Have you ever found yourself in a position where you want to execute many tasks at a go but not sure how to do so, perhaps due to a busy schedule and lack of enough time? For this purpose, Gladys Keza and a colleague, co-founded a company that runs errands, and diverse services for whoever needs them.

D-Runner Ltd, a Gikondo-based firm, was founded in 2020 to offer convenience to people, especially those without house managers. The company deals in janitorial services such as surface cleaning and detailing.

In addition, it also offers pest control services like fumigation, all surface disinfection, and logistics services like house and office moving, loading and offloading services, and so forth.

Starting out

According to Keza, the idea was to expand the concept of ‘house-helps’ by making life simpler, for instance, from filing tax returns and taking cars to controle technique on behalf of busy clients, providing concierge services to tourists or foreigners visiting for business or pleasure, to washing cars from the comfort of people’s homes.

"So when Covid-19 hit, almost everything came to a standstill but moving, cleaning and pest control services remained relevant. Most people searched for cheaper accommodation; pest control, all surface cleaning, and disinfecting because cleanliness was prioritised as a way to beat Covid-19. My colleague and I had to fill in the gap, we had the personnel to do the job – and this was critical.

An employee during a fumigation process.  Photos/Courtesy

"However, as normalcy resumes, we expect to resume with the core concept of offering errand services too,” she says.

The two co-founders say that the journey has been exciting thus far. Due to the pandemic, they had to push back on some of their goals and take hits on certain projects as they came to a halt. However, they also had breakthroughs.

Keza says that the company retains a database of up to 50 people of diverse qualifications and regularly update it to come in handy whenever they receive bigger assignments than the team on retainer can handle.

As they grow, they expect to have the capacity to bring in more and more people on board.

According to Keza, the firm opts to deal with facts and risk. Facts in the sense that they let their capacity versus clients’ jobs, as well as proposals that can enable them to execute their job to customers’ satisfaction.

"For example, if it requires a machine that we do not yet have, we shall let you know that we will need to rent it, run the figures and let you decide. But also risk in a way that we offer free consultancy and free field surveys, especially in regards to pest control. While it is normal business risk, we do not always have the resources to perform this task before a client has offered commitment, however, we are aware that many of our competition charge for this and so we offer it for free,” she says.

Keza notes that the company operates through three things, that is, hire, personal growth, and client satisfaction. With the hire, their services are tailored towards offering employment or earning opportunities to young people between 18 and 30 and all levels of education and past experience.

She adds that D-Runner has a business model that at full capacity would have the ability to employ over 1,000 young people and pay them well, by the end of 2021. That would be a great number of youth off the unemployment chart or even the streets.

The business co-founder also adds that the company empowers its employees with skills and knowledge through training to keep them conversant and updated on the quality services of the company.

"About client satisfaction, we just want our clients to have value for their money and receive exactly what they pay for. That is what sells. Listening and understanding a client’s needs is as important as deciding whether or not you are the right fit for the job. And besides, honest work attracts its fair share of blessings,” she adds.

Keza says that to a certain degree, the company hasn’t yet succeeded but appreciates the track they are on. They are happy that they are growing under the circumstances and optimistic that their performance will also grow further.

She further says that the customers’ feedback has helped them improve their services, although some have appreciated them, others have complained about some of the areas that they are still letting them down, but work towards correcting their mistakes.

Just like any company, the business duo has encountered some challenges, for instance, they are not fully sufficient in machinery and this limits their scope quite a lot. However, it is also one that they are working tooth and nail to address.

"As a fairly new player, it takes a while to hit the ground running and I would say we have not been able to meet our growth targets. One might say it is because of the limitations of Covid-19 SOPs, but we were born in this pandemic, I believe we shouldn’t use it as a yardstick to gauge our progress,” she states.

The businesswoman adds that the company has made inquiries and received a few quotations to add more equipment to their fleet in order to be able to serve at a bigger scale and even better.

She adds that they are also working towards introducing some of their other services, particularly mobile car washing, and companion care, where they take care of the young, sick and elderly in hospital or at their homes, and concierge services like learning, hotel and business assistance.

They also look forward to starting their event management department. All these are earmarked to start in December 2021.

You can reach Gladys Keza 0782743101