Author: Staff Writer

Sanlam and MTN Group are pleased to announce that our strategic alliance to market and distribute insurance and investment products across Africa has reached a significant milestone with the fulfilment of the regulatory, competition and other requirements. The effective date of the transaction is 31 October 2022. The strategic alliance will be implemented through MTN Group’s InsurTech platform aYo Holdings (aYo) and each partner will hold 50% of aYo. Through aYo, the alliance will continue to build and develop digital insurance and investment offerings that provide people across Africa with easier access to Sanlam’s products, particularly those people who have…

In testing, just 11% of 3,907 employees proved a high level of cybersecurity awareness using Kaspersky Gamified Assessment Tool. Fewer skilled users made most of their mistakes in the realm of web browsing. With 90% of people overestimating their cybersecurity abilities, Kaspersky Gamified Assessment Tool is designed to not only change employee behaviour and awareness, but also to assist chief information officers (CIOs) and HR departments measuring workers’ cyber skills, and provide their teams with a relevant education environment. During the game, employees receive points on the decisions they make during commonly encountered situations occurring while working remotely – at…

Anton Herbst, currently chief executive officer of Tarsus On Demand (TOD) and Tarsus Technology Group (TTG) has resigned his positions at the Group with effect from 31 January 2023. In a related move, Gary Pickford, currently chief commercial officer of Tarsus Distribution has been appointed managing director of Tarsus Distribution effective 1 November 2022. The process of selecting a new CEO for TOD is underway and an announcement will be made as soon as the details are finalised. Herbst was appointed CEO of Tarsus Technology Group in 2021 and at the time Lawrence Barnett, chairman of the TTG board said:…

It’s not every day a CEO of a major company asks his customers to log in and ask him tough questions face-to- face and on the spot. In an extremely well-attended and vibrant one hour LinkedIn Live session on Friday afternoon, MTN SA CEO Charles Molapisi did just that, fielding many curve balls and unleashing a 24/7 customer service “war room” to ensure rapid responses and urgent follow-ups to the most pressing customer issues. With rolling blackouts, vandalism at power stations and battery theft resulting in increasing downtime on networks across SA, Molapisi said he did not have time for…

South Africa’s telco Telkom today officially launch its 5G network in partnership with Chinese telcoms giant Huawei. The 5G network is an ultra-speed, superior Internet connection that supersedes the previous LTE and 4G connections.  This next-generation network  will open up new opportunities for smart cities, businesses, healthcare, manufacturing and autonomous vehicles. Manufacturing makes up close to 12% of South Africa’s GDP, there’s a solid case to make regarding the value of 5G in transforming business models. 5G offers manufacturers the chance to build smart operations and truly take advantage of technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, augmented reality for troubleshooting,…

Heineken South Africa has taken a bold step in moving closer to reducing carbon emissions in all its operations, by launching a solar power plant at its Sedibeng, Midvaal brewery. The solar plant began producing power in May this year and is the largest freestanding solar plant powering a brewery in South Africa, and the largest within the Heineken group. The solar plant boasts 14,000 panels with an energy capacity of over 6.5MW providing 30% of the brewery’s electricity demand. The 19ha project will generate 17,000 MWh per annum. “This project supports Heineken’s Brewing a Better World goal reach to…

The Shoprite Group made its second minority investment in a South African tech startup this year. In the most recent transaction, the retailer is among a group of companies, led by Buffet Investments and KLT, in an undisclosed expansion round in Omnisient, Africa’s first privacy-preserving data collaboration platform provider. “We are excited by local start-ups that are creating value for our customers and partner businesses, whilst having privacy at the core of their offering,” says Neil Schreuder, Chief of Strategy & Innovation at ShopriteX, the Group’s data and customer technology unit that has been working with Omnisient for the past…

JSE-listed technology company Altron has announced its intention to sell the ATM Hardware and Support Business portion of its Altron Managed Solutions Division to NCR. The NCR Retail Hardware and Support business remains under Altron Managed Solutions. The sale sees ownership of the business going full circle, as Altron initially acquired the business from NCR Corporation. Altron Managed Solutions Managing Director, Warren Mande, said: “NCR and Altron have a long relationship, dating back more than 40 years. In this dynamic and highly demanding market, the future for our banking business under a global leader such as NCR, brings direct access…

The electronic commerce (e-commerce) market in South Africa has exploded and is expected to continue growing exponentially in the next few years. However, online retailers will not only have to refine their digital strategies, but they will also have to up their security measures, says Gur Geva, Co-Founder and CEO tech innovator, iiDENTIFii. South Africa is only the 41st largest market for e-commerce with a revenue of $5 billion (R75 billion at average rate of $15) in 2021. It is expected to grow 8% annually between 2021 and 2025, surpassing the global average of 6%, according to ecommerceDB. Major global…

New research from Vodafone Group, Vodacom Group, Safaricom, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that the successful deployment and adoption of mobile financial services is associated with a positive impact on GDP growth in developing markets as it helps businesses to reduce cost, access credit to invest, and to connect with consumers that were previously excluded from financial services. The econometric modelling research – which examined 49 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America – found that countries with successful mobile money services had an annual GDP per capita growth rate up to 1 percentage point higher than…

The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) is excited to announce the appointment of Tshepiso Kobile as Chief Executive Officer, effective 1 November 2022. Kobile succeeds Tanya van Lill, who served SAVCA for over five years. Kobile hails from a financial services background, having served as an investment professional with the Development Bank of Southern Africa and as a property finance manager with Standard Bank. Through her involvement in both the public and private sectors, she has gained unique skills in senior management roles. Her recent position was as the Senior Programme Manager for Catalytic Projects at the…

Proctor & Gamble has rescued the school year for thousands of learners in KwaZulu-Natal. They have been without proper facilities since July last year, when about 130 schools in the province were vandalised, looted and even torched during the unrest. At the time, the Basic Education Department said it did not have the budget to fix the schools, or to provide mobile classrooms. Siphosethu Primary School Principal, Themba Sokhabase, who was visibly shaken by what had happened said at the time, “It is really sad that we find ourselves where we are today, given how hard we worked to ensure…

MTN Group has announced that the network will host an Africa-first virtual concert in Ubuntuland, Africa’s metaverse. In February this year, MTN Group became the first African company to purchase land in Ubuntuland with a vision to create dedicated environments for creating unique immersive experiences for its customers. “The MTN Group’s presence in the African metaverse will be known as altMTN. altMTN allows us to further support our ambition to lead digital platforms and support African innovation, and will, over time featurelivevents, shopping, gaming and learning,” says Bernice Samuels, Executive: Group Marketing at MTN Group. “To welcome everyone to altMTN…

According to billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, it is unrealistic to expect to solve climate change by asking people to live greener lifestyles. Telling people to stop eating meat, drive less, and buy smaller houses is unlikely to be effective, at least not yet. Changing human desires is simply too difficult, and we should look instead to other viable solutions that seek to reduce emissions without demanding people rethink their consumption habits entirely. Offsetting change Gates, who has invested hundreds of millions in climate initiatives through his foundations, noted last year that so-called Green Premiums could be an effective…

Tarsus On Demand is partnering with the SAtion ecosystem and Microsoft to offer a free, day-long business development workshop for 40 small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) based in townships in and around Johannesburg. The workshop, which takes place on November 11, aims to equip tech entrepreneurs with skills and resources to grow their businesses. This initiative builds on the existing agreement between SAtion and Tarsus On Demand to help drive growth and digital transformation in South Africa’s SMME sector. SAtion draws together stakeholders in the private and public sectors to discuss, coordinate and implement Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) projects.…

Hlayisani Capital, which is chaired by former Nedbank chair Reuel Khoza and a majority shareholder, announced today it has bought a minority stake in Tractor Media Holdings, one of South Africa’s leading digital outdoor media owners. Hlayisani Capital said the funds will be channelled towards the acceleration of Tractor’s aggressive digital out of home (DOOH) growth strategy. The funds will also allow for the acquisition of key sites, new portfolios as well as investment in advanced and cutting-edge technologies – ensuring that Tractor remains at the forefront of DOOH media in South Africa. “We believe in growth, we believe in…

In 2018, the University of Limpopo began revamping its enterprise architecture, ushering its ailing IT infrastructure into a new world of efficiency. In 2020, this digital transformation journey accelerated towards the cloud as a more scalable, agile, and reliable solution that could ensure learning continued even in the most remote and locked down circumstances. “This project was very important to education in this country. We are building a modern ICT infrastructure that allows us to grow and service more ambitious young South Africans than we ever could before. As more users demanded access to our online, media-rich learning experience, the…

Wits University has led a national consortium that secured R54 million funding from the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) to co-ordinate a national quantum technologies initiative. Following on a proposal written by the consortium led by Professor Andrew Forbes from the Wits School of Physics, the DSI committed the first tranche of funding up until March 2025 to set up the South African Quantum Technologies Initiative (SA QuTI). It involves establishing quantum nodes at five centres – Wits University, the University of Zululand (UniZulu), Stellenbosch University, the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN) and Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) – and eventually…

The world celebrated the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October. There is a large number of migrant breadwinners in South Africa who send money to their families, and the Post Office has a cost-effective, same-day money transfer service to and from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Nigeria, Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique and eSwatini ready. The service is available from any post office in South Africa to any post office in the destination country. The transferred funds become available at the destination post office in the foreign country on the same day. The service is offered through the…

Standard Bank’s former information technology senior lead, Mary Mahuma, has been appointed as the new Head of Information Technology at Philip Morris South Africa (PMSA), a leading international tobacco company. Mahuma joins the company in South Africa to lead the technology and operations as PMSA transforms its core operating model beyond tobacco, underpinned by the organisation’s bold ambition to deliver a smoke-free future. PMSA Managing Director Branislav Bibic says that “A smoke-free future is attainable, and the benefits it can bring to the adult smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke and global public health, are enormous.” “Mary is charged…

With the global Fourth Industrial Revolution in full swing, companies are investing billions of dollars on advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). Organisations around the world are expecting and experiencing significant increases in business returns as a result of successful investment in AI. Today, Spatialedge, an AI solutions provider headquartered in Stellenbosch, South Africa, has announced the acquisition of Cape AI. Spatialedge is a big data and applied machine learning solutions company, with a focus on enabling companies to rapidly build and operationalise robust machine learning solutions. It enables enterprise data science teams to deliver improved business value faster by…

MTN South Africa recently asked small businesses with additional generation capacity to join forces in an innovative crowd-sourcing initiative to further bolster MTN’s network resilience work, as rolling daily power cuts continue. The focus of the initiative has been to find some positive in the power crisis, by bringing small businesses closer to MTN. Two businesses – 24Solutions, SAMO Engineering – have stepped up and are now working with MTN as supply partners to provide additional generator capacity. Charles Molapisi, MTN SA CEO, says keeping MTN’s customers connected to SA’s best network is a critical focus, but so too is…

In the age of big data, the Shoprite Group is at the forefront of innovating with artificial intelligence (AI). As one of the world’s leanest and most advanced retailers here are three leading innovations which have had a marked impact on the Group’s operations as it continues to create the best possible customer experience.  Ensuring Sixty60 arrives fast and fresh   To further improve Checkers Sixty60’s delivery times, the Group developed a machine learning algorithm to dynamically define optimal delivery regions. The solution overlays a map with the spatial-temporal view of orders while using order data to determine the optimal delivery…

Starting with just one client and a workforce of 100 people across two floors of Webhelp’s Umhlanga Ridgeside office in October last year, this global consultancy and customer experience organisation has quickly shown the demand for Durban as a business hub. In just a year, the Durban location has brought in further clients and will employ 674 young individuals across the entire office of four floors – with big plans for further growth. “BPO [business process outsourcing] is one of the fastest-growing sectors in South Africa with significant year-on-year growth,” commented Tammy Chetty, Managing Director of Webhelp South Africa. “We’ve…

Shoprite’s mobile application, with the Money Market Account functionality at its core, is the winner of Most Innovative Solution and App of the Year at this year’s MTN Business App of the Year Awards.   The app supports Shoprite’s Money Market Account, a fully-fledged, transactional bank account – the first by a SA retailer – and the lowest-cost bank entry-level account on the market.   “The development of the Money Market Account has been driven entirely by customer needs and we are going to reinvest the prize money to continue to uplift the lives of our customers,” says Jean Olivier, General Manager for Financial…