NDAMU SANDU
Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe CEO Precious Nyika believes there are no losers: it’s either one wins or learns.
Learning the hard way, she said, is the ticket to success and when one embraces learning he or she would have embraced growth.
“I believe in the philosophy that it’s either you have results or you have reasons. That philosophy for me separates the grain from the chaff,” she told Business Times this week.
“I believe that I only know 5% of all the things that I need to know to succeed and because of that every opportunity that I have to learn I will take full advantage of it.”
The executive turned one year in office last week. She took over from Kaziwe Siame Kaulule who was assigned another position at Lafarge Cement South Africa.
Before taking over the reins at the cement manufacturer, Nyika was Human Resources, Strategy & Communications director at the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed concern.
Her appointment coincided with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic into Zimbabwe, five months after its outbreak in China.
She was not only required to learn the job but “needed to carry the business through a deadly pandemic”—a story she will live to tell.
“Amidst that crisis what kept my feet on the ground was the fact that I had worked in this business for nine years before taking over this job and I knew the business well.
What also made this transition easier is that I took over a business that had been strategically pushing for a culture of resilience in the past year, a highly futuristic step that we had taken,” Nyika said, adding this “became the core of our winning formula to sail through a very tough year”.
“I learnt in this year that the only way to survive the crisis is to focus on the things that we can control and forget about spending days worrying about the things that we could not control.”
She said the team remained focused on bigger ambitions, determined to win as the environment deteriorated.
She is indebted to the Kumbirayi Katsande-led board and the staff who have supported her tenure thus far, describing it as a “great first year” in office.
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way companies operate in the new normal.
Nyika said the cement maker had as early as January 2020 begun the process of preparing the business to respond to the pandemic.
This saw the cement maker working on a business continuity plan leveraging on the experiences of “our counterparts across the globe who had encountered the pandemic before us”.
“This included us taking measures such as decongesting the work site and implementing the “Working from Home policy” which left only critical staff manning vital machinery on site. Through an inter-functional committee that we call the Business Resilience team, we were proactive in putting in place systems that we believed would help us better mitigate against Covid-19,” Nyika said.
Despite such preparedness, the pandemic brought a number of unpredictable and inevitable changes which impacted business continuity for the cement manufacturer.
“While we were exempted as an essential service for most of the lock-downs, the other aspects of the economy that support our business, either as supply chain or as customers could not qualify for similar exemptions for the greater part and this obviously slowed down our operations,” she said.
“The cement manufacturer launched an action plan—Health, Cash and Costs—where it put in place robust health promotion strategies focusing on prevention of Covid-19 on its site and among our stakeholders, case management and general employee wellness in the wake of the many changes that disrupted normal life.”
She added: “The company had to innovate in the digital space to be better able to serve customers and generate the revenue for the business.
This gave birth to the e-Verse, a three-ply cocktail of its digital customer service platforms which include Muvaki, the 24hour chatbot, Lead retail, the e-based retail platform and the Binastore website where multicurrency purchases of cement and allied construction products could be made online from across the world.
This strengthened our financial position to see us through the year. Lastly, we engaged a strict cost containment culture which saw us cutting back on spending to focus on only critical spend. This too was critical to see us through the new normal.”
The pandemic brought lessons for companies and Nyika picks three—proactivity, agility and innovation.
She said Zimbabwe had the time to set into motion mitigatory measures with the little knowledge it could gather from its counterparts in countries that were first affected since it came almost 5 months after it had been identified in China.
“In this era where technology facilitates instant sharing of information, it was imperative that businesses leverage this intelligence to be proactive and not be found napping when the crisis strikes,” Nyika said.
“Proactiveness is the first line of defence in crisis management.”
She said businesses learnt to be agile, building capabilities to undertake quick and well-calculated responses to the dynamics that the crisis presented. She said the art of agility becomes that critical survival tactic that will save the day as there is a limit to the extent to which one can be ahead of the occurrence, especially if it is a first-time eventuality.
“It was quite intriguing to see how companies made critical adjustments as a national response to the pandemic unfolding, not only around business continuity but also around providing social support to communities as well as the health care system. A crisis will allow for the positive crossing of boundaries,” Nyika said.
The executive said the crisis proved that failure to innovate “is fatal for the business as well as the greater economy”.
“This is why we now have what we call the new normal. It really is a collection of innovations that we came up with to survive the circumstances that we have found ourselves in during this crisis,” she said.
Nyika believes a government-business partnership is the engine to build a strong society as rarely does one actor solve a problem alone.
“Ideally, all levels of government should work with each other and with private-sector businesses to build a productive and progressive society,” she said.
Lafarge, she said, has enjoyed “very productive collaborations” with the government.
“In 2019, when we announced that we would be undertaking a three-pronged investment plan to install a new Dry Mortars plant, increase our cement grinding capacity and to install power generators to manage power supply challenges, the Zimbabwean government afforded us national project status and we have worked collaboratively with relevant arms of government to roll out this investment plan,” Nyika said.
“We are now in the final phase of the capital projects with the installation of the Vertical Cement Mill which is currently underway. These investment projects will contribute towards infrastructure development in this country which is a key focus for the government today.”
Last year, Lafarge also partnered with the government in the Pfumvudza Agricultural programme, set to benefit thousands of small-scale farmers while boosting food security for the country.
“The company supplied SupaGrow brand of calcitic and dolomitic lime under this programme. So as a local company, we have a good working relationship with the government and this has made a significant contribution to economic growth,” Nyika said.
The cement industry has been beset by the influx of cheap imports which have disadvantaged the local manufacturers and its related value chains. Nyika said existing players have the capacity to serve the market.
“The combined capacity installed for local cement manufacturing in this country is adequate to meet the local demand.
As such instead of opening to imports, it is imperative for stakeholders to focus on maintaining capacity utilisation of the installed manufacturing capacity and reap from the upstream and downstream ripple benefits,” she said, adding Lafarge invested in the doubling of cement milling capacity in anticipation of the growing national demand.
“This investment will certainly require considerable protection from imports for it to be viable for both the investors and the local economy. This increased capacity equally doubles the raw material requirement meaning a rise in demand for our supply chain, and upstream benefit for local industries. The net-off benefits for supporting local products cannot be over-emphasised.”
The business leader boasts of over 15 years of experience leading teams in Strategy, Innovation, Operations, Human Resources management, business consulting, and communications. She is a former president of the Institute of People Management in Zimbabwe (IPMZ) from 2017 t0 2019 and sits on boards in industries such as banking, tourism, NGOs, and professional associations.
Family is described as “a little bit of crazy, a little bit of loud and a whole lot of love”.
Nyika describes her husband Charles as a “big support pillar”. The couple is blessed with three children—Victoria (resident image consultant), Trevor (the family’s Pastor) and Nigel, the 24/7 comedian.
An avid runner who jogs four days a week to manage her energy, the award-winning executive watches soccer by default in support of her husband.
She is currently reading a leadership book, Discover your True North, by Bill George which focuses on how to become an authentic leader.
Nyika describes her father as the biggest cheerleader who is always pushing her to work harder and to go the extra mile.
Her mother is a crafty entrepreneur who has an unbreakable spirit. When Nyika needs a good laugh she drives to Masvingo to see her mother.
Her industrious work has been rewarded with the executive picking awards along the way.
She was recognised as an outstanding leader in human capital management in 2016, was among the 100 most influential global HR professionals in 2015, and among the Megafest Top 20 Women in Business in Zimbabwe in 2016 and 2015.
She holds Bsc Honours in Psychology and Master of Business Administration degrees from the University of Zimbabwe.
She also has a diploma in People management from IPMZ and a postgraduate qualification in Executive Leadership from the Harvard Business School.
Despite her hectic schedule, Nyika has time for “dancing, reading books, and travelling.”
