Johannesburg, 03 Oct 2006
Lion of Africa Insurance Company has signed a service level agreement (SLA) with IT solutions and service provider, Datacentrix, for the full outsourcing of its IT infrastructure.
The deal will enable the company to respond quickly to market changes, customer needs and reduce delivery time of new products to the marketplace.
The IT infrastructure outsourcing agreement will allow Lion of Africa Insurance to remain focused on its core business while partnering with experts to handle its IT requirements.
"We based this decision on economies of scale always looking to ensure Lion of Africa operates in a world-class environment at affordable terms," says Adam Samie, CEO of Lion of Africa.
Datacentrix was selected as the service provider as it offered the best infrastructure base for the Sirius software currently being developed for Lion of Africa as well as strong operational support and clearly defined services. UK-based Sirius offers short-term insurance component-based software core to the administration system, incorporating a general ledger and business intelligence component.
"Datacentrix will be providing and maintaining the HP hardware and infrastructure needed for this software to perform to expectations," says Samie.
"Datacentrix and Lion of Africa are of similar age and ethos, both companies are principal driven, and we have established an open and transparent relationship with the outstanding and dedicated people at Datacentrix allowing for strong partnership building."
Says Cameron Beveridge, divisional director, at Datacentrix: "This is a significant win for Datacentrix as the cultures of both companies are well aligned. Lion of Africa is a growing BEE company redefining its space within the local marketplace, much like Datacentrix. We have made significant investment in the outsourcing business, and developed an innovative approach to outsourcing built on the key fundamentals of delivered business value, innovation and price leadership. Securing the Lion of Africa deal is evidence that it is bearing fruit."
Key issues for Lion of Africa include availability and disaster recovery. According to Samie, Datacentrix has made serious commitments on these areas, devising a solid disaster recovery management plan with offsite facilities and guaranteeing uptime.
Lion of Africa opted for a phased implementation approach, with the first phase seeing the transfer of base infrastructure and services, including e-mail, Internet and intranet aspects, from the current platform and routed via Datacentrix. The second phase will move the organisation`s current application link with Santam to the new Sirius software by the end of the year.
"Datacentrix has been very helpful with this partial cut-over and has taken care to ensure that data integrity, critical to our business, is in place," says Claudia Yung Fah, Head: IT Services at Lion of Africa. "Datacentrix has delivered as promised on a day-to-day basis and has freely shared its expertise to ensure Lion of Africa employs the best IT solutions to meet its specific needs."
Share