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Enabling new business and revenue streams

By Allyson Towle
Johannesburg, 24 Aug 2016

ITWeb IT Sourcing and Vendor Management 2016

Meet Cell C CIO Maria Pienaar at the inaugural ITWeb IT Sourcing and Vendor Management Summit 2016 at The Forum Bryanston. Don't miss this opportunity, register now. For the complete agenda, click here.

ITWeb events spent time with Maria Pienaar, CIO, Cell C, who will presenting at the inaugural ITWeb IT Sourcing and Vendor Management Summit 2016.

Pienaar has launched over 30 successful wireless and Internet applications and services for both enterprise and consumer segments in various markets across the world. Her aim is to help organisations understand within their ecosystem where to apply their funding and resources with the most impact by bringing together the right players, solutions and resources and seeing it through to realisation.

Pienaar has extensive experience in innovation, new product development, strategic partnering and distribution, and value-added applications and services. She is a graduate of the University of Pretoria, where she obtained a degree in electronic engineering.

Pienaar is a true world citizen, having circled the globe three times just last year. She has worked in Canada, Finland and the US. This enabled her to connect with world thought leaders to look at other cultures (corporate and country) to help solve their own internal problems, using the "outside in" methodology. She has worked with countries to stimulate entrepreneurs and globally commercialise innovations and has a strong track record of driving revenue through identifying new leading-edge product and service opportunities to meet market needs.

She has always been interested in technology and technology-driven business. This is evident from her career path which spans Vodacom, Lucent Technologies, SOLiD, the Immersion Lab, Nokia and currently Cell C. She was appointed as CIO at Cell C in January 2014.

Her biggest challenge on a day-to-day basis is balancing demand and service cost with increasing business demand where this increased demand is placing further pressure on the acquisition of already-scarce resources.

As a CIO she has to determine the vendor and outsourcing strategy for IT and as a result works closely with procurement on the acquisition of these services at the best possible price. She uses outsourced services strategically to acquire scarce IT resources as well as to optimise some IT operational functions in the company where applicable.

Maria Pienaar, Cell C CIO.
Maria Pienaar, Cell C CIO.

In response to how she sees her function/role changing over time, she says: "The licensing models and how we procure services are changing rapidly due to cloud services. As companies we are becoming more digital, as a result the role will need to start changing in terms of how we utilise more open source type models which are partner and service-driven. The CIO will also be expected to become more of a digital leader and enabler of new business and revenue streams versus that of a cost centre."

She advises a person interested in entering the procurement field in the ICT sector to "form strong relationships with the IT teams so that you understand how the IT sourcing and resource strategy impacts on procurement, from both the contractual and supply side".

We asked Pienaar if she has any hidden talents, if she could be a super hero who she would be and why and who is it that she most admires?

Pienaar is a social golfer who is often invited to participate in golf days. Superwoman is her superhero of choice, because it always seems to her that the 'girls' have to come to the rescue at one point or another. She most admires John Maxwell, an American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books, primarily focusing on leadership, and South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, investor engineer and inventor Elon Musk, as an entrepreneur who is actively changing the world we live in.

Pienaar will present at the inaugural IT Sourcing and Vendor Management Summit on Tuesday 4 October 2016, at The Forum, Bryanston. Her presentation will look at outsourcing as a competitive disruptor.

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