{"id":16330,"date":"2021-04-22T07:45:42","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T07:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/?p=16330"},"modified":"2021-05-07T22:01:04","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T22:01:04","slug":"a-uniquely-african-story-changing-the-paradigm-for-knight-piesold-adapt-transform-and-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/a-uniquely-african-story-changing-the-paradigm-for-knight-piesold-adapt-transform-and-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"A Uniquely African Story Changing the Paradigm for Knight Pi\u00e9sold \u2013 Adapt, Transform and Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"

22 April 2021:<\/strong> From its humble beginnings in South Africa on the 1st<\/sup> of April 1921, Knight Pi\u00e9sold has established and grown its local operations within Southern Africa, through its offices in Namibia, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, Madagascar, Swaziland, Mauritius and South Africa.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the company\u2019s centenary celebrations held in Sandton, on 21 April, Vishal Haripersad, regional Manager for\u00a0Knight Pi\u00e8sold\u00a0in Southern Africa, explained that operations across Africa were staffed by locals in the country, and supported by the collective skills, knowledge, and expertise of both its Southern African and global teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has happened without Knight Pi\u00e8sold losing its unique culture, identity, and heritage; and without needing to be acquired by a global company to grow and expand. In fact, through organic growth and expansion, Knight Pi\u00e9sold has grown into a truly international organisation, with offices in Australia, North and South America, the United Kingdom and throughout the African continent.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the market within which the company operates today has evolved over the years, both with the changing needs of the economy and political changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur business has accordingly evolved and transformed into the entity it is today. Transformation at Knight Pi\u00e9sold is about institutionalising the competencies and capabilities of our organisation and people; and expanding the breadth and efficiency of our business to create value for all our stakeholders. Transformation at Knight Pi\u00e9sold is to reinvent ourselves and to take on the new challenges that lie ahead. And to harness the tremendous opportunities on our continuous path of value creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that while the company\u2019s strength lies in its ability to call on an enviable track record of delivering large infrastructure and mining projects throughout Africa, it believes that through the divisionalisation of its business it is better geared to partner with clients to a more focussed and efficient service.<\/p>\n

This is evidenced through its recent and current involvement on several mega-projects throughout Africa, which includes Knight Pi\u00e9sold being part of the consortium involved in the design and supervision of the construction of both the Katse and Mohale dams, forming a key part of phase 1 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project located in the Kingdom of Lesotho, and is currently part of the team working on key elements of Phase 2 of this project.<\/p>\n

Within South Africa, Knight Pi\u00e9sold was the lead consultant in the design and construction supervision on the multibillion Western and Northern Aqueduct projects. These are large diameter pipelines necessary to bring potable water to the rapidly developing areas of the eThekwini Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n

Knight Pi\u00e9sold has also played a key role in both the design and construction supervision of the South-Africa-based Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme. This is a critical project for the country, completed under the auspices of State-owned power utility Eskom, which entails the design and construction of dams, roads, tunnels, caverns and all related aspects of the project.<\/p>\n

The company was also the lead consultant in the design and construction supervision of the Neckertal Dam project, located in Keetmanshoop in Namibia, which is the largest infrastructure project undertaken in the county.<\/p>\n

Through its execution of these and several other projects, as well as others in the pipeline, Knight Pi\u00e9sold has proven its ability to undertake both large mega infrastructure projects, as well its ability to provide the mining industry a complete infrastructure offering and deliver on time, on budget and on brief.<\/p>\n

Haripersad stressed the importance of partnerships as an important feature of future growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese partnerships are formed on the strong foundations of trust, of shared vision and strategic intent. As our democracy has matured and evolved, so has Knight Pi\u00e9sold over the recent past. We realised years ago that the firm needed to evolve from being a corporate dedicated to maintaining its own health, and that of its employees, to one that was dedicated to being a responsible corporate citizen in the countries within which we operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realised that rather than lament the slow rate of infrastructure development, the lack of significant investment in education and educational facilities; the poor state of mathematics and science teaching and results in high schools; and the pervasive influence of corruption through the tendering process \u2013 we needed to change our paradigm to define the path ahead for ourselves as a company in the African context.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this end, Knight Pi\u00e9sold has realigned its strategic objectives as an organisation and has repositioned itself as a key driver in the achievement of the objectives of national and local government. This is ensuring that it plays a key role in facilitating the expansion of national production and income as a prerequisite for job creation, improved living standards, and economic development.<\/p>\n

Haripersad added that unemployment is one of Africa\u2019s main socio-economic problems, so increased employment is a central policy objective for the continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cPractically, the achievement of these objectives will be driven by increasing public sector investment in infrastructure development and Knight Pi\u00e9sold intends to be a key player in partnering with government to achieve these goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another key objective for the consulting engineering firm is to play its role in ensuring that the local consulting engineering industry transforms adequately and offers significant opportunities to local and emerging consultants and businesses but not at the expense of quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed that the development of these emerging local consulting practices and engineers is done in an ethical manner that is \u00a0consistent and well planned to ensure that the resultant engineers and businesses are competent, sustainable and capable of being viable enterprises in their own rights. Through our enterprise development programmes, and in-house mentorship and training programmess, we have taken numerous consultants through this process and developed competent businesses. We further reinforce this through our strong emphasis on the hiring of local competent staff wherever we operate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Haripersad said that despite the company\u2019s incredible success of the past 100 years, to remain successful and to continue to thrive for the next century, it is important to adapt and transform in line with the evolving landscape into the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing born onto the African continent, it is poignant that as we chart the next 100 years, we look to our ancestral home for growth opportunities. We believe strongly in the potential and opportunities that lie within the African continent. Over the next decade, development in Africa for infrastructure, energy and mining projects will be driven by the strong population growth projected across the continent by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we look to the future and determine how we position ourselves as a business to play a significant role in facilitating and developing this growth, we have come to realise that for our business to be as successful as possible within the environments in which we operate, we need to adapt and grow. With our strong belief in the capacity and capability of African excellence, we are focussed on ensuring that we continue to enhance the capacity of our business within Southern Africa, through the continued training and development of local talent. We will also continue to look to expand our operations as developmental needs arise, such that we can continue to play a role in the development of local talent,\u201d Haripersad concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 April 2021: From its humble beginnings in South Africa on the 1st of April 1921, Knight Pi\u00e9sold has established and grown its local operations within Southern Africa, through its offices in Namibia, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, Madagascar, Swaziland, Mauritius and South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knight-piesold","category-press-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}