Gartner Africa, the local representative of the international research firm, has absorbed the consultants used by former rival Meta Group and formed its own consulting unit, to be called Gartner Africa Consulting.
The key consulting areas will include performance management, customer relationship management, security, networking and architecture, outsourcing, IT and business strategy, and human capital management.
According to Gartner Africa, the significance for the South African market is that local expertise will now be used to deliver on Gartner consulting projects, making this service more accessible to a greater number of South African companies.
The absorption of the local Meta services is a result of Gartner acquiring the company earlier this year for $160 million in cash. The deal became effective from 1 April.
"Whereas in the past, Gartner Africa delivered consulting primarily via international Gartner consultants, we will now deliver consulting via the local team in conjunction with international Gartner resources," says Desire van der Lith, Gartner Africa GM.
"This will give our clients the best of both worlds by combining local and international expertise and insight, backed by Gartner research."
The Gartner Africa Consulting team includes Johan Jacobs, Les Stevens, Eion Gibson, Gerry Almon, Colin Smith, Leonie McManus (who was Gartner`s only consultant for some time) and Neville Willemse, who acts as consulting manager.
"We have just increased our head count by almost 50%," says Van der Lith. "While the formation of Gartner Africa Consulting was on the cards for some time, the international acquisition of Meta by Gartner resulted in an opportunity being created to offer very talented IT professionals the chance to work as part of the Gartner team. The benefit of Meta having been such a formidable competitor is that its team had a lot to offer Gartner in terms of experience and expertise."
Rene Jacobs, MD of Gartner Africa, and Van der Lith are directors of Gartner Africa Consulting.
"This will not be the case for long," says Van der Lith. "We are actively seeking a potential BEE [black economic empowerment] partner and hope to be in a position to finalise a deal before the end of the year."
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