NEWS
Growing global – how to build an
international firm out of SA
“So we launched with a proper business model, road plan and big
playbook. This helped drive our growth. “
A carefully-plotted strategic focus saw the business targeting only
regions where the product-market fit was right and where reliable
local networks could be established.
“It’s not easy doing business across Africa,” said Daniel. “You have
to be cautious about the projects you want to become involved in.
Some big projects, across multiple countries, could virtually kill your
company off slowly because they can take too much time and focus
away from your own company’s strategic growth plans.”
Payment24 is
aggressively growing
across pan-Africa and
into the US
S
outh African fuel management and payment system innovator
Payment24, now a multi-million rand company signing up blue
chip international clients, is aggressively growing across pan-Africa
and into the US. But achieving international success, the goal of
many born-in-SA companies, is not a simple matter, according
to Payment24’s joint CEOs, Shadab Rahil and Nolan Daniel. “Our
ambitions were international from the outset and we never saw
ourselves as a start-up,” said Rahil.
Pan-African business expansion is also challenging in terms of cross-
border payments and red tape. Despite the challenges, Payment24 is
actively expanding across Namibia, Kenya, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria
and Mozambique. The company’s growth was supported by being
selected as one of 36 to participate in the international 500 Start-ups
Global Seed Accelerator programme in San Francisco last year.
“This programme gave us an opportunity to establish links in the
North American market and to conduct research that confirmed
product-market fit in the US,” added Daniel.
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Paratus chooses Mapcom Systems for African
fibre network infrastructure management
M
apcom Systems, a global leader in visual
OSS and BSS software solutions for
telecommunications service providers, has
announced that Paratus Africa has begun the
implementation of Mapcom’s M4 Solutions
Suite to accelerate the service fulfilment
process and manage the planning, buildout
and maintenance of its broadband network.
Paratus is the largest privately-owned Pan
African telecoms operator and already
delivers products and services to 22
African countries. It has fully licensed and
operational offices in Namibia, Angola,
Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and
South Africa.
By utilising Mapcom Systems’ award-
winning M4 software, Paratus will have
visibility to its entire network and additional
relevant data from third-party vendors in one
system, thus enhancing business intelligence
and cross-departmental collaboration.
www.intelligentcio.com
“Paratus has an aggressive expansion plan
and infrastructure rollout strategy, we have
already invested in excess of N$150-million
on infrastructure in Namibia over the past
two years and continue to invest,” said
Paratus CEO Barney Harmse.
“More than N$100-million alone has been
invested in fibre infrastructure from March
2017 to February 2018.”
Harmse says Paratus is a carrier-of-carriers
throughout the region and it is important
that the international operators have peace
of mind when they trust the Paratus Group
to deliver products and services to them.
“We have been providing services on
our infrastructure to many reputable
international telco operators in Africa,” he
said. “Mapcom’s M4 Solutions Suite will play
a critical part in our network’s integrity and
health, as we deliver a world-class service to
world-class operators.”
Utilising Mapcom Systems’ Data Integration
Engine, data will seamlessly be integrated
from other systems of record into M4 to
allow centralised operations management
and allocation of resources to efficiently
handle dynamic business challenges, such as
locate requests across multiple countries.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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