Spinnaker Support, which recently set up physical presence locally, is leveraging South Africa’s deep talent pool as it builds a support centre in the market.
This is according to Mathew Stava, founder and CEO of Spinnaker Support, speaking at an event to introduce the company to industry CIOs, CTOs and the media.
Founded in 2008, Spinnaker Support is a US-based provider of third-party software support services that aims to be an alternative to what the traditional vendors provide.
It offers independent third-party software support for Oracle, SAP and VMware environments, positioning itself as an alternative to traditional lock-in vendor maintenance contracts.
In March, the company announced a new local office through a Johannesburg-based operation backed by African Rainbow Capital (ARC).
Delivering opening remarks, at the event, about his company’s origins and main reasons to enter the market, Stava said: “There is a lot of talent in the South African market that we’ve found − a lot of Oracle and SAP deep talent that we can leverage and build a support centre here that will support all of Africa and part of our European operations as well.”
Jon Gill, vice-president at Spinnaker Support EMEA, elaborated during a panel discussion that the company’s engineers are located all over the world, notably South Africa, Dubai, Denver and Brazil.
Speaking to ITWeb on the sidelines, Gill said: “There is a big skillset in South Africa. Before we entered the market, we had 11 resources working out of Durban and Cape Town.
“Traditionally, we hired through third-party agencies because we weren’t in South Africa. Now, we can hire directly in South Africa – the talent pool is huge. I can see us at a point where we quadruple the size of our resource pool easily in South Africa in the next 12 months. This, to me, is what we’d be looking to do.
“It just happens that there is a huge amount of talent…with a lot of useful skills for us.”
Local flavour
Spinnaker Support has over 1 200 customers worldwide, several offices in various parts of the world and now the local office in South Africa backed by ARC.
ARC is a South African investment holding company with interests across financial services and diversified sectors, which says it is focused on building long-term value through strategic capital deployment.
South African billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe owns ARC through his broader investment and holding structure.
ARC is a minority investor in the joint venture, providing capital backing and local market expertise.
Stava said his company counts Telkom among the several customers it has in the local market.
Telkom CIO Sello Mmakau shared that the telephony group is in its second year of using Spinnaker for third-party support, particularly on Oracle.
Mmakau indicated the business saved half of what it was paying to traditional OEMs. He also said the availability of “top-notch” engineers is a plus.
Asked if there are specific customer targets locally in the short-term, Gill indicated there is a focus on SAP because of the 2027 subscription deadline.
“We don’t want customers to decide thinking that they’ve got no other option. In terms of Broadcom and VMware, it’s the same thing. Customers probably have about 12 months left if they want to avoid moving onto subscription.
“Although Oracle is a big player in South Africa, there’s less of a time scale pressure. For me, the short-term focus would be the SAP and Broadcom market.”
Teko Mojaki, MD of Spinnaker Support in South Africa, added that the company is a customer-led service provider, stressing that providing services to public sector organisations is also a priority.
“For me, as a South African, one of the frustrating things that I see in our industry is that our government departments feel stuck by contracts that they’ve signed with the OEMs (vendors).
“We want to give them back the control by taking them to third-party support where they won’t be locked in to a vendor and have flexibility, with the limited resources that they have.”
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