Nomfundo Mcoyi has without a single loan grown her business from a humble Hammarsdale funeral parlour into an empire offering funeral and financial services, with branches throughout KwaZulu-Natal.
She even has a branch in London’s sought-after Canary Wharf precinct to service South Africans living abroad.
Mcoyi, a finalist in the Entrepreneur of the Year competition sponsored by Sanlam and Business/Partners, is passionate about her business, Icebolethu Group, mainly because it provides secure employment for 500 staff in 50 branches and 12 mortuaries across the province, including 100 staff in a state-of-the-art Durban call centre, and because she values providing a quality service in an industry dogged by unscrupulous players.
She is a member of the South African Funeral Practitioners Association and as chief executive of her group, she runs a string of businesses, including Icebolethu Funerals, Icebolethu Financial Services, Lily of the Valley Memorials, Ikhayelihle Tombstones, Icebolethu Catering and her corporate social responsibility division, Icebolethu Foundation.
But this is not the first business Mcoyi, a former primary school teacher and mother of three, has established.
She taught at Zwakele Primary School in Inanda for eight years, after graduating from Edgewood College in 1996 to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Four years into teaching, in 2000, she opened a catering business with her former husband, followed by a butchery in the CBD and a corner café in Umbilo.
She eventually quit teaching to pursue her business interests.
“Business has always been in my blood – in Hammarsdale where I grew up, the name Mcoyi was known for business. My grandfather, Bakhaliphicebo, was the first person to open the first business complex in Hammarsdale,” Mcoyi said.
Mcoyi exited the hospitality and food industry in 2008, leaving her former husband to run the businesses.
Saddened to see the exploitation of consumers by unscrupulous operators in the funeral industry, Mcoyi saw a gap in the market to provide a quality funeral policy product linked to a one-stop-shop service that would not require surprise “top-up” payments in cash.
Icebolethu’s policies include products and services ranging from undertaking, tombstones, caskets, funeral organisation, cash payouts and funeral catering services to lifestyle benefits such as ambulance response, legal advice, a 24-hour call centre and counselling services.
Mcoyi opened her first funeral parlour in Hammarsdale with just five staff.
“I started in Hammarsdale because it’s where I was born and people trust me. I thought it would be easier to start in a place where people trust me. I grew from there to another branch in Richmond where I had lived from Grade 2 to Grade 9,” Mcoyi said.
“The market wasn’t very easy, but I had a really good team and I loved what I did. If you are not doing something for the money, you’re doing it for the love. For me, Icebolethu was more about creating jobs and making sure everybody worked. In Hammarsdale, I employed all these whoonga guys (drug users) and turned them around,” she said.
Mcoyi’s business is debt free and growing rapidly – she has her sights set on expanding to Cape Town – a success she puts down to reinvesting in the business and in making sure her staff are trained and provided for in terms of employee benefits, including a pension fund.
London's Canary wharf, where the company opened a branch in 2015.
Mcoyi opened a branch in Canary Wharf in London in 2015 where she offers funeral cover and services that can be redeemed in the UK or at home.
“We had clients that worked there who would send money to their families here to pay their policies, but the family wouldn’t pay and the policy would lapse. I decided to open something there so they could pay in the UK and manage their policies themselves. If they pass away in the UK, we will repatriate them back to the country. They can have a policy for £10. It’s working very well,” Mcoyi said.
Icebolethu recently introduced a similar product for Southern African Development Community (SADC) citizens living in the UK.
Mcoyi opened Ikhayelihle tombstones in 2015, followed by Valley of Lillies Floral Boutique, which includes a florist, a coffee shop and a gift store in Hammarsdale Mall.
Always seeking solutions and services for her customers, and recognising the dire shortage of grave sites in municipal cemeteries, Mcoyi is about to develop her first private cemetery in Cliffdale, 40km from Durban. Icebolethu will sell sites which the firm will maintain for a fee.
“We have purchased land. It is going to be a very exclusive private cemetery with 5 000 plots which we will launch in November. Prices will start at R10 000 a site,” she said.
Mcoyi is also passionate about mentoring the youth, and especially girls, to the extent that Icebolethu sponsored the 100 Scarce Skills Career Day at the Durban Exhibition Centre to provide guidance to high-school pupils. She has also set up a mentorship programme, Rhoda Girls, which will see successful business people mentoring 50 girls at a time to help them achieve their potential and to secure their future.