EDITOR’S
NOTE
H
ello and welcome to the first edition
of Intelligent CIO Africa for 2020. I
hope you had a great year and are
looking forward to what will happen in the
world of IT during the next 12 months. Datacentrix has positioned itself as a
trusted advisor to DNI, having successfully
implemented the new environment, which
includes servers, networking equipment, rack
enclosures and connectivity.
The front cover looks at how DNI Invest, a
South African investment company in the
telecommunications and distribution sector,
has had its Johannesburg-based server room
revamped thanks to Datacentrix, meaning
that current capacity and performance-
related challenges have been overcome. Globally, 85% of enterprises are operating
in a multi-cloud environment with most
planning on embracing this methodology
by 2021. In our feature on cloud solutions,
we hear from Trent Odgers, Cloud and
Hosting Manager, Africa, at Veeam, who
says that, in South Africa, the recent arrival
of multinational data centres, as well as
carrier and cloud neutral data centres,
means that expectations are high that local
organisations will follow suit.
Currently, DNI’s competitive advantage
rests in its national reach and retail footprint
throughout South Africa, as well as building
close connections with big partners such as
Cell C, Telkom, Huawei and Edcon.
However, its infrastructure needed an
urgent upgrade due to it frequently freezing,
meaning that users could not access the
network or storage.
Christiaan Jacobs, the Head of IT at DNI,
tells us that the company chose Datacentrix
because of its skills and expertise, which he
says was an important checkpoint in the
tender process. And since its appointment,
www.intelligentcio.com
Meanwhile, our second feature is on Robotic
Process Automation (RPA) and how many
CIOs are turning to the technology to
eliminate the tasks of workers and ensure
that executives can focus on other duties.
Fanie Botha, the COO of FIRTech Holdings, a
South African company that specialise in RPA,
explains how it is changing the landscape.
You may not automatically think of
Rwanda when discussing IT, but the Eastern
African country is becoming a hub of tech
activity. In ‘Country Focus’, find out how
Volkswagen and Siemens have launched
a pilot project to test the feasibility of
electric mobility in the country, while SE-
listed technology company Altron, through
its Rest of Africa operations, has teamed
up with Pascal Technologies to provide a
seamless and integrated payment system
for motorcycle public transport services.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Gareth Hawkey,
the CEO of redPanda Software, says that
retail success in 2020 will be defined
by seven technology strategies that will
unlock growth, while James Hickman,
Chief Customer Officer at Altron Karabina,
provides an insight into his career and what
he believes are the hot talking points in IT.
I hope you enjoy the read and remember, if
you would like to get in touch and contribute
towards future features, thought leadership
pieces and news items, you can do so by
emailing me at paul@lynchpinmedia.co.uk
Paul Rogers
Editor
INTELLIGENTCIO
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