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  • Bytes Managed Solutions beefs up in-house professional services division

Bytes Managed Solutions beefs up in-house professional services division


Johannesburg, 21 Nov 2014
Alan Anderson, Bytes Managed Solutions.
Alan Anderson, Bytes Managed Solutions.

Bytes Managed Solutions has expanded its professional services offering, achieving certification in a number of technologies, and increasing its staff complement. This has boosted the company's capacity to deliver quality professional services, including business consulting, systems design and analysis, software development and customisation, software testing, and configuration and installation to clients.

With software solutions becoming increasingly differentiated by their ability to customise and reduce implementation costs and time, Bytes Managed Solutions' investment in professional services will provide clients with access to a cost-effective and proven delivery model.

"Our people are experts, with business and technology skills relevant to the many market sectors in which we operate," says Alan Anderson, business development director, Bytes Managed Solutions. "We consistently look for ways to improve our agility and speed to market. The expansion of our professional services offering allows us to be of greater value to our customers. We have extensive retail, financial and payment domain expertise, having provided solutions in these areas for more than 24 years. "

New skills which have been incorporated into the company's professional services division include:

* business consulting, software design and development, and configuration and installation for self-service kiosk and digital signage applications
* software design and development for NCR software

The Bytes Managed Solutions Professional Services team works with several leading software development methodologies (including Waterfall [traditional], Agile, and Scrum). In the event that a customer requires the team to work with a specific software development methodology, the team has the skills and experience to adopt the particular software and meet the customer's requirements. The software development team has experience in most of the development languages and toolsets, including .NET, Java, and C++.

"The key partner in the development of the Bytes Managed Services professional services offering is consumer transaction technologies company NCR, for which we are the exclusive distributor in South Africa and selected neighbouring countries," says Anderson. "We are the certified Centre of Expertise for the products and solutions offered by NCR."

Anderson adds that every NCR product and solution is evaluated by Bytes Managed Solutions for market feasibility. If required, Bytes Managed Solutions works with NCR on the localisation and customisation required to make the product ready for the South African market. A number of successful projects have been concluded over the past six months for major retail and banking clients.

Within the next 12 to 24 months, Bytes Managed Solutions aims to become the Centre of Expertise for several additional key NCR applications including:

* A point-of-sale (POS) software solution for departmental and specialty stores
* A multi-vendor self-service ATM management system
* Banking software solution for teller applications
* ATM security suites

"Two major trends are influencing our professional services business," Anderson adds. "Companies are increasingly seeking to offset the high cost of software by 'renting' solutions through software-as-a-service (SAAS) mechanisms. With SAAS, a company can have the latest software to satisfy its business needs without the huge overheads of licence payments and software maintenance. Our professional services model for software solutions now includes a SAAS offering for our customers."

Another major trend is multi-channel or omni-channel transacting which enables the customer to transact and have a seamless experience over any channel - from kiosks and ATMs, to mobile devices and everything in between.

"Delivering an omni-channel experience has become imperative for banks and retailers in a highly competitive marketplace," says Anderson. "By leveraging channel usage insight, banks and retailers can develop an even more detailed customer profile. This provides an understanding not only of what the customer looks like, but also how they conduct their transactions and can allow for improved product offers using their preferred channel. Developing strategies to integrate disparate digital and physical channels into a single, seamless experience has to be a priority. Bytes Managed Solutions has the in-house capability to enable our customers to achieve this."

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Bytes Managed Solutions

Bytes Managed Solutions (Bytes MS) is a services-led, software-driven and hardware-enabled organisation that markets, supports and maintains enterprise-wide end-to-end technology solutions and related services that enable medium to large enterprises to effectively delivery their offering to the end consumers in South Africa and Africa.

Bytes MS leverages on partnerships, thought leadership and capabilities, to deliver world-class technology solutions and related services, enabling its customers to achieve growth and success.

Bytes MS is the exclusive distributor for NCR products in South Africa and strategically partners with Dell, HP, Lenovo, Alcatel, Burroughs, Unity, Postec, Unisys, Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco, and delivers complete solutions for the financial, retail, petroleum and infrastructure sectors.

Bytes MS enables businesses with over 107 service points, backed by extensive supply chain and logistics management. It supports in excess of 1 200 000 devices in more than 46 500 locations throughout South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

Bytes Managed Solutions is a division of the Bytes Technology Group and wholly owned by JSE-listed Altron. www.bytesms.co.za.

NCR

NCR (NYSE: NCR) is the global leader in consumer transaction technologies, turning everyday interactions with businesses into exceptional experiences. With its software, hardware, and portfolio of services, NCR enables more than 485 million transactions daily across retail, financial, travel, hospitality, telecom and technology, and small business. NCR solutions run the everyday transactions that make your life easier.

NCR is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia with approximately 29 000 employees and does business in 180 countries. NCR is a trademark of NCR Corporation in the United States and other countries. The company encourages investors to visit its Web site, which is updated regularly with financial and other important information about NCR.

Web sites: www.ncr.com, www.ncrsilver.com
Twitter: @NCRCorporation
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ncrcorp
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ncr-corporation
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/ncrcorporation

Editorial contacts

Karen Heydenrych
Communikay
(083) 302 9494
karen@communikay.co.za
Chetan Mistry
Bytes Technology Group
(011) 373 4000
chetan.mistry@bytes.co.za