While many of SA’s businesses are left with no option but to trim salaries, retrench or close their doors, several IT companies are looking to hire as the need for their services grows.
“One of SA’s retail banks pushed about 10,000 employees to work remotely when the Covid-19 induced lock down hit,” says Jon Tullet, senior research manager for IT services for Sub-Saharan Africa at the International Data Corporation (IDC). In addition to the company needing to buy additional services such as cloud and VPN, “they now have 10,000 PC’s and laptops that can break and need to be replaced and repaired.”
This, says Tullet, is just a small portion of the scale of services that businesses require. And the IT industry is responding: “Companies like Didata have already created a field service team to service the needs.”
To ensure that businesses are able to continue functioning, the “chief information officer (CIO) has become the most important person in the room,” says Tullet. He adds that they will be looking to service providers to assist them with supporting the new remote workforce as well as additional services such as HR and payroll.
“We are expecting that the outsourcing world will become more important to CIOs over the next few years. They will want to move risk and not worry about uptime and skills. They will just want to pay for the privilege,” says Tullet.
This is proving to be a growth opportunity for many IT companies.
Cloud-based HR and payroll software provider PaySpace has needed to focus on ensuring that its clients are able to abide by the changing regulatory requirements implemented in the last five weeks. To do this, it has set out to add a combination of about 10-15 new junior support consultants, compliance specialists and software engineers to its current staff contingent of 108.
Africonology Solutions, a software testing and quality assurance business that supports businesses such as Absa, the SA Reserve Bank, Sasol and Telkom, is also on the lookout for talent. “We anticipate a recruitment initiative during this period,” says Mandla Mbonambi, CEO of Africanology Solutions.
Internet of Things solutions provider IOT.nxt says it is actively recruiting and expects an escalation as market demand for its services grow.
But the IT services are not just for businesses that will survive. Salient Discovery, a division of the Cloud Essentials Group, is expecting an upturn in insolvency services for its law firm and investigation clients. To meet this demand, it is anticipating hiring senior specialists in the next few months.
Everlytic, which supports bulk communication campaigns, has been able to absorb the effect of the economic shock. “We have not reduced hours, salaries or headcount,” MD of Everlytic JD Engelbrecht said. “We have not frozen or closed any positions; we will continue to fill our vacancies as planned. We are always looking for exceptional software developers”.
Some IT businesses are taking a more conservative approach to their recruitment forecasts.
Dial-A-Nerd, which supports home users and small business with up to 15 users and its sister company, Turrito, which supports small and medium-sized businesses with up to 500 users, is bunkering down.
While both businesses received an influx of requests, specifically with moving their applications to the cloud, they say that about 30% of their customers are asking for either a cancellation of their services, payment holidays or financial relief.
“We are extremely nervous about cash flow, so while under normal conditions we would certainly be hiring, under lockdown we are not,” Colin Thornton, MD of Turrito and founder of Dial a Nerd, said.
The IDC’s Tullet warns that while cloud adoption and on-site services are in demand right now, the ecosystem will change. “The noise worldwide is that post-lockdown, everyone will work from home,” Tullet said “No, not everyone wants to work from home and SA’s management is still very conservative and wants to see staff on seats.”
He also adds that IT companies will need to start offering services such as call centres if they wish to remain relevant. “The IDC predicts that systems integration and managed service offerings will be on the decline,” with a decline in on-premise software businesses of 11.75%.
Where Tullet sees opportunity is in offering call centres, financial services and HR offerings. “These options may create opportunity for entrance-level employees, which are what the economy will need.”
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