Local Microsoft development powerhouse and Britehouse subsidiary, 3fifteen, has announced the opening of a branch office in Durban and the appointment of Peter Pinnock as the regional executive in charge of servicing this growing market.
James Baber, the company's CEO, says the new branch office will bring a full service, on the ground presence to the KwaZulu-Natal region.
As such, by contrast to the approach many of its peers have taken, he says the new branch will over the coming months grow to house a comprehensive development team that's focused on servicing customers in the Microsoft CRM and Information Worker spaces.
As business in the region begins to gain momentum, Baber says its focus will be expanded to offer the full range of services offered by 3fifteen at its head office and in its other regions.
Baber explains that the company's expansion into the KwaZulu-Natal region is part of a long-term strategy to comprehensively cover all of the major business centres in South Africa.
"While it's theoretically possible for our development team to reside anywhere in the world, we pride ourselves on providing our customers with an on site presence as they require," he says.
"As such, up until now, KwaZulu-Natal customers were serviced out of our Johannesburg head office. With the potential in this region becoming really compelling, we believe it makes good business sense for us bring a local presence to KwaZulu-Natal."
The Durban branch is the second 3fifteen has opened in the space of two years.
"The former, our branch in Cape Town, has in 24 months grown to accommodate 15 developers," Baber enthuses.
"And we are as positive about the potential having an office in Durban holds," he says.
Baber says the company is particularly bullish about its decision, since it took the new Durban team only two weeks to win its first piece of new business.
"We are convinced that the on the ground presence we now have in this region will reap good rewards. Our plan is to make the business stemming from this region capable of providing sound returns as soon as possible.
"And judging by the fact that we've managed to close two CRM deals in the month our Durban branch has been operational, we believe this is a realistic goal," Baber concludes.
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3fifteen is the software development arm within the Britehouse group, and is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner competencies that include data management solutions (business intelligence); business process automation and integration; information worker solutions (collaboration, portals and enterprise content management) and customised application development (Web applications).
The company is 57% owned by Britehouse and 43% owned by its management team. Britehouse is in-turn 40% owned by Dimension Data; 30% owned by Andile Ngcaba's BEE consortium (made up of Convergence Partners and Safica Holdings); and 30% owned by Venfin, ensuring that 3fifteen in turn has strong BEE credentials.
3fifteen considers its sound understanding of the entire software development lifecycle, its multi-disciplined skills base, innovative customer engagement models, strong adherence to deadlines, costs and quality, as well as its ability to play a role across an entire software project's lifecycle as key tenets that set it apart from its peers in the market.
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