Local ICT groups are in a strong position to provide centralised IT infrastructure and services to South African companies that are expanding their businesses into the international market.
That`s the word from Willem van Rensburg, group executive: strategy at Business Connexion. He says the growing maturity and standardisation of key information and communication technologies means it is now viable for South African IT groups to provide centralised support for local clients` offshore operations.
"Key technologies such as communications, asset management and systems management tools have matured to such an extent that is now possible to manage infrastructure such as desktops, servers, applications and networks from nearly anywhere in the world.
"Open standards make it easier to manage systems and create opportunities to save time and money by automating processes where human intervention is no longer necessary. As a result, IT groups are now able to create centralised service management centres that can cost-effectively support the needs of a global client base," says Van Rensburg.
End-user companies that adopt a centralised approach to managing global infrastructure benefit as agile, reliable and cost-efficient IT services underpin their business processes. While it is possible for companies to establish centralised management capabilities of their own, they enjoy massive economies of scale and predictable service levels when they partner with an external service provider.
From the client`s perspective, partnering with an external service provider for centralised management and support of ICT infrastructure delivers a range of benefits including lower operational and capital expenditure costs, consistent service levels across the globe and a single point of contact for key services, adds Van Rensburg.
Distributed systems like networking equipment and PCs can easily be monitored and remotely managed from a central point using sophisticated management tools.
Many technical problems can now be resolved by a technician at a central service management centre. Meanwhile, data centre infrastructure is becoming increasingly commoditised and will eventually be delivered using a utility-like, on-demand model.
In the future, companies will buy processing power or storage space in the same way they do for phone calls or electricity, with little regard for what systems their service providers are using to deliver the services. It will not matter where this technology is located.
Van Rensburg says local IT groups can provide world-class services to South African companies as they expand abroad, but at a lower price-point than European or American service providers because of their access to cheaper skilled labour.
Local ICT groups also have a closer cultural fit with European and African businesses. This gives them an edge over Indian and Chinese off-shoring rivals in supporting South African businesses as they expand into new markets.
South Africa`s strong English language proficiencies, and the fact that the country is in the same time-zone as most parts of Europe and the rest of Africa, are also strong advantages for local ICT groups. The high cost of international bandwidth is the largest factor that has inhibited the provision of global ICT services from a South African base, but even that problem is slowly being addressed, says Van Rensburg.
"The success of China and India in the global off-shoring market, as well as the increasing number of multinational IT companies using South Africa as a hub for providing services to their global client bases, shows that a combination of standardised technology, a reliable global communications backbone and improved management tools have made it possible to deliver ICT services from anywhere in the world," concludes Van Rensburg.
"We believe that South African ICT companies have an excellent opportunity to grow their businesses and create jobs by providing services to local companies expanding abroad and even to companies in the rest of the world looking for reliable ICT services."
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