Royal Tyres, one of KZN’s leading tyre specialists is South Africa’s oldest tyre dealer, is celebrating its 84th anniversary in 2023. Royal Vulcanizing, as the company was previously known, was rebranded to Royal Tyres in 2018. Over the years, the company has had to deal with a multitude of industry challenges while negotiating the rapidly changing and often tumultuous political and social landscape of the city and the country.

Mr. Raman Patel was the founder of this independent black-owned tyre business, which came into existence during the turbulent Apartheid era. Any other business would have crumbled under the bureaucracy of such a biased system, but Royal Vulcanizing was different. The family business proved to be a force to be reckoned with as its ethos was founded on the principles of integrity, customer service excellence, and competitive prices.

The three founding brothers, with their focussed dedication and commitment to offering the highest quality at the most affordable price, provided a solid foundation on which to build the business. Consequently, the business has grown from small, modest beginnings, doing two retreads a day, into a thriving professionally run operation with the full range of passenger, commercial, truck and earth moving vehicle tyres.

In 1973, Raman’s son and Royal Tyres CEO, Jay Patel joined the team. His parents had passed away within a year of each other just as he finished his schooling - and he found himself thrust into the family business with his cousins and uncle.

Three generations later, the established tyre experts have remained loyal to family and it is now headed by Mrs Jasmeena Shiba(daughter) Mr Pranav Patel (son), Mr Akshay Patel(son) and Mr Nayan Shiba (son-in-law).

Human Resources & Workforce
The company is segregated into two specialised divisions, Commercial and Passenger with a team of experienced personnel in the tyre industry, providing customers with a highly skilled resource team who are able to provide expert service and value to its customers.

The objective of the newly established Human Resources Department at Royal Tyres is to attract, develop, and retain a diverse and talented workforce through innovative recruitment processes. In addition, the company strives to foster a productive work environment where people feel valued and ensuring compliance with respective legislation applicable to labour and its industry.

SPECIALISED DIVISIONS
Passenger & Light Commercial Vehicle Division
Providing a range of wheel and tyre products and associated services for business fleets or family vehicles, or luxury mag wheels for the motoring enthusiast, Royal Tyres has all that the customer needs.

Commercial Division
The Commercial Division is focused on reducing our customer fleets’ tyre related costs by an offering of almost any product a customer may require backed by industry leading service and decades of knowledge and expertise housed in a prime location with state of-the-art equipment and processes. The Commercial Division provides a range of tyre, wheel and automotive products for multiple product applications.

SERVICES
Complete Tyre Package
The company boasts an exceptionally large stock holding of 50 plus brands of various tyres and rims with sufficient capacity to deliver products nationally through its network of branches and affiliations situated in both the coastal and inland areas.

The vast tyre stock holding consists of the local tyre manufacturers and premium international brand suppliers as well as an entire range of brands that are directly imported from various countries ranging from your entry level economy tyres to more mid-tier value for money brands, and then a few high-quality brands as well.

Technology
Royal Tyres employs highly skilled and experienced staff and the fitting department is no exception. A combination of these employees and the latest equipment make for some of the most trusted tyre fitments in the country Royal Tyres links expertise and automation with quality and efficiency in every single tyre replacement and fitting, wheel alignment and balancing. This same approach is adopted in supplying and fitting batteries, shocks and other parts. Each branch is fitted with state- of-the-art modern technology with skilled staff that set Royal Tyres ahead of other players in the industry.

Royal Tyres makes use of the best wheel balancing technology, the Road Force® Elite at-a-glance. 3D wheel alignment allows our mechanics to perform the most precise wheel alignment on all types of cars.

Supply Chain
The establishment of three branches over the years in Port Shepstone, Harding and Hammarsdale has increased the company’s capacity, customer base, turnover and buying power annually. In more recent times the wholesaling sales segment has drastically increased, further building its supply chain reach and capacity.