A successful management buyout of Brainware Consulting has resulted in the creation of Exponant (Pty) Ltd, a privately held IT consulting company, under the leadership of CEO Marius Pels. The deal was concluded during August 2000.
According to Pels, Brainware Consulting was an independent start-up division within the unbundled Brainware group. "Brainware Consulting achieved successful growth, only using the holding company to service debtors," he says. Pels reveals that the new company has a staff of 160 people and a turnover of R50-million. This growth was achieved by the startup in the two-and-a-half years since its inception.
"With the demise of Brainware, four senior managers - myself, Leon Truter, Johann Swart, and Neels Grobler - have purchased the majority share of Brainware Consulting to establish Exponant," says Pels. These four comprise the board of directors of Exponant. "While Piet den Boer is a part of the consortium that has bought into the new company, he is a silent partner with a minority interest and no involvement on the board," states Pels.
According to the CEO, Exponant has a new drive and will focus on what it terms `New age technology`. "Our focus is still on consulting and providing skills in the areas of application development, engineering consulting, desktop support and networking solutions. Special attention and investment is however being focused on e-commerce enabling technologies including Java, Unix, LINUX and Computer Associates` Jasmineii e-business platform and Neugents," says Pels. He reveals that Exponant is currently in further negotiations with Computer Associates (CA) to broaden the partnership between the companies.
Johann Swart, Exponant CIO, adds, "Due to the rapidly expanding e-trade market, new technologies emerge virtually daily, creating voids in the people skills arena," According to him it is no longer possible to draw on an experienced IT community that can walk into a project and get the job done. "We therefore have to address the New Age technologies by cross-training our workforce towards these new platforms while drawing on their IT depth. This initiative focuses on CA`s Jasmine ii and Neugents ii technologies, which we believe hold tremendous potential to become de facto standards in the e-trade business," he says.
"Similar quick-enablement initiatives based on JAVA, Unix, C++ and Linux technology are also in progress. We are actively investing to get quality people into certified training channels to service our client base according to the demands we experience every day," concludes Swart.
Partnerships that the company has formulated to provide effective and holistic services to its clients include blue chip companies such as CA, FlexiCom, Electronic Repair Services (ERS), Pi-Log and black empowerment companies African Horizons and Tuma Tech.
Pels says the new company perceives the role of the services it provides as an enabler for its clients. "Our mission as an IT service provider is to unlock business for our clients. We believe that the purpose of technology is to allow our clients to do more business with their customers."
Pels says the company has no immediate intentions of listing: "Our medium term goal is to create a profitable company in a rewarding environment for our employees," he says.
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