snorkelling masks to be used with viral filters as Personal Protective Equipment.
He stepped in to help import and modify these masks for medical use and then also fast-tracked the development of a reusable face mask for the man in the street. The result was the Sola Nautilus mask, which has since been replaced by the second-generation model, the Sola Guardian.
“Because medical and other frontline workers were having to wear PPE for eight hours or more a day, every day, we realised there was a need for more user-friendly and environmentally-friendly masks. “Our reusable masks are more effective and functional and also deal with some of the irritations associated with wearing a mask for long periods such as the fogging of glasses.”
Couzyn also got involved with the National Ventilator Project, designing and producing parts able to convert masks for ventilator use. He now supplies the CSIR with adaptors, connectors, manifolds and valves for their ventilators. Many of these products have traditionally been imported, but are now made locally.
As mask and medical orders streamed in, export orders for scuba equipment surprisingly began to return as the European and American sports goods market bounced back far more quickly than anticipated. He not only had to bring back his production team to meet demand, but also employed more people.
Couzyn is confident he will not only exit the Covid storm with a new product line, but also have the ability to grow his dive related business. Ultimately, he also hopes that, as travel restrictions have forced people to holiday locally and explore new leisure activities, the small dive industry in South Africa might just grow too. *
Pictured: Adapting to the Covid crisis, Rhys Couzyn, owner of Endless Summer Technologies, has modified his snorkelling masks for medical use.