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DVT taps into India

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson, Contributor.
Johannesburg, 15 Nov 2012
A venture between IB Technology and DVT gives the South African company a foothold into a range of industries, says DVT CEO Chris Wilkins.
A venture between IB Technology and DVT gives the South African company a foothold into a range of industries, says DVT CEO Chris Wilkins.

Local software development group DVT has set up a joint venture in SA with India-based IB Technology, a global IT software solutions, services and consulting company.

The jointly-owned entity, IB Technology SA, allows DVT to access IB Technology's wider development skills base, and tender for deals that it previously was not big enough to handle, while giving IB Technology access to the local market.

IB Technology SA, which trades as a subsidiary of IB Technology, currently has about 30 staff, most of whom are consultants. It aims to ramp up to around 100 staff in about a year, says Keith Milner, senior VP and director, IB Technology.

IB Technology provides solutions for large and mid-size global companies across Asia, Africa and America. Its offerings include business and technology consulting, application services, systems integration, product engineering, custom software development, as well as maintenance.

The India-based company, which does most of its business in the US, is part of the 12-year-old Indiabulls group of companies, and has a combined net worth of $4.6 billion.

Milner adds that it made sense for IB Technology to form a partnership instead of starting a new subsidiary from scratch. IB Technology employs more than 1 000 people across offices in India, the US, Singapore, the Middle East and, in the near future, Europe.

Growing reach

DVT CEO Chris Wilkins says the partnership gives the local company "an immediate foothold across a range of key industries, including financial services, mining, utilities, telecommunications, and building and construction".

Wilkins says the step up from winning local business to competing for global tenders is not something most small-to-medium businesses in SA can do alone. "Through IB Technology SA, we now have a platform we can leverage to win major IT projects not only locally but increasingly abroad."

Milner explains that DVT now has access to a wider spread of skills that it can offer as part of its solutions. "Our strategy is to become a global company with a multinational workforce, employing and skilling up South Africans, and consolidating our skills with the right talent from India and other operational regions around the world."

IB Technology SA will use its Indian connections "where it makes sense and adds value" to do so, but the aim was to create a South African company through a large-scale investment, rather than fund a local operation managed by overseas operatives, adds Milner.

The joint venture, which is currently focused on the local market, is looking opportunistically at expanding into Africa as opportunities arise, notes Milner. He says there is currently "more than enough" to focus on in SA, although IB Technology is putting feelers out into the rest of Africa.

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