US-owned IT group Unisys has formed the last of its BEE service centre companies, with the official launch of IT Naledi, in Cape Town, yesterday.
Doug Batchelor, Unisys Western Cape director, says the group has been on a five-year strategy to create black economic empowered authorised customer service centres (ACSC) by handing control of its various service divisions to the employees working in them.
"We have had some problems with the programme, but we have learnt and IT Naledi has the benefit of these lessons," he says.
Batchelor says seven ACSCs have been created in various cities, including Bloemfontein, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg.
IT Naledi was the customer service arm of Unisys in the Western Cape. It now is owned by its own board, which controls 51% of the shares, and the staff own the remainder.
Revenue stream
IT Naledi MD Abdullah Ali says the company has agreements with Unisys to continue to service the group's contracts in the Western Cape, giving it a guaranteed revenue stream of up to R12 million for the next year, and it had already embarked on a programme to win new clients.
Batchelor says in terms of the agreement with IT Naledi and Unisys, the former will not approach any Unisys customers for three years and will not make any deals with its competitors for one year.
Hashiem Bardien, IT Naledi's sales and marketing director, says the deal is well structured to meet BEE requirements. He says shares were sold to the staff at R15 000 each and some R1.5 million capital was raised.
"Many of the staff had been with Unisys for more than 20 years and their packages were substantial," he says.
Although IT Naledi has not been formally declared BEE compliant, it believes it meets the requirements and that its ownership is open to scrutiny in order to prove this.
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