Big Brands is an advertising company that started in 2008 and does indoor and outdoor large format printing. Their clients include Zambian Breweries, Standard Chartered Bank, Express Credit, Diamond TV, Bank of Zambia, Engie Energy Access, and Pafriw Hardware amongst others. Nkanda Yatu Designs is a fashion house that came into fruition in 2018 and has been operating on the same premises and as sister company to Big Brands.
I sat down with Kasonde Ng’andu, Director of Operations at Big Brands Chain of Suppliers & Assistant to head designer of Nkanda Yatu Designs, to hear about what’s it’s like to run two distinct, yet parallel successful businesses. Kasonde Ng’andu runs Big Brands Chain of Suppliers (Big Brands) and Nkanda Yatu together with Kabaso Nkandu.
Here’s what he had to say.
It has been a marathon to have two companies running side by side, but we just love our work.
Day by day each company encounters challenges. Finances have been a challenge to come by. During the Covid pandemic a number of companies had to close and lay off workers. Fortunately we were able to stay afloat without cutting salaries or laying off anyone from the team. We were still functional. Post covid business hasn’t been as good, but through perseverance and endurance we have not closed down and day by day the business picks up.
With Big Brands we have enjoyed our relationship with various corporates in and outside Lusaka and it’s been very positive. Despite the market now being saturated with various advertising agencies we are doing our best to let our brand do the talking once we do the work. You’ll find that people are getting to compromise on the quality of print work where they are going for low quality, but low quality is not lasting. Most companies are coming back to us as pioneers who have not compromised on their work. It’s positive because you’re now getting back lost customers who had gone to cheaper products. Maintaining our quality has been our goal.
Nkanda Yatu have been the first Zambian designers to showcase at Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks and that was a dream come true for the head designer.
People get to wonder if this was really made in Africa. We always get to show them part of our 
background work and that everything is made in Zambia. If you look at our work, it is exceptional. You get feedback when people in the audience contact us and say they saw something on the runway and ask if it can be shipped to them. We can deliver according to the timeline that the client wants. We are an authentic Zambian brand. We work with African fabrics, but also Italian, Indian and Chinese fabrics if that’s what the client wants. Last year we were called in to do a showcase with the Ministry of Tourism in Shanghai, China for a show sponsored by a bank in East Africa.
We are expanding Nkanda Yatu and have opened up another office in Windhoek and despite the new office not being fully functional yet, Nkanda Yatu produces for the Namibian market. As time goes by we hope the office will be fully functional in Namibia. We aspire to get better on all sides – both advertising and fashion sides. We aspire to be the leading branding company in Zambia and the leading fashion house in Africa at large.
My personal favorite memory with Big Brands is when one of our biggest clients registered us as a supplier. When anyone, who knew how hard it was to penetrate to that supplier, heard that we had registered with them, they kept asking how we had managed. That is a memory I’m really fond of. We have maintained a relationship with that client for 4-5 years now and our relationship has been immaculate.
On the Nkanda Yatu front our fondest memory is setting a footprint in Europe. Europe wants us to come back and do more showcases and that’s been one of our milestones and fondest memories as a brand. We look forward to setting our sights on others fashion shows especially in the US at New York Fashion Week and in Europe at London Fashion Week.
There are many lessons we get to learn in business. Number one lesson I’ve learned is related to the saying that a customer is always right. What I have learned is that you have to go in with humility and everything sets its tone by itself. No matter how much a client will raise their voice you need to be calm, collected, and humble in all situations.
