Multi-Media has a rich history dating back 25 years, when the business was started from a small office space in Cape Town, Tokai.
Like all things positive, change is inevitable, and our growth and development took a huge step forward some 15 years ago when Tim opened what is now our primary office in Johannesburg. Naturally, we still maintain our presence in Cape Town. It has however, been in the last two years when we have been fortunate enough to experience fantastic growth, and for that, we would like to thank our very loyal and growing client base. Many of you have been part of our story from the very beginning.
It is for this reason that we feel it important to share some of our stories and news via our first newsletter. The intention is not to bombard your mailbox – but on a quarterly basis – to inform you of new developments, exciting new acquisitions, introduce our team or just an amusing industry anecdote.
In the last two years, we have appointed both Jason Fritz and Chris de Lancey at senior management level. Jason and Chris have a collective 50-odd years’ experience in the industry – going back to the days when Slide Projectors were the industry standard and the only way to show your presentations (for those of you that still remember what slide projectors were?) Both Jason and Chris have developed key relationships with a variety of clients over the years, and we are pleased that we now call them friends of Multi-Media too. This has given us the opportunity to work with clients in a number of different industries such as Fashion, Retail, Motor Manufacturing, Footwear, IT and Telecoms to mention a few.
Another exciting area we have moved into is the television industry, supplying technical and consulting to a number of television shows which have been, or soon will be aired both locally and into the African Continent. Offering the best possible service has always been the cornerstone of our business, and with this growth, we have had to employ a number of staff in various areas. Obviously, competent technical staff are paramount, but along with that, operations, warehouse, administration and management have all been considered.
70% of our new staff are BEE appointees, and 30% of that are in management. Naturally, in supporting this growth, we have had to invest hugely in our equipment inventory, venturing also into new technology. Our primary investment here has been LED screen technology. This move to LED has come at a huge investment but has proven to be a big differentiator for us. We now have 120 panels of high resolution LED screen 3.6mm, and 200 panels of the low-resolution 12mm. The main advantages with LED is the brightness in high ambient light venues, the ability to create screens in almost any shape you can imagine and to create interactive digital sets. A substantial investment has also been made in the Lighting Department with some 200 more lighting fixtures being purchased since the start of the year. We also recently acquired the assets of a competitor, further expanding upon our stock in all areas.
Lastly, in this relatively fledgling industry, Multi-Media celebrates its 25th year of operation in 2016. Not many in our industry can lay claim to that feat, and we’re obviously exceptionally proud of our track record. We certainly have a lot to be proud of, and are even more excited about what lays ahead. Once again, a big thank you for your loyal and continued support, and we look forward to building successful partnerships with all our valued clients into the future.