By Fakir Hassen, IANS
Johannesburg : A partnership between Indian IT giant Satyam and South African listed company Faritec is expected to boost employment and create new opportunities in the African telecommunications market.
The strategic partnership follows the recent appointment of Satyam to support the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa. The contract is worth millions of dollars.
Faritec customer sales group executive Dilley Naidoo confirmed his company had been appointed by Satyam to assist with the security software, systems integration and IT infrastructure for these events. This initial partnership is also expected to extend into the local and regional telecommunications sector.
Naidoo said Faritec will leverage off Satyam’s intellectual property, global methodologies and world-class best practices to shorten its own time to market in the telecommunications sector.
Faritec is a leading, black empowered IT services and solutions company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa. It combines intellectual capital, resources, technology and business processes to provide tailor-made IT solutions with the objective of assisting customers to manage their businesses more effectively.
“We are currently providing infrastructure services and support, and our vision is to add value by contributing to our customers’ future direction and strategy. Satyam’s strengths will therefore translate directly into benefits for Faritec’s customers,” Naidoo said.
Jena Chittaranjan, country manager for Southern Africa of Satyam, said: “We chose to partner with Faritec because of its strength, relationships and expertise in the telecom space. From a strategic perspective, the extensive synergies between Satyam and Faritec enable us to complement each other in a joint go-to-market strategy with a single, unified message.”
Satyam’s network spans 57 countries, and nearly 42,500 highly-skilled IT professionals work in development centres in India, the US, the UK, the UAE, Canada, Hungary, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan and Australia and serve over 570 global companies, including more than 165 Fortune 500 corporations.
In July, Satyam announced a strategic initiative to strengthen its presence in South Africa, setting an aggressive target of 75% year-on-year revenue growth and investing heavily in the development of skilled resources. The company now employs more than 120 technical staff at customer locations and has offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Naidoo added that Faritec will employ South Africans who are currently undergoing training at a Satyam university in Hyderabad as part of a skills transfer model.
The partners have embarked on an 80:20 skills transfer model that will start off with 80 percent of employees from Satyam who will gradually transfer their skills to locals to end up with Faritec staff running with 80 per cent of the project.
“We are aware of the acute skills shortage in South Africa, and our investment in building local expertise is one of a kind in this country,” Chittaranjan said.
“This initiative will see 35 South Africans being trained for one year in India, and these numbers will ramp up to 200 people over a period of 24 months. The one-year course consists of two months’ theory followed by 10 months on assignment to Fortune 500 projects – equal to about three years’ experience in real terms.”
“We are extremely bullish about the relationship with Faritec,” Chittaranjan said. “They are a group of highly professional, experienced people with an exemplary track record in handling large accounts in the telecom and banking market sectors.”