South African universities are “doing a fantastic job in terms of producing ICT skills,” says Tata Consultancy Services’ Langa Dube.
The company sees this as a key part of an opportunity for growth and one it will use in a “very strong way” in the next five years.
Dube, who is regional director for Tata Consultancy Services(TCS) South Africa and Rest of Africa, was speaking to ITWeb TV in a recent interview.
He said: “We are very rich in skills in South Africa; I’ve travelled parts of the continent – we’ve got good skills in South Africa, from an ICT perspective. How do you leverage those skills, bring them into this market and learn these major disruptive-type technologies?”
The focus should be on using technology to create new business models and markets, he added. “That’s what I see as another opportunity for growth in the next five years, which…we want to…we will definitely exploit and leverage in a very strong way, from a TCS South Africa perspective.”
Founded in India in 1968, TCS is an international IT services company with over 600 000 employees worldwide. It has been present in South Africa for nearly 20 years, having opened a local office in 2007.
It completed the sale of a 30% stake to Isisekelo Sethu Trust, a local entity, last year, and has a level two B-BBEE ranking. Dube describes the company as “a South African company with Indian roots”.
Although TCS ventured into offering services to the local public sector two years ago, its strength lies in four other vertical industries – banking, insurance, retail and communications.
Langa Dube, regional director for Tata Consultancy Services South Africa and Rest of Africa.
According to Dube, the company services the top players in each vertical. “We service the top four banks, top four insurers, top four retailers as well as top four telcos.”
The company’s BaNCS platform is the foundation for PayInc’s (formerly BankservAfrica) PayShap solution, which was launched two years ago and is accessible to customers of all the major banks. According to Dube, it runs over 100 million transactions today.
In addition to the company’s initiatives around skills development, in this wide-ranging interview, Dube also discussed how clients are adapting to current macro-economic uncertainties, adoption of AI, insights from Africa, and assessing risk in enterprise adoption of technology versus personal adoption.
