Synergy South Africa, the business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management specialist (CPM), celebrated its 25th birthday this month.
In doing so, it has become one of a handful of South African IT companies to have successfully transitioned the pre-ERP, mainframe-dominated software development market of the late 1970s to a Web-driven business world of the 21st Century where real-time access to information is critical.
The company was founded in Cape Town by software developers Robert Gibson and Chris Spottiswood. Today it is one of the foremost South African partners of global CPM solutions and BI tools vendor, Cognos with the largest installed Cognos base in SA.
"The company has come a long way since the early days of bespoke software development to where we are today. I believe much of its success has been its customer partnership focus and its ability to accommodate change not only in terms of technology but also in the different markets we address," says Andrew Connold, managing director, Synergy Computing, which is now headquartered in Johannesburg, with branches in Durban and Cape Town.
The first job Gibson and Spottiswood tackled was an order entry system for SA Dried Fruit, but it was not until sometime later, while developing on the HP 3000 platform for the Board of Executors, that they first turned to Cognos' PowerHouse, Rapid Application Development 4GL tools to help resolve a problem.
It was a time when SA's insufficient Cobol-skills were limiting local software developments. Synergy identified a growing market for 4GL tools and not only continued to develop using PowerHouse for a range operating systems, but also secured the distributorship for select Cognos products in SA.
"It's a relationship that goes back some 20 years and one that has grown stronger every year," says David McWilliam, managing director of Cognos South Africa.
"They have followed Cognos through thick and thin, proving themselves to be a truly flexible company along the line. They have stayed loyal to us and grown successfully with Cognos whereby today in SA, the names of Synergy and Cognos are synonymous."
While still supporting PowerHouse tools and developments, Synergy made the move to the BI environment in the early 1990s, with many of the same staff that joined in the company's early days.
Stephen Phaub, for example, now manager of Synergy Natal, has been with Synergy for 20 years and is the company's longest serving employee.
"I put our success to doing the basics right, keeping focused, striving for excellence and building long-term relationships with our customers," he says.
Another long-serving employee of 12 years is Vera Chaplin, who is based at the company's Cape Town branch and is responsible for customer training as well as the Cape Town branch's technical consulting.
"When Cognos made the move from 4GL to BI, Synergy staff were ready for a change. The industry was evolving rapidly and we were keen to re-skill and be a part of the new IT world," she says.
Other major changes that Synergy had to negotiate were its acquisition by the JSE-listed ITEC Group in the late 1990s and ITEC's subsequent liquidation. Today Synergy is owned by a consortium of former executives of the Plessy Group, Rob Engels, a former Cognos director who is now company chairman, and management and staff.
"While undoubtedly, as is the case with most mergers, this was a very difficult period in our history, we have emerged a stronger company and able to operate successfully throughout SA as well as beyond the borders.
"In addition to providing solutions and training to clients to sub-Saharan Africa, we're also servicing global companies. For example, our Natal branch has built on its six-year relationship with the local operation of a Swiss multinational and was contracted to develop BI applications that are now being rolled out to the customer's 65 international offices," concludes Connold.
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