Reclaiming Industrial Power: Why Black Manufacturers Need Protection, Not Just Participation
South Africa often celebrates entrepreneurship as a pathway to economic inclusion, yet far less attention is paid to the structural realities confronting Black manufacturers attempting to build productive businesses. In sectors such as paints and coatings an industry valued at roughly R15 billion, the market appears competitive on the surface but is in practice highly concentrated and historically entrenched.
A small number of established firms dominate the decorative paints segment that drives most retail demand, controlling access to distribution networks, retail relationships, and the institutional legitimacy required to operate at scale. In such an environment, the promise of an “open market” becomes difficult to reconcile with the lived experience of emerging manufacturers.
For many Black industrialists, manufacturing represents far more than a business opportunity. It represents ownership of productive capacity, participation in supply chains, and entry into the real economy beyond the margins of service contracts and procurement. It is often framed in policy discourse as a central pillar of localisation, job creation, and economic resilience.
Yet the question that increasingly confronts Black manufacturers is not whether they can produce competitively. The deeper question is whether the structure of the market will allow them to survive long enough to scale.
The Illusion of an Open Market
The South African paint industry illustrates how market concentration quietly shapes the competitive landscape. While the sector is frequently described as “moderately fragmented,” market influence is in fact concentrated among a small group of long-established manufacturers. Firms such as Kansai Plascon, Dulux (owned by AkzoNobel), and Prominent Paints collectively control a significant share of the decorative coatings market, particularly within the retail segment where brand visibility and volume are determined.
This concentration does not simply influence pricing or product competition. It shapes the deeper infrastructure of market participation distribution agreements, retailer relationships, and supplier networks that have evolved over decades. These embedded relationships effectively determine which brands gain visibility, credibility, and access to consumers.
For new entrants, especially Black-owned manufacturing firms, the barriers are therefore not only technical or financial. They are structural. Market legitimacy is closely tied to distribution power, and distribution power is largely controlled by incumbents whose dominance is reinforced through long-standing commercial ecosystems.
The result is a market that appears competitive in theory but remains difficult to penetrate in practice.
Access Without Power Is Not Transformation
My experience as founder of Dumax Paints illustrates how these structural dynamics unfold on the ground. The company was established with a clear industrial ambition: to manufacture locally, create employment, and compete on quality within the South African decorative paints market.
From a technical standpoint, the company complied with regulatory standards, invested in production capability, and developed competitive products. Yet capability alone proved insufficient.
The most significant constraints emerged not in production but in market access. Retail shelf space within major hardware and building supply chains proved exceptionally difficult to secure in meaningful volumes. Even when listings were achieved, placement was often marginal, limiting visibility and restricting consumer uptake.
These outcomes were rarely explained through explicit exclusion. Instead, decisions were framed through the language of “category saturation,” “supplier rationalisation,” or logistical constraints. While such explanations appear commercially neutral, their cumulative effect is to protect existing market share while raising the cost of entry for new manufacturers.
In addition to distribution barriers, emerging firms frequently confront legal and administrative pressures that place disproportionate strain on limited resources. For small or medium manufacturers without extensive legal capacity, prolonged disputes or compliance challenges can redirect managerial focus away from growth and toward survival.
The effect is subtle but powerful. A system that formally allows entry simultaneously creates conditions that make sustained participation extremely difficult.
When such firms exit the market, the narrative often attributes failure to entrepreneurial weakness rather than structural conditions.
From Industrial Policy to Industrial Protection
South Africa’s policy discourse increasingly recognises the importance of industrialisation, localisation, and Black industrialists in rebuilding the productive economy. However, current support frameworks remain heavily focused on start-up financing, compliance assistance, and procurement opportunities.
What remains largely absent is institutional protection during the most vulnerable phase of industrial development: scaling.
As emerging manufacturers attempt to secure distribution, negotiate with large buyers, and compete with established incumbents, they often face structural pressures that existing support mechanisms are not designed to address. Legal vulnerability, in particular, is rarely recognised as a strategic risk within industrial policy frameworks.
Yet protection is a normal feature of industrial development globally. Mature industrial economies combine market competition with strategic interventions that protect emerging industries, regulate dominant players, and ensure fair access to distribution infrastructure.
South Africa’s transformation agenda must evolve in a similar direction. Participation alone cannot sustain Black industrialists if the surrounding market structure remains unchanged.
Without mechanisms that address retail gatekeeping, concentration in distribution networks, and unequal legal capacity, the cycle will continue: Black manufacturers enter the market with ambition, struggle against structural barriers, and exit before reaching scale.
Conclusion
The collapse of a Black manufacturing firm should never be viewed as an isolated business failure. Each exit represents the loss of productive capacity, employment opportunities, and entrepreneurial confidence within communities that the transformation project seeks to uplift.
If South Africa is serious about inclusive industrialisation, transformation must move beyond symbolic participation and procurement targets. It must confront the structural dynamics that determine who survives in the marketplace.
The next phase of economic transformation must therefore focus on building institutional mechanisms that protect emerging Black manufacturers while they scale. This includes stronger regulatory oversight of market concentration, fair access to retail and distribution channels, and specialised legal support for Black industrialists facing exclusionary practices.
Manufacturing is not simply another sector of the economy. It is a foundation of economic power. Reclaiming industrial power requires more than celebrating Black entrepreneurs who attempt the journey. It requires building an ecosystem that ensures they can endure it. If we fail to do so, we are not building an inclusive economy, we are rehearsing managed exclusion.
About the Author
Founder and CEO, Climate Paints formerly known as Dumax Paints (Pty) Ltd
Kagiso Nkomo is a South African entrepreneur and industrialist with experience in manufacturing, supply chains, and enterprise development, focused on inclusive industrial growth. He holds an MBA, a BBA (Hons), and a BCom in Supply Chain Management.
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