4 minute read
Grad Gallery: Nikhal Narismulu
LinkedIn: bit.ly/3sCPm3s
Current positions:
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Founder and Managing Director of Arc Technology; Co-founder and CEO of Naphina Network NPC; Founder and Managing Director of Peak Safety
Past positions:
Executive Director of Litoro Foundation
Academic history:
2019 Bachelor of Commerce Honours specialising in Economics at UCT
2018 Bachelor of Commerce specialising in Economics and Finance at UCT
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What is Arc Technology and what led you to establish it?
Arc Technology was founded to create leading safety solutions for workers in South Africa by providing high quality Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Clothing (PPC) at affordable prices. The movement for South Africa to be able to rely on local manufacturers for high quality safety products inspired me to establish a presence in the South African market. It is the key driver behind Arc Technology’s vision to establish new and empower existing local manufacturers across the country. My interests in empowering others and providing market-leading safety solutions encouraged me to continue on this entrepreneurial path instead of immediately entering into a corporate environment.
What are your day-to-day responsibilities as Managing Director?
My day-to-day responsibilities involve performing a range of checks on my team’s work, meeting with various stakeholders, optimising workflows and exploring new revenue-generating avenues for Arc Technology. More practically, I find myself doing a combination of the following: checking-in with my team; aligning on the outcomes for the day; ensuring that all deliverables are up-to-date; evaluating standard operating procedures; implementing best-practices; identifying new opportunities; and ensuring that the company remains compliant and operates within the law.
What value do your qualifications add to your work, directly or indirectly?
Entrepreneurship is often characterised by uncertainty, risk and stress. At university, these factors are available in abundance. During my time on campus, I realised that the odds are not always going to be in your favour and that an optimal response to [both to success and failure] is necessary.
Hence, I found the experience gained from the process of acquiring your qualification(s) can be as valuable as the content of the degree itself. For example, the abilities needed to meet tight deadlines, engage with different types of individuals and map a path to success (passing objective tests, understanding lecture content, getting through group projects and eventually earning your qualification) have shaped the way I lead – I engage stakeholders and mitigate risks in order to lead my team to success.
More directly, the content taught and tested in lectures and practical work are designed to help you succeed. Therefore, ensuring that you engage with the content and understand what you are taught each day is essential in maximising your ability and making you more competitive.
What are the key skills that have contributed to your success so far?
People skills and understanding the key drivers of my succeeding in my industry have helped increase the likelihood of my success. Engaging people in a constructive and respectful way has helped me develop strong partnerships and resolve various levels of conflict. As a result, stakeholders have expressed their appreciation for the calm, calculated and concise approach that my team and I apply to our meetings, negotiations and conflict resolutions. In my experience, this has led to easier stakeholder engagement and access to additional opportunities with new companies and individuals. Moreover, my understanding of how a company operates, generates revenue and yields a profit has played a key role in informing both my decision-making process and how my team and I implement best practices to improve overall performance and efficiency.
What advice would you give to graduates entering the world of work?
If you are entering a similar entrepreneurial space or the corporate world that I work with, expect to encounter multiple hurdles and work long hours. If you enter the world of work anticipating these two factors, you are more likely to adapt to your new environment, feel comfortable engaging with new people often and with the work itself that you may not initially understand.
Additionally, I advise leaning into these hurdles and finding constructive ways to overcome them. Often those around you find it easier to overlook new solutions or write-off difficult, confusing problems. I feel that you can only learn more if you approach these situations with a positive mindset regardless of whether the outcome is positive.
The last takeaway is avoid being too hard on yourself. Your first year of work is not designed to be easy (usually) and you may feel frustrated with slow gratification and learning how to succeed (especially coming out of university). When this happens, have a look around and you may notice that there are many others experiencing something similar whom you can turn to for advice or support.
What impact has COVID-19 had on your career?
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the unpredictability of being an entrepreneur and reiterated the need to devise key strategies that are likely to succeed in the worst possible outcomes. In short, the pandemic taught me to build resilient, shock-proof strategies and how to function and find success in an underwhelming environment where negativity is rife. As a result, I feel that it has strengthened my career and furthered my ability to mitigate multiple forms of risk that companies and individuals face in times of crisis. Moreover, it’s allowed me to develop and implement dynamic strategies that are easy to adjust in order to pivot towards more positive outcomes.
