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14October 2022
For Bidvest Data, a multi-channel communications company conducting business with large corporations, the role of technology is a critical one.
“ICT is our backbone, providing the tools and systems to deliver services to both clients and their end-users,” says Hennie Mentz, Bidvest Data’s chief executive officer. “Irrespective of the product, even ‘snail-mail’ requires content creation, but electronic mail such as email, SMS and data archiving is crucial.”
Mentz says that when lockdown started, Bidvest Data had a fully-fledged DRP environment that they could switch over to, but it was only tested on electronic mail as SAPO was closed. Despite this, the transition was smooth. Everyone was sent home and everything continued as normal.
However, the past year has been a bittersweet one for Mentz. While they experienced double-digit growth in the electronic and auxiliary side of its service offering, between Covid-19 and the South African Post Office, its postal side of the business has become at risk, with some clients who had considered going back to print and mail opting not to.
Mentz being so passionate about his people, knowing most of his staff member’s names, he found the process of having to let people go a very painful one.
“We had to be quite rigid in this decision and right-size our infrastructure,” he says. “However, first prize is when we can reskill staff with the qualifications to fulfil different roles. We’ve been able to move staff from the print side into the data development, technical side. We must continue to build morale and keep this sustainable moving forward.”
The relationship between Bidvest Data and MTN is that both are clients of each other. This is not reciprocal business, but two definite business relationships. Bidvest Data communicates with MTN’s clients for them and MTN provides Bidvest Data with Data Centre facilities and SMS aggregation services. . This has been a long-term relationship that began in 2011.
Flexibility and agility to adapt
“What is exciting for us is that MTN is extremely progressive, with so many options available, which supports the direction we need to take,” continues Mentz. “If I look at where we need to go, everything is going around the smartphone.
“My focus is to continue growing into and looking at more digital products and services and continue to move as quickly as possible into the cloud space. We currently still have data infrastructure and rely on datacentres and use others, including AWS, but wish to take advantage of the security and cost factors the cloud offers.
“In addition, traditional, batch-driven communication has evolved into a real-time event and the expectation of instant gratification. Moving forward, we hope to play more in the WhatsApp for Business and Chatbot spaces and work towards becoming more flexible and operating in near to or real-time.”
Mentz says that strategy over the past 20 years remains the same today – to ensure they offer the best solutions possible to clients. “Structure yourselves around knowing where your clients are going and go with them.”
With a career spanning 30 years, Mentz was asked what advice he would share with up-and-coming ICT professionals. He says that people tend to hop around from company to company, instead of sticking to an organisation to build their careers and skills.
“My advice would be to specialise and be very careful about how you manage your CV. Don’t hop for the sake of a few Rands,” he concludes.
Source: ITWeb Brainstorm
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