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IBA Group eyes South African expansion

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 02 May 2012

Czech Republic-based IT services provider IBA Group is aiming to grow its presence in the South African market.

In an interview with ITWeb last week, IBA Group president Sergei Levteev revealed that his company is targeting mainframe and multi-platform software development in the local market.

“We noticed significant interest in mainframe development and maintenance, as well as in classic legacy migration. In SA, IBA Group has been implementing relevant projects for one of the big four banks since 1999,” Levteev revealed.

“Other important focus areas are SAP and service oriented architecture, and the latest lines of business are business intelligence and mobile solutions. As a result, organisations in SA will be able to boost their IT operations, resulting in improved business performance.”

He also noted that the company, which claims to be the largest IT service provider in Eastern Europe, has a presence in 30 countries across the globe.

“We are running business in more than 30 countries and we have a lot of expertise with different customers in different areas. We see a lot of opportunity for us in SA,” Levteev said.

Also present during the interview, Helmut Kumnig, technical director of Diverse IT Connections, an IBA partner, reiterated that IBA will also focus on the migration of legacy systems to advanced computer platforms.

In SA, said Kumnig, IBA has worked with one of the top four banks in the migration from OS/2 to a new operating system.

The group says it expects huge competition from other offshore IT providers, including those from India and China.

“The market is new to us and it will take time to adapt to its specifics. We rely on our local partner, Diverse IT Connections, and on our extensive IT and business experience to assist us in overcoming these challenges,” Levteev noted.

He also pointed out that the company expects to expand beyond South African borders through partners.

“As the number and size of the projects grow, the local partner company will augment its team, employing office personnel, sales and marketing, IT and other professionals. However, we do not limit our operations only to this country but are focusing on the region of southern Africa. Once we settle in SA, we might expand further into the African continent.”

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