The ever rising increase in the loss of skilled employees over the past two years has resulted in support companies experiencing radical jumps in the number of support calls from users within corporates.
Ian Olivier, Service+ manager at SPL, a member of the Dimension Data Group, says there has been a more than 50 percent leap in user support calls recently. "Previously customer support involved assisting with system-related issues. Now, because of the depleted skills levels, we are handling more and more queries which would normally be dealt with internally.
"Retaining skilled IT personnel is becoming more challenging than ever before. Local young talent is being lured overseas by the promise of the strong pound or dollar, shrinking South Africa's talent pool on a daily basis.
"However," comments Olivier, "South Africa is faced not only with the 'brain drain', but also the challenge of staying abreast of rapidly changing technology. Look at how, a few years ago, the mainframe contributed a huge part of the technology market and how much this has changed," he says.
"The result? Companies have to make do with less, but pay more to retain expertise. This means organisations are rationalising by focusing on core competencies and outsourcing everything else to experts, including IT."
For this reason, SPL has launched Service+, a program designed to help customers maintain a high level of services, while easing demand on in-house resources. Says Olivier: "As suppliers of system software, we have an extremely high level of skills within our team of experts. Our focus is empowering, training and retaining the best people in the business."
Service+ incorporates a number of services, of which customers can 'mix and match'. According to Olivier, these range from mentoring to monitoring the environment. "Our mentoring service adds tremendous value. SPL takes a customer's database administrator (DBA) candidate, sets up a training programme and instructs them to a level where they can function on their own.
"We also offer 24-hour standby for vital projects, 24X7 support through the SPL Technical Services division help desk and an array of other services including system installation, upgrading, porting, consulting and auditing."
Service+ is currently available for all Software AG products and will soon expand to incorporate services for both the Oracle and Siebel product sets.
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Dimension Data Holdings
Dimension Data Holdings is South Africa's largest Information Technology integration company with turnover of R4,7-billion (1997/98). Based in Johannesburg and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Group is fast becoming a global organisation with offices in Asia, Australia and the United Kingdom. Its subsidiary, Datacraft Asia, is listed on the main board of the Stock Exchange of Singapore.
Dimension Data Holdings' key business areas focus on the technologies associated with electronic commerce, voice/data convergence and customer relationship management.
SPL, part of the Dimension Data Group, has long been recognised as a high value IT partner to South African corporations and government. The company focuses on customer management, information management and enterprise systems.