What is the role of XContent in the South African ICT sector?

One of the biggest competitive advantages South Africa has is its infrastructure, especially in terms of telecommunications and Internet connection. Our own focus on cloud services began 18 months ago. The advantage we have got is that we don’t have a legacy holding us back: we don’t need to drive ROI, or outsource services. Adopting new technology and helping the customer base to transform is much easier without the roots the bigger companies have.

South African businesses are traditional in terms of storage solutions and software. How do you see that transition towards cloud based services?

In my experience, that is usually an excuse related to the cost of entry. It is easy to address those concerns and show that the security in the cloud is better than it would be if you invested in a private data center. From a physical access perspective or a hacking perspective, the security we can put in place is a lot easier in the cloud. We just need to point people in the right direction.

What have been the challenges and achievements of XContent since its inception in 2008?

Our initial focus was on-site and more data-focused. We are still providing data solutions but the focus now is assisting the customer on that cloud journey, setting up a cyber environment and realising the value of the cloud. Changes in technology have opened up doors for us and the fact that we don’t have additional factors holding us back allowed us to exploit it for our own growth.

Are your clients international or they are mainly based in South Africa?

The majority are in South Africa. We do have customers in the rest of Africa, for instance in Namibia and Botswana, but we have customers in Switzerland as well.

Are you planning to expand in other markets?

Our expansion plan in terms of cloud services is to handle everything in our current time zone. That represents the entire Middle East, Africa and Europe.

You have over 20 years of experience in the IT sector. How do you bring that experience and international exposure to XContent?

One of the things that experience brought me was fundamentals like culture differences. It has an impact on customer engagement, and that changes relationships. For South Africans in Botswana for instance, the impact will be less but it will still be there. You need to be aware of those differences.

You mentioned your key partnerships, one of them being Microsoft. How will you strengthen and renew partnerships for XContent?
Part of the cloud journey is a convergence of technology: software, hardware, services. We can’t offer all this as it would be impossible for us to employ experts in each service. We would rather work with key customers, establishing partnerships for specific services or implementation – providing a platform. Anything that comes for that specific service, we will pass on to a partner.
We remain the centre point of responsibility to our customer. We still manage the risk and the perception of risk within that entire sector. We take ownership of that relationship and also provide transparency to the customer.

Does South Africa have an opportunity to become the IT and clouds solutions hub for the rest of Africa and Middle East? What role would XContent have in that space?
South Africa has the capability to fulfil that role in Africa. In the Middle East, just a couple of countries have better infrastructure. Unfortunately, reaching that position is not just up to business. It needs a strategy adopted by all levels of government, but especially with regards to education.

Where would you like to see XContent in the next 10 years?

We would like to reach the level of maturity where the systems we put in place work, and where we are doing what we want with the customer base to support that. The goal is the evolution of knowledge and transforming that into support for the customer.