Kelly turns to Web 2.0

By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist

Johannesburg, 28 Jan 2009

The Kelly Group has deployed its business strategy for the year in the hope to offset the effects of the global economic downturn.

The JSE-listed recruitment and skills development company says it remains confident in its business strategy this year, despite a challenging economic climate.

The group acquired black-owned ICT skills development and training solutions group Torque IT for R37.85 million during the fourth quarter of last year.

Kelly Group chief executive Grenville Wilson says the acquisition was made to strengthen the group's growth objectives in the IT outsourcing and permanent placement sectors.

Torque IT CEO Mthunzi Mdwaba has been appointed deputy chief executive of the Kelly Group. Mdwaba also holds the position of national chairman of the Black Information Technology Forum (BITF).

Torque IT is a training solutions provider that operates in 24 countries. Torque IT partnered with Cisco last year to offer a specialised programme in India.

According to Mdwaba, the Kelly Group is set on using alternative platforms to take advantage of the evolving ICT sector to bolster the company's growth and skills development. He says that the details to the exact technology deals are confidential at this point. However, he notes that the Kelly Group's business strategy will be looking into alternative markets that it has not dealt with before.

“We have identified growth opportunities that we think will help in offsetting any slowdown that we might have.

“And there's no doubt that we will feel a little bit of the (economic) impact, we still feel very that we have some very key differentiators that would put us apart from the whole world.”

Growth opportunity

Wilson says in a statement: “Key to this is the roll-out of the group's digital strategy, which greatly expedites the process of matching candidates to jobs, while streamlining back-office processes.”

Wilson adds: “Other initiatives include the use of Internet social networking platforms as a candidate acquisition channel.”

He notes that the group has identified the ICT sector as a growth opportunity. He says that its creation of a focused ICT division within the flagship Kelly brand and the acquisition of skills development and training specialist Torque IT were designed to supports its increased penetration of this sector.

The Kelly Group announced that other new business units, established during the past year, including GAP Executive Management Solutions and Paxsal K-Log, would also provide the group with additional revenue stream in the year ahead.

Moss Ngoasheng, Kelly Group chairman, says the group is working with a number of industry and government bodies to help attract international business process outsourcing and call centre operations to SA.