BUSINESS BRAINS
PORTRAITS IN SUCCESS
Malcolm Rabson
Taking a stand against corporate mediocrity
BY ILAN PRESKOVSKY
RABSON’S VISION SEEMS ELEMENTARY TO THE CORE,
BUT IS ONE THAT IS APPARENTLY ALIEN TO SOUTH
AFRICA’S CORPORATE CULTURE.
these products in a remarkably short
amount of time.
Rabson’s vision seems elementary to
the core, but is one that is apparently alien
to South Africa’s corporate culture. Rabson tells a story about how, in the early
days before the company had managed to
build much of a reputation, Dariel created
one of its trademark tailor-made systems
for a company with the agreement that
the team would be paid within 72 hours.
But when they informed the client that
the product would do exactly what was required of it and that a “crisis mode” period
of ironing out any faults within the program would absolutely not be needed, the
company in question was so certain the
guys at Dariel were trying to put one over
on them, they refused to pay for a month.
Needless to say, Dariel got its money, but
this was the kind of broken expectations
with which it was working. Surprisingly,
Rabson notes little has changed over the
past 15 years, as inferior off-the-shelf
products remain the norm.
The idea for these sorts of tailor-made,
error-free corporate software packages actually came to Rabson many years ago,
while undergoing his compulsory service
in the South African Air Force. With a
master’s degree in engineering from Wits
University and a specialisation in software
DARIEL WAS BUILT ON A FAIRLY SIMPLE PRINCIPAL:
GET THINGS RIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY.
22 JEWISH LIFE QISSUE 87
design, he was allocated to working in a
military company that outsourced to Israel. The software he worked with during
those years was the very definition of topof-the-line; so impressive, in fact, that
when he moved to the corporate sector
shortly after completing his service, he
was shocked by just how error-prone and
inefficient the software systems in his new
working environment were.
For the next 12 years, he struggled
against a monolithic system to try and
change things for the better, but it was
only in the early 2000s that he was finally
able to free himself. Teaming up with
those four other “corporate refugees”,
Rabson realised his dream as they set off
on their own, armed only with a simple
but quietly revolutionary idea and the
drive to make it happen. Initially operating out of a coffee shop and working day
and night to secure both basic funds and
future clients, this tiny start-up venture
has since blossomed into a successful 100man operation that remains privately
owned and, with concrete plans to take
some of its most successful product lines
international, continuously growing.
Best start-up tip: Never give up, failure
is a swear word!
Best advice: Only the paranoid survive
(Bill Gates)
Best advice to give: It’s not what you
know, but who you know!
Best read: Who has the time to read?
Inspired by: Rabbi David Lapin, business
consultant, and my dad, Frank Rabson JL
PHOTOGRAPH: SUPPLIED
IF THERE’S ONE THREAD THAT RUNS THROUGH THE
story of Malcolm Rabson and Dariel, the
company he helped create and which he is
now managing director, it’s a fierce sense
of individualism: a burning desire to go
beyond pre-packaged ideas and established paradigms.
Established 15 years ago by, as Rabson
calls them, a group of five “corporate refugees” – former corporate employees, frustrated by corporate environments, where
settling for mediocre was a way of life and
where an absolute lack of agility meant it
was all but impossible to make any real
changes from within – Dariel was built on
a fairly simple principal: get things right
on the first try.
Dariel is dedicated to creating specialised software products that cater to the
specific needs of a particular company or
corporation; software that actually does
exactly what the client wants right from
the get-go, as opposed to generic off-theshelf programs that are all too often overstuffed with functions clients don’t want,
while grossly lacking in areas they do.
As an example, when called on to create a mobile banking system for a major
bank to work across multiple platforms
and providers, the team at Dariel took a
multi-layered look at what was required
of such a system. They devised software
that would change to suit the specific
needs of each different platform, but
would also be based on a generic foundation. This meant while they could tailor
the application to the needs of each platform, the generic, all-purpose base program would also ensure they could deliver