Johannesburg, 31 May 2010
The Integr8 Group, South Africa's largest privately owned national BEE ICT network integration and infrastructure management specialist, has emerged as the face of IT at The Kelly Group, an established local provider of employment services.
The HR specialist services provider has made a substantial investment in the expertise, managed ICT services and capability of the Integr8 Group, making the ICT managed services company directly responsible for the management and support of users' infrastructure and back-end systems.
This service level covers laptops, desktops, servers as well as the daily operations and support of the business units within The Kelly Group.
The Kelly Group encompasses approximately 22 brands and 12 companies, comprises more than 65 branches nationwide, 1 273 permanent employees and a base of more than 25 000 temporary employees.
In seeking to partner with a credible, proven ICT managed services provider, IT executive management at The Kelly Group sought out a company that cares about its business, one that is focused on exceptional client service and can benefit its clients with the latest available technical skills sets.
Critical aspects of consideration included global best practices governing client service, proven methodology, processes and procedures, and a keen understanding of optimised, automated response to requests and requirements.
Furthermore, IT management at The Kelly Group was mindful of the need to boost its objective of developing into a world-class IT organisation and an ICT services provider would need to keep this critical goal at the forefront of engagement and delivery.
The Integr8 Group's role in the development of The Kelly Group's business is based on a two-pronged service approach. The first is desktop support across the country, including branches that fall outside of the group's centralised footprint.
The second channel of service delivery involves proactive response and comprehensive support of centralised headquarters. Every call made to The Kelly Group or query sent by a Kelly Group customer to the group's helpdesk is branded a Kelly Group IT call, but is supported entirely by Integr8 Group personnel and technicians.
“In terms of our priorities, considering our short and long-term objectives, we continue to witness the crucial and increasingly integral role that IT plays in our business. The influence of next-generation infrastructure has a definite impact in terms of cost management, revenue enablement, operational efficiency and on our growth strategy going forward,” said Evans Munyuki, Group CIO, The Kelly Group.
“Information technology is positioned as a highly effective mechanism to run and control mission-critical systems and applications which are pivotal to our success. For example, we are a people business, and payroll is critical to us and our employees. Our systems support more than 26 000 payroll runs by our payroll organisation (for temporary and permanent employees) on a weekly and monthly basis,” he added.
Munyuki believes the Integr8 Group has played an integral role in the strategic use of IT to help grow the company and impact directly on IT costs to bolster the bottom line within an environment of economic pressure.
“They achieved this by listening to our requirements, intrinsically understanding our pain-points, by being sensitive to our cost requirements, and by applying their minds and IT models in innovative ways that hit the sweet-spot of our needs. As our strategic partner, they have brought to the table smart and cost-effective problem solving, and effective focus on managing call volumes, improving first-time fix, and working down the calls backlog. Additionally, we continue to receive very positive feedback from the user community in terms of the technically sound and client-centric friendly interaction which the Integr8 Group is consistently providing - both onsite and telephonically,” he says.
“We have a client-focused Integr8 IT account manager who understands the meaning of putting the client first, and understands how and when to go the extra mile in crafting mutually beneficial propositions of value,” Munyuki concludes.
Andre Gross, Group Infrastructure Manager at The Kelly Group, says the combination of high level expertise and consistency of focus on directives and objectives has enabled the free flow of benefit and value.
“The Integr8 Group has high level specialists specifically around our strategies and what we want to achieve as a company. I believe that it is about the skills we have on board and the intrinsic value they provide to projects and service levels,” he adds.
Robert Sussman, joint CEO at Integr8 Group, said the company is very pleased with the progress being made at its client The Kelly Group.
“We are very happy to be a part of the growth of this very dynamic, determined and exceptionally strong company. It is encouraging to witness the level at which The Kelly Group has embraced and utilised systems and the strategic manner in which resources are pooled and honed in to boost its service and offering to market,” Sussman concludes.