South African design experience company The Immersion Group has concluded a strategic partnership deal with well-known entrepreneur Andile Khumalo. This will see Khumalo become chairman and his investment firm KhumaloCo a shareholder in the company.
Starting as a small consultancy, The Immersion Group has entrenched itself as experienced and sought-after design experts who enable effortless customer engagement, retention and new client acquisition through precision-designed experience-led systems and processes for digital interactions. The organisation currently works with leading South African blue chips including Old Mutual, Absa and Standard Bank.
“Immersion is a rapidly growing business and for some time we have been looking for a business partner who could drive us to our next growth level. We have found that person in Andile Khumalo and his investment company KhumaloCo,” says Group CEO Viresh Hargovan.
“We are confident that through his extensive network we will find new opportunities as well as utilising his strategic and management skills to complement our stable of highly talented operatives.”
KhumaloCo is a specialist investment firm that primarily invests in emerging companies operating in the technology, media, and financial services. It has investments in the communications group Brave, investor marketing agency Ince and small business development support company, I AM AN ENTREPRENEUR.
“This really wasn’t a difficult decision. The Immersion Group has a stand-out track record in a highly sought-after technical space, particularly given changing customer demands in the online and mobile space. Seamless and positive customer experience has now become critical to brand success and growth and Viresh and his team are setting new benchmarks when it comes to this discipline,” says Khumalo.
“His is a team of highly experienced and precision-trained experts in Customer Experience (CX); Service Design User Experience (UX); Design User Interface (UI); and Content Strategy and Design and offers these much-needed skills sets to clients who are having to reimagine their customer experiences which will live across all their touchpoints.
“Living up to your experience promise as an organisation has become a unique differentiator that taps into new value. Most organisations are utilising the opportunity to re-engineer their customer and staff experiences while going through various forms of digital transformation.”
The partnership will see the Immersion Group reach out to executives in the broader business community and seek to partner on opportunities in markets beyond the networks already created.
Hargovan says the world is now in the middle of large-scale digital transformation where there is constant disruption.
“New competitors have entered the market putting traditional operations under pressure to change. The Immersion Group injects a human-centred approach into our clients’ landscapes, beginning with a strategic vision for the business that is informed by real customer needs. These are rapidly translated into concepts that we test with real customers.
“With this understanding, we can begin the process of redesigning customer touchpoints. From websites to internet banking to mobile apps and quick codes we create experiences that transform the way organisations interact with their customers.
“Executives leading companies to have no choice but to focus on the real and changing needs of their customers in this new pandemic-influenced paradigm and the Immersion Group is singularly poised to be a guiding light in this respect, both in South Africa, across the continent and in other global markets.”
Both Hargovan and Khumalo believe the time has never been more opportune for companies navigating this time of flux and uncertainty to double down on their efforts in customer management and experience creation and work with an experienced partner who will design and map the journey and walk the road with them. Both parties say The Immersion Group is ready and primed for this task.
