Bytes Document Solutions (BDS), the sole authorised Xerox distributor for sub-Saharan Africa, recently paid tribute to its top achievers of 2004 at its annual two-day conference and awards dinner, held at the Sandton Convention Centre.
The guest list included staff, direct and indirect channel partners, top management, BDS business partners, and special guests including Afzal Patel, MD of Kagiso Trust, BDS`s black economic empowerment partner; David Redshaw, CEO of Bytes Technology Group; Dali Mpofu, executive director of corporate affairs at Altron; Ben Gale, GM of sales and marketing for Xerox distributor operations; and Ian Pennel, CEO of Technologies Acceptances.
"The 2004 incentive, rewarding staff that excelled during the last year, was a trip on the Royal Caribbean Cruise Liner along the Western Mediterranean," says Rob Abraham, MD of BDS. "The winners of various management awards also joined the incentivised achievers on the cruise."
During the year a further incentive was offered to enhance the sales of specific products, notably Xerox`s colour offerings; at the awards dinner a BDS Sales Executive, Marietjie Albasini, was the proud winner of a Mini Cooper S valued at R250 000.
As part of the Bytes Technology Group, BDS made a major contribution to the group`s total revenue and earnings for the year, reaching its turnover target of R1 billion, with a solid bottom line that exceeded industry norms and expectations.
The company`s performance during the year was underpinned by Xerox products gaining market share of 6% in the 20 pages and lower category, an area that was not previously serviced by Xerox. Growth in the colour product range grew by 71%, and Xerox continues to dominate the high-volume segment of the market where mission-critical documents play a major role for large corporates, banks and parastatals.
"We now have arguably the broadest range of products in our industry, ranging from desktop laser printers, both black and white, and colour, to the 100 page-per-minute full colour digital press iGen3, which was launched by BDS to the South African market in February 2005," says Ashley Groenendaal, marketing and sales support manager. "Our focus for 2005 is innovation with a continued emphasis on colour. Innovation is the driving force behind the company`s success and with more than 16 000 patents to its name Xerox plays a major role in shaping the printing and office document market. Innovation makes us more than mere hardware vendors. It sets us apart from our competitors."
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Bytes Document Solutions, previously known as Xerox South Africa (Pty) Ltd, is a South African company engaged in the marketing and servicing of a complete range of Xerox document equipment software, solutions and services. The Bytes Technology Group Limited, as a listed entity on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, wholly owns Bytes Document Solutions, the Xerox distributor in 25 African countries. For more information on Xerox, visit www.xerox.com/news
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