OUR THANKS TO YOU

Dolphin Bay extends our heartfelt thanks to each one of you, our clients. It has been a tough year but, working in close partnership, we were able to find solutions to many of the challenges that our businesses and our industry faced.

We know that trust is hard-earned but easily broken, and we value our business partnerships greatly. Each one of us at Dolphin Bay remains committed to adapting to the times, in order to provide you with the excellent service we have promised you.

American author Patrick Rothfuss has said, “Everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head, all the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”

At Dolphin Bay, we know this to be true. We have experienced the power of the story we tell ourselves in creating not only our individual lives, but also the culture and destiny of our company, and now wish to tell our clients the story that “makes us who we are”:

“The seed of a tree does not know where it will be planted. It cannot anticipate how fast it will grow, nor how big it will become. But it stays true to its purpose, making the optimum use of every resource that helps it to grow – the soil, sun and rain – in its efforts to reach its full potential.

“After many years, people may gaze at it with admiration. ‘Wow. That’s a great tree,’ they may comment, enjoying how it improves the natural environment. The tree will have become all that it can be, giving all that it can in the process. It will have fulfilled its purpose.

“Wherever we may find ourselves, those of us in business too, we are all here to fulfil a purpose. As this purpose unfolds over time, we have the opportunity to grow and to serve others, in ways we may not have anticipated. Eventually, we may reach our full potential. If our clients should appreciate our efforts along the way, it will be because they understand we are giving them our utmost, in our mission to add value for them.

“At Dolphin Bay, we have no ulterior motives. We are here to help make the world a better place, through the products and services we provide to our clients, and the way in which we provide them. We have our clients’ best interests at heart. We are here to help you grow, sustainably.

“The best thing about it all, by far, is that we’re nice guys to do business with.”

That is the long version of our Dolphin Bay story. The short, simple version is summed up by our slogan: “Knowing we can make a difference.”

This has been a challenging year for businesses in South Africa, a year of economic storms. In tumultuous weather trees, too, suffer. Gale-force winds may come, stripping them of their leaves. Birds flee elsewhere. For a while, the tree’s future seems bleak.

But miraculously, after the storm, fresh green shoots start to emerge. Birds return to build their nests and rear their young. A scene once drab and disturbing becomes, once again, a web of life.

This is how we, at Dolphin Bay, are seeing the current era of uncertainty and hardship in South Africa. Companies are like trees. Together, we have remained in place, adapting to the “climate” as necessary, making sure our operations are as lean and hardy as possible to withstand many knocks.

But once the economic storm is over, life will return. Fresh opportunities will arise, and a sense of promise will return. This change is inevitable. It is the nature of life.

Dolphin Bay looks forward to a more positive economic outlook in 2018. We trust this will be a year in which we will be able to look back in amazement at having weathered tough times together.

Ultimately, we believe, our businesses together will create a “forest”: a healthy, life-sustaining sector that is rich with opportunity for us all.

Thank you, once again, for taking this journey with us.