Johannesburg, 29 Sep 2021
4Sight Africa MD, Christiaan Leboho, says the company, which targets the public sector, has achieved profitability over the past nine months based on the unique value proposition it offers in the public sector. 4Sight Africa is the broad-based black empowerment associate of AltX-listed 4Sight Holdings.
“The public sector bears the responsibility for service delivery, and the right kind of technology solution can help it immeasurably,” he says.
“Public sector CIOs are eager to explore new ways of thinking about technology, the role it can play and, most important of all, how to fund it. They know they have to embark on a journey of digital transformation but they aren’t yet quite sure how to get it right.
“Our approach is resonating with the public sector because it takes their needs as the starting point, and because we can help them create a journey that is essentially self-funding.”
Leboho says many public sector entities are not getting a proper return on their technology investment because their systems are simply not fit for purpose. A case in point is to have an integrated finance and operational solution supported with our adoption and change management to ensure effective adequate adoption and optimisation, which results in the potential to reduce the heavy burden on the public sector, but state entities often find themselves saddled with software that is too complex and not adopted to its full potential — and too many licences.
4Sight Africa, with its stakeholder 4Sight Holdings, drives innovation focused on digital transformation, focusing on the five pillars of digital transformation: people, customer, operations, finances and product transformation.
Leboho says this approach resonates with the report of the Presidential Commission relating to the fourth industrial revolution. A key recommendation was that all sectors of the economy should find ways to contribute to a more technologically-enabled future, driving greater inclusiveness and positioning South Africa to compete more effectively on global markets.
A 2020 McKinsey survey showed that only 11% of business executives believed their current business model would be economically viable by 2023.
“The pressure to embark on a journey of digital transformation is immense, and it applies to the public as well as the private sector,” Leboho comments.
“4Sight Africa is uniquely well positioned to help the public sector complete this journey successfully.”
For example, one of the 4Sight Group’s innovations is 4MIA, an innovative platform that continuously monitors, investigates and advises (hence her name) the CIO about his or her organisation’s technology landscape. She uses powerful artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to investigate and identify risks or improvements in the operational and information technology landscapes.
4MIA’s unique features allows her to perform seven different assessments in real-time and near real-time. These include Cloud Readiness, Licensing, Security, SQL/Data, Intranet, Infrastructure and Modern Workplace. Based on 4MIA’s powerful and ongoing analysis, 4Sight Africa can help public-sector CIOs identify transformation opportunities that will generate immediate savings, which in turn can be used to fund further projects.
“The fourth industrial revolution is too often seen purely as a technology play, but it’s much more important to implement the right technology within the business context and considering the human elements associated with the technology,” Leboho says. “This laser focus on what is necessary, what works, where to start and what will deliver a rapid return on investment is of particular value to public-sector CIOs because they have such a vital mandate and their budgets are always under pressure.”
He says that key areas of interest in the public sector include creating digital platforms to allow anywhere/ anytime working as well as ways to leverage the cost and scale benefits of the cloud.
“Our approach is gaining traction because we are offering them solutions that drive efficiencies and gear them for growth,” Leboho says.
Tertius Zitzke, CEO of 4Sight Holdings, says 4Sight Africa is an example of the kind of value that a transformation initiative can deliver to an established company. “Our company has ambitious growth plans and, we believe, a unique value proposition. The performance of 4Sight Africa, with Christiaan as MD, showed what can be achieved by a youthful leader who is hungry to grow the business and delivers technology for South Africa’s Public Sector.
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