Page 54 - IDC

6 CITY PRESS, 4 NOVEMBER, 2018

business

iasha Pillay started working at Unistar
Inks seven years ago as her father’s
personal assistant. Today, her dad works
for her.
The 28-year-old now owns a 51% stake
Rin the family business and her father,
Dasson, delights in calling her “boss” – especially when
her grandparents are in earshot.
It was a R22 million loan from the Industrial
Development Corporation (IDC) – which she applied for
as part of the Gro-e Youth Scheme for young
business owners – that catapulted Pillay’s
company from being a small enterprise to
becoming a big business. From 20-something In
employees two years ago, the company now
has more than 50 – and its turnover has partnership
doubled. with the
Pillay’s business was founded by her
father in 2004 after he spotted a gap in the
printing ink market, which was dominated IDC
by European imports. Unistar began
manufacturing printing inks for food packaging
and it now prints packages for household names
– bread bags for Albany and chip packets for
Simba.
Pillay had not planned to join the family business.
Armed with a bachelor’s degree in business science
from the University of Cape Town in 2011, she’d been
accepted into the graduate recruitment programme at
SA Breweries. But she went home to Durban and
started helping her dad out during her holiday because
she “cannot sit still”.
“I started implementing new policies and I realised
what a change I’d made and how much he needed
me. I was more his PA than anything else when I
first started. But the business grew and I saw gaps,”
she says.
However, it wasn’t all plain sailing.
“It’s not the fact that I came in as a young woman
that ruffled so many feathers, it’s because I
implemented so many changes,” she says.
“The business had been running for eight years
before I started, and some thought: ‘You know, we were
profitable before she came in, what is she trying to do?
What is she trying to achieve? Is she just showing off?’”
Pillay insists that she was no different from any
other employee, growing from the father’s PA to CHANGING THE WORLD Riasha Pillay is driving the package printing industry in SA one giant leap at a time PHOTO: ELIZABETH SEJAKE
assistant lab technician, to a general manager and then
to the production manager of the company’s entire
Durban plant. YOUNG, BOLD AND
But gaining recognition and respect was far more
difficult outside of the business than within. As the
first young black woman business owner in ink
manufacturing in the country, it was hard to make her
mark in an industry dominated by older white men.
“I was constantly undermined and left out of industry
gatherings because they didn’t take me seriously,” she
says, adding that this drove her to complete her
master’s degree in business administration.
“Also, joining the family business, there was a stigma, ambitious
like I was a beneficiary of nepotism. It was like: ‘She
got to where she is today because of her dad.’
“No. My dad got to where he is today because of me.
This business got to where it is today because of the
sacrifices that we both made.”
But she won in the end.
“All those men respect me today – after they got to
know me and got to listen to me, they realised I’m not
Riasha Pillay started out in the family business, now she’s
an airhead.”
Going green
It is perhaps because she had such a tough time as a running it and pushing ink to the limit, writes Nicki Gules
young business owner that Pillay is now giving young
people opportunities in her business, and employing
their skills and creativity to drive it forward. “We are also looking at smart packaging and how we
In 2014, Unistar Inks embarked on a massive PILLAY’S ADVICE FOR YOUNG BUSINESS OWNERS can use conductive ink to reveal the temperature of
sustainability drive and launched its water-based inks in your milk, and to help prevent food waste.”
2015. It worked with the likes of Valpré on the The recent outcry over counterfeit foods sold in spaza
company’s green bottle and with Kimberly-Clark to “Be resilient. Take the step. Go for it. If you have a And when they do tell you no, it will be a motivating shops in Gauteng prompted Pillay to research how
make its packaging more environmentally friendly. dream, go for it. factor for you to get it, and take the next step. widespread the problem was.
“We soon realised we needed more money. We were “Despite the odds that you may feel are stacked “You need to have a tough skin, and you need to find “I started reading about how bad things are in the
self-funded all along, and that’s when we approached against you, break them down. You have nothing to prove that passion. rest of Africa and the number of people it is affecting is
the IDC,” she says. to anyone but yourself. “If you find that passion and if you find what really scary,” she says.
People who are 35 or younger at the time of “And the worst thing that anyone can tell you is no. motivates you to get up in the mornings, it makes “So I am going to Tiger Brands, a company we
application can qualify for preferential interest rates ‘No, we don’t want your product, no you don’t fit in here.’ working for it so much easier.” already work with, to look at printing translucent ink
through the IDC’s Gro-e Youth Scheme, and they need on packaging so a customer can tell whether the goods
to have a majority stake in a company. are counterfeit,” she says, adding that the translucent
Pillay took over the commercial and production side – be applied to anything, from solving retail stock ink would prove authenticity in a similar way that
of the business, which gave her father more time to management problems to measuring the temperature of watermarks prove bank notes are real.
follow his passion for technology and research and food when the ink is used for printing on containers. Pillay’s youth drive is having a tremendous effect on
development. Printing circuitry for use in electronic devices such the company, she says.
She applied for the loan two years ago. as cellphones is also something the company is “The talent that they have is incredible. They have
“It was daunting for me, like any funding application, working on. this passion to create new technologies and make
but it also taught me about my own business, which “The ink is made out of silver nitrate and has something of themselves.
was great. You really get into the fine print, and you conductible properties – that’s one of my father’s proud “It is something that has changed the way I operate
don’t realise a lot of the logistics until you have to inventions. He worked with overseas experts, including and changed the way I run this business because I am
repeat it to somebody else,” she says. from Toronto in Canada and a professor from a ‘‘ able to see how much passion they have.”
The IDC funding was used to expand Unistar’s university in London,” she says. We are also looking With the new technology Unistar Inks has launched
product line, and to produce a new green printing “You have masterminds who create these with the help of the IDC loan, Pillay has ensured that
technology called ultraviolet curable inks. They also technologies, but they don’t have experience in the at smart packaging the young engineers involved in its development get to
used the money to expand, opening a new operation in printing side of it, which we have, and we also have see the process through to the end.
Johannesburg. The plan is to expand to Cape Town next experience in the ink side of things. “They have travelled to London with my dad, and
year to give the company a truly national footprint. “We are taking ink to the limit and breaking barriers and how we can he’s taken them to visit all the stakeholders. I have
Going green was an obvious step for Pillay. in terms of what inks can be used for.” taken them to customers and they are part of the
“Green technology is slightly more expensive, but if To help develop the new technology, Pillay has hired use conductive production of this product. For them, it’s not
you look at the way things are going and you look at seven interns – mostly young black woman chemical necessarily about the commercial gain, but the
the new taxes being imposed throughout the world, and electrical engineers who have recently graduated realisation that they have created something; that
especially for industries in terms of carbon emissions, and come from disadvantaged communities. ink to reveal the they’ve done it,” she says.
being an industrialist means you have to look at the “They are actually our jewels and are taking the While hiring the talent is one thing, getting a shy
bigger picture,” she says. business to the next level because they are innovating temperature of engineer to speak up at a meeting is another, so the
No green inks are manufactured in South Africa – with my father,” she says. company has invested in training programmes for staff
most of the local inks are solvent-based – and the green “We are looking at commercialising the conductive in everything from finance to production management.
technology is Unistar’s “competitive advantage”. inks in the next year, and we are working with your milk, and “We make them know that they are valuable and that
companies such as LG and it’s exciting. Although we are going to grow them. We aren’t here just to
Young people driving solutions we have our bread and butter – like our Tastic rice extract their ideas and create robots out of our
The environmentally friendly inks aren’t Unistar’s only brand bags – this is how we are differentiating to help prevent employees,” she says.
innovation. The company is looking to commercialise ourselves. This is where the business is going. We are “We realise we are nothing without our staff and our
new conductive inks in the next year. These inks, which going to be the first people who can print using food waste stakeholders, and the IDC is one of them. We wouldn’t
are able to conduct electricity, can – in theory for now conductive inks in the world. be where we are today without them.”

The IDC financing process in 5 steps 4 5 The SBU undertakes a due

R1 million or more for entrepreneurs for new businesses or expansions diligence process. If the plan
Appli- meets all the requirements,
The potential 1 All business 2 If it falls within 3 cations the money is transferred
client drops off plans are the mandate, the that Agroprocessing Industrial Chemicals Textiles Heavy Light manufacturing The rest of
their business registered PIBC allocates pass and agriculture infrastructure and clothing manufacturing and tourism Africa
plan at the IDC's by the it to a manager the
Pre-Investment records to begin basic assessment
Business Centre (PIBC) at departement screening as process are forwarded
19 Friedman Ave, Sandown, and part of the basic for review to one of
or at one of the IDC's regional screened for assessment the 13 strategic Metals and New Automotive and Media and Machinery and Chemical
provincial offices a mandate process business units (SBU's) mining industries transport audiovisual capital products and
equipment equipment pharmaceuticals Graphics24