The linens industry has evolved a lot in the four decades since Simba Global began operating.
As a textiles company that sources commercial linen, towels and other textiles of the highest quality, Simba Global is a family business that started over four decades ago. From humble beginnings, founder Anil Somaia dreamed of starting a new life in Australia. At the start, he sold linen from the back of his car to laundries in Melbourne. Even then Anil knew the importance of exceptional customer service and the power of delivering on a promise.
“Our business has evolved through changing terms of trade, shifting market conditions and the emergence of disruptive new technologies over four decades, the Internet being just one example,” said Hiten Somaia, group general manager technical for business at SIMBA.
Another example of these changes is the Australian and New Zealand industry value chain has moved towards international supply chain integration.
Technology continues to evolve rapidly, so how does Simba build resilience to better serve clients as market conditions evolve?
“We believe that Simba Global’s appetite for change and approach to co-designed solutions will underpin our transition from being a textiles supplier to becoming a data-driven asset management service provider.”
Hiten dreamed of being a physicist when he was young, however, his parents encouraged him to study a trade related to the family business. So he pursued physics at the University of New South Wales but majored in textile technology at the same time. In a stroke of good timing, when Hiten graduated university the family company decided to not only import textiles but also to get into manufacturing.
“In 1985, we became the newest and most modern towel and sheeting manufacturer in Australia. Newly graduated from university, and having never held a spanner in my hand before that, my family entrusted me with running the entire production facility.”
From there, Hiten began a lifelong pursuit of developing textiles fit for purpose and to solve problems.
As Simba’s clients lean more and more towards data-driven decision-making, the business works to continually refine and develop its services and offerings to leverage growing data analytics capabilities.
Simba’s growth strategy has seen it acquire many other textiles companies in recent years, for example, Commercial Textiles in 2014, Killarney Linen in 2015, and Tytex NZ and Texco NZ in 2016.
It began six years ago when CEO Kamal Somaia challenged the management team to think about the business and its future in a more deliberate way.
“We continuously identify products or services that our existing customers would love; customers that we don’t have but would love to service; and new countries and market segments where we feel our product and service offer would provide a compelling proposition.”
To learn more about Simba call 0800 289 839.
