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Customers

Arrow  Meeting the evolving needs of customers Arrow  Expansion of the customer base Arrow  Customer service Arrow  Liberalisation of the telecommunications market Arrow  IT risk

Customers are the mainstay of the Altron group and it is a business imperative that the companies understand and respond to their needs, providing them with the latest technologically-advanced products and offering outstanding customer service. Different companies face different customer issues within the Altron group. The most material issues affecting Altron and its operations are:

Arrow   Meeting the evolving needs of customers
Arrow   Expansion of the customer base
Arrow   Customer service
Arrow   Liberalisation of the telecommunications market
Arrow   IT risk
Arrow   Maintaining key agency/principal relationships.

Arrow  Meeting the evolving needs of customers

The Altron group operates in a rapidly evolving technology sector, and keeping abreast of the latest technological developments is crucial to being able to meet the changing expectations of customers. In most instances the issue is managed at a strategic level by the board and implemented operationally within each Altron group company. Generally, the group’s policy is to instil a culture of innovation through rewards and recognition programmes that identify and encourage innovators. Success is measured by tracking customer retention, growth of business per customer and renewal of contracts.

Operations where evolving customer needs are most dynamic include Altech MediaVerge, Altech Isis, Altech NamITech West Africa, Altech Card Solutions (ACS) and various operations within the Powertech stable. The initiatives of each of these operations to meet the changing needs of customers are detailed below.

Altech

Altech’s business development is driven by an understanding of customer needs. Each operating company holds formal quarterly or monthly strategic level meetings with customers to determine whether current products meet their requirements and to gauge future needs and mission-critical business challenges.

At monthly operational committee meetings this information is compiled together with each operating company’s report on opportunities, challenges and threats, which collectively forms strategic intent going forward. Depending on the nature of the business, each operating company will take a decision to either research and develop their own products, or partner with other companies to deliver on customer needs. When partnering, Altech operations select large, financially-stable and sustainable partners that are at the forefront of their industry. This ensures that they have sufficient R&D budget and expertise to anticipate and respond to changing global technology trends.

Altech measures its success in meeting customers’ evolving needs by tracking customer retention, growth of business per customer and renewal of contracts.

  • Altech MediaVerge
    Altech MediaVerge, a division of Altech UEC, is one of the world's leading service providers to the digital broadcast industry, with products deployed across four continents. It relies heavily on innovation to stay ahead of the technology evolution curve.

    The most important stakeholders in developing new technology innovations are Altech MediaVerge employees and customers.

    Internally the company instils a culture of innovation through a recognition and reward programme that identifies and encourages innovators. Altech MediaVerge also holds formalised ‘blue sky’ forums that stimulate discussion of ideas and the latest research and industry trends.

    Innovative concepts are presented to the General Manager, Head of Product Strategy and UEC CTO and the most promising ones are passed through the various ‘stage gates’ to operation. Innovators are rewarded whenever one of their projects passes through the various ‘stage gates’ and are given ownership of leading the project. This allows them to see it through to fruition, which is important for their personal satisfaction.

    Technical leaders focus on future trends in a bi-monthly ‘Decoding the Future’ session, the outcomes of which are filtered through to the quarterly technical architects’ innovation forum.

    Externally, the company engages with a diverse range of customers and potential customers to gauge their perspective on change and develop an understanding of the next generation of products required to address their needs. Monthly management meetings place specific focus on understanding broad customer requirements and setting clear targets for interaction with industry partners and customers to discuss concept ratification and development.

    During the year under review Altech MediaVerge developed a range of innovative new products, including:
    • Epsilon Suite – a rapid application development, head-end automation engine and debug suite for interactive broadcast media.
    • MediaGate – a kiosk-based, video-on-demand solution. The first customer has been identified and will fund development.
    • Royalty-free Middleware
    • Return path solutions
    • Next generation media portal
  • Altech Isis (France & South Africa)
    Fierce competition exists between telecommunications business support systems (BSS) and operational support systems (OSS) suppliers. In addition to implementing the solutions that network operators require, Altech Isis strives to develop a comprehensive understanding of the underlying challenges facing these customers. This helps the company to anticipate future needs. Because the business environment of customers’ is also constantly changing, the company also makes every effort to stay informed about technological evolutions and legislative changes that shift the playing field in which customers operate

    • Altech Isis’ acquisition in France in October 2008 resulted in the company being able to combine its customer administration and billing system products into one system, thereby strengthening its market offering in both South Africa and France.

  • Altech NamITech West Africa
    As a manufacturer of recharge mobile phone cards and a service provider to the telecommunications industry in Nigeria, Altech NamITech West Africa focuses on innovative ideas to create new products using existing resources. The demand from customers is for lower costs per denomination, as this will allow them to penetrate the low ARPU customer. To meet this need Altech NamITech West Africa has partnered with material and manufacturing equipment suppliers to run mutually-beneficial joint initiatives that will help reduce costs. In addition, the operation’s ability to access cheaper power by tapping into the Nigerian power-grid has also resulted in input-cost savings.
  • Altech Card Solutions (ACS)
    ACS interacts with its partners on a regular basis, providing them with information and feedback pertinent to its local market. Partners take this information into account when developing new technological solutions that will service ACS’ customers. During the year the company made a significant investment in its transaction switch solution, to ensure that this meets the financial industry’s compliance criteria. The year ahead will see ACS invest in further developments that will provide its transaction switch product with an ‘always on’ capacity. This is in direct response to the improvement in bandwidth in South Africa and the subsequent demand from customers for such a solution.

    ACS executives regularly attend international trade shows and seminars to keep abreast of the latest technologies available. They seek out offerings that are complementary to ACS’ existing product range or to its existing customer base.

Powertech

Powertech IST and Powertech Batteries have placed a strong emphasis on continuously improving their technology in order to be able to meet the evolving needs and expectations of customers.

Powertech Batteries' CEO is currently driving a process to modernise technology and the operation has spent R110m to date on its automotive manufacturing facility. The equipment and automotive plant is currently being commissioned, while the last of the industrial equipment has been inspected and will be shipped later in the year. Powertech Batteries is also currently conducting product research to ensure that it complies with future expected requirements from the motor industry.

Although the economic downturn has resulted in a reduced demand on power, Eskom’s future capacity to meet demand is not guaranteed. As such Powertech Batteries is in the  process of developing transmission and production capabilities in solar and wind energy, and further developing energy efficient technologies, while Powertech IST Otokon and Industrial continue to offer off-gas and heat recovery power generation solutions.

Arrow  Expansion of the customer base

The health of the Altron group’s customer-driven business relies on, among other issues such as customer service, expanding the customer base to increase revenue and decrease over dependency on a small group of customers. This is particularly true during the current tough economic climate. The efforts invested in customer expansion will now not only see the company through the difficult period, but will stand it in good stead when market conditions improve.

The actions in this regard by Altech Netstar and Altech Fleet Management, Altech UEC and Altech Card Solutions are detailed below.

Altech

  • Altech Netstar & Altech Netstar Fleet Management
    Altech Netstar currently owns 40% of the local market share and has various initiatives in place to up-sell to existing local customers. The newly launched Auto-Dialler system allows Netstar to automatically contact all clients two months prior to contract expiration in order to retain their business or up-sell new products to them.

    Netstar is also exploring new opportunities for expansion into Brazil. Research shows that the Brazilian vehicle tracking market is largely untapped, and that the vehicle theft profile is similar to South Africa’s. Setting up an operation in Brazil will help Altech establish early dominance in this burgeoning market.

    Altech Netstar Fleet Management has increased its market penetration from 8% to 15% in 15 months. This is a good example of how smaller acquisitions have consolidated the market space.

  • Altech UEC
    Altech UEC’s new market in India has allowed the company to make significant progress on reducing its dependency on MultiChoice SA, its major local customer. During the 6 months since operation began, UEC delivered 700, 000 set-top boxes in India. UEC currently exports to 41 countries.
  • Altech Card Solutions (ACS)
    ACS’s expansion into Africa is still in the early stages and it will take time to reap rewards from this slowly evolving market. However, progress is being made and during the year the company approved funding for a personalisation bureau in Lagos, Nigeria.

Powertech

The energy crisis has opened opportunities for Powertech to expand into new renewable energy markets. Rentech is currently a dominant player in the area of photovoltaic systems (producing electricity directly from sunlight). Evidence of this can be found at several intersections in Johannesburg where the traffic lights are run purely on solar energy and batteries - the best known example is Grayston/Rivonia Rd, Sandton.  The use of solar power is zero-carbon and it can be used with traditional energy resources to reduce overall carbon footprints.

  • Battery Technologies
    Battery Technologies reduces carbon production by introducing hybrid power schemes to applications running on Diesel-Electric generators.  Using this technology allows such generator systems to run more efficiently and greatly reduces the carbon that they produce.  Integrating this with Rentech’s solar photovoltaic systems further reduces carbon emissions, as the combination of the two technologies allows freedom to balance the economic/environmental trade-off.
  • Crabtree
    Crabtree’s automation product is being actively marketed and is also being developed as an energy-management tool for commercial and industrial application.
  • Aberdare Cables
    During the year Aberdare Cables employed a dedicated market development manager whose sole focus is to expand the business into Africa beyond the SADC region. Particular emphasis will be placed on the mining and oil sectors in Angola and the DRC. Aberdare’s office in Hong Kong is now focusing on providing a service to other group companies in addition to providing a sales & marketing service to Aberdare.

Arrow Customer service

In the economic downturn, outstanding customer service is a key differentiator of competitiveness. Altron’s group companies focus on maintaining a high standard of customer service in order to attract new customers and retain existing ones, but the performance across group companies has been uneven.

 

Bytes

  • Bytes Document Solutions
    Bytes Document Solutions (BDS) deals with the largest customer base in the Bytes Technology Group, servicing large corporates, smaller businesses and individuals through a direct selling network as well as indirectly through concessionaires and dealers.

    Getting regular feedback from these customers is vital to helping BDS maintain its competitive edge and the company conducts monthly customer satisfaction surveys in this regard. An independent consultant makes contact with all customers who have purchased a machine from BDS and gets their feedback on the delivery of the product, the performance of the machine itself, any problems they may have experienced and, where relevant, their experience of dealing with the call centre. This information is compiled in a monthly report provided to the division within BDS that deals with quality control. The information is then summarised and relayed back to staff, providing them on customer feedback trends relating to post-buying, post-service and customer loyalty.

Altech

  • Altech Autopage Cellular
    While Altech Autopage Cellular is rated by Hellopeter.com (an independent portal that logs complaints and compliments) as being similar to its peers in terms of compliments and complaints, the company recognises the need for it to improve on responses to queries relating to billing/accounts as well as feedback to customers. It is working at improving its customer service levels across a number of areas and has placed a strong emphasis on this.
    • Managing the issue
      This issue is given the highest level of attention and the managing director chairs a bi-monthly customer service meeting to review performance and outline strategy for improvement. There is also a daily customer service ‘dashboard’ which provides a snapshot of service levels, the information from which is relayed through to Exco along with the outcomes of the MD’s meetings. Altech Autopage Cellular continued with its Everyone Owns the Customer (EOTC) policy, the principles of which are reinforced during initial and ongoing training, and through staff meetings.
    • Measurement and issues
      During the year Altech Autopage Cellular conducted extensive ongoing investigations into the customer complaints trends. Customer service is measured using a service grade derived from how long it takes the call centre to answer calls, and how many calls are abandoned. Areas of concern include network billing errors that result in incorrect charges to customers; Altech Autopage Cellular billing errors due to late migrations and late cancellations; unresolved queries and issues where customers are unsatisfied with the company's response; and issues arising out of the tools used by credit control to collect money (for example barring, SMS and legal letters which drive large volumes of calls into the call centre).
    • Responsive action
      During the year, Altech Autopage Cellular has taken a number of steps to address these customer service issues. The company has increased the number of call centre agents and staff in the MD's office, has restructured the management team to make it more customer service-orientated, including a partner hotline for sales and created an accounts help-desk. The company is also aware that call volumes experience a sharp spike in the first and last week of every month and have put contingency plans are in place to manage the extra volumes during this period. At the staff/customer interface, all complaints where EOTC practices are not implemented are subject to a route cause analysis and appropriate corrective action is taken.
    • Plans for the year ahead
      Altech Autopage Cellular is also investigating the possibility of automating more functions to allow the customer self-service options. Work is underway to combine the Altech Autopage Cellular and Altech Netstar customer services call centres to achieve better service levels. It is envisaged that this will be completed in 2010 and will increase the call centre's capacity. During the current economic climate there is often tension between issues of customer satisfaction and the need for Altech Autopage Cellular to remind customers to pay their accounts. In order to address this issue, Altech Autopage Cellular will be implementing a debit orders on demand for automated account payments. The company will be introducing a new comparative quality benchmark called the Net Promoter Score.
  • Altech Netstar
    The vehicle tracking market is highly competitive, with functionality and price being similar between competitors. Customer service therefore offers a vital opportunity for Altech Netstar to differentiate itself.
    • Managing the issue
      The MD, together with senior management and divisional heads, take joint responsibility for ensuring high levels of customer service. The managing director receives daily customer service statistics and monthly reports on service trends, and is available to resolve customer complaints where necessary. Divisional managers are held personally accountable for service standards within their departments.
    • Identifying the issues
      Ongoing engagement and interaction with customers is critical to Altech Netstar’s ability to keep track of customer service levels and identify key customer complaint trends. Sales and fitment bookings are confirmed with customers via SMS and Altech Netstar makes follow-up calls to customers once fitment is complete. This helps the company to identify any issues immediately and to gauge individual customer satisfaction. SMS communication is also sent during the contract period confirming contact details and encouraging customers to use online servicing if required.
    • Responsive action
      During the year Altech Netstar developed and implemented the Customer Zone, an 24-hour on-line facility that provides multi-channel customer access. It also implemented 1 Touch Resolution, a system to monitor escalated complaints. The senior management team receive daily performance statistics from this system first thing every morning, and in instances where performance has been less than exemplary, a review is undertaken to identify and implement corrective actions.

      The Q&A staff in the call centre were replaced with external customer service experts to ensure increased qualitative performance.

      In 2007 the company committed to launching an Auto-Dialler to increase efficiency. The dialler was launched in test-mode in June 2008, and went live in August 2008. Since its implementation, the closing ratio (sales made to leads received) average is around 90%, and the average time to call a customer from the time of receiving the lead is less than 10 minutes.

    • Evidence of improvement
      Following on from trends in 2007, the standard of customer service at Altech Netstar has improved significantly. Some 94% of calls are answered within 20 seconds (up 4% on the previous year). This is a world-class service standard and comparable with the leading international call centres (the industry norm is 80% of calls answered in 20 seconds). Altech Netstar also boasts an average speed-of-answer of 5 seconds for all calls. The number of complaints that needed to be escalated to the GM and director level during the year was negligible.
    • Plans for the year ahead
      Altech Netstar will continue to benchmark customer satisfaction levels against comparable global call centres during 2009. The future focus will on ensuring all customer interactions are professional and friendly. To this end, the Q &A team will ensure staff are well trained, have excellent product knowledge and exemplary soft skills. The company is in the process of developing a One Touch Resolution which will focus on increasing the speed of answer and the quality of service levels, as these have identified has key areas for differentiation in the market.
  • Arrow Altech Distribution (AAD)
    Customer service is an integral focus area of AAD’s day-to-day business operations and the company investigates all complaints. Any product return is automatically treated as a complaint and each one is analysed. This information is compiled in a monthly report which is reviewed by middle and senior management.
  • Technology Concepts acquired
    In April 2009, Altech acquired 100% of Technology Concepts, an internet service provider (ISP) and information technology company. Altech plans to leverage off its existing footprint to scale up Technology Concepts by introducing new internet services to Altech Autopage Cellular’s one million corporate and retail clients. The acquisition enhances the company’s ability to provide data services to its voice cellular subscribers, and represents a response to the convergence of voice and data in the telecoms arena and the increasing demand for bundled services.

    Altech will also continue to explore more broad-based telecommunications opportunities in East Africa, where it can establish itself as an industry leader.

Powertech

  • Powertech Transformers (PTT)
    PTT assesses and reviews on-time delivery (OTD) and quality standards for all delivered products on a monthly basis. OTD and test failure rates have improved, but remain board-level items, and test failure rankings have improved to a level of compliance.

    PTT has monthly meetings with the Eskom Transformer Steering Committee to discuss OTD, test failures, field failures and other improvements PTT is undertaking.

    Achieving progress in the quality of customer service relies on the accuracy of customer monitoring systems, particularly of independent and impartial customer satisfaction surveys. This information serves to direct improvements in the entire chain, from product innovation to the training of staff at the customer interface.

Arrow  Liberalisation of the telecommunications market

Update on Altech’s I-ECNS license application

During the year under review Altron, through Altech, has played a pioneering role  in motivating the liberalisation of the telecommunications industry. In August 2008, the High Court ruled in favour of Altech Autopage Cellular’s (AAC) entitlement to have its existing value added network services (VANS) licence converted into an individual electronic communications network service (I-ECNS) licence. This much-awaited ruling enables Altech to develop and operate its own telecommunications network and represents a significant step forward in the liberalisation of the telecommunications industry. Deregulation will encourage competition and benefit customers by providing them with a broader range of services and reduced rates in voice and data services.

 

The way forward

The significant delays in the legal process, which took three years in total, also allowed existing incumbents to entrench their market position while Altech awaited outcome of the court ruling. Furthermore, we now have to wait for ICASA to create a fair mechanism for new entrants to obtain scarce spectrum.

Altech therefore took a strategic decision to focus on niche opportunities in internet service provision in South Africa. In April 2009, it acquired 100% of Technology Concepts, an internet service provider (ISP) and information technology company. The company plans to leverage its existing footprint and scale up Technology Concepts by introducing new internet services to AAC’s one million corporate and retail clients. The acquisition enhances AAC’s ability to provide data services to its voice cellular subscribers, and represents a response to the developing convergence of voice and data in the telecoms arena and the increasing demand for bundled services.

Altech will also continue to explore more broad-based telecommunications opportunities in East Africa, where it can establish itself as an industry leader.

Arrow  IT risk

Customer privacy and the security of customer data is an issue that falls within the general area of IT risk which is governed by the newly formed Altron Information Management (IM) Council. The IM Council’s role is to establish a company-wide risk framework and set of risk policies detailing the group’s approach to the management of inherent IT risk within the organisation.

Individual companies now have the following predefined baseline set of policies from which to manage IT risk into the future:
Arrow   Applications control policy
Arrow   Data storage and retention policy
Arrow   End-user policy
Arrow   IT continuity policy
Arrow   Security policy

Internal audit (where it is linked to the areas covered in the policies) will assess compliance with these policies, better preparing companies for audits.  Individual companies are now clear on expectations from holding companies with respect to risk management. Due to the evolving nature of technology and the increasing risk of threats, the IT risk policies will be reviewed on an annual basis. The next review is scheduled for October 2009.

Compliance with policy will be managed via bi-annual self-assessments completed by the business and independent audit reviews completed by internal audit. The results of these reviews will be assessed by the IM Council and if required, identified risks, or areas of non-compliance will be managed directly with the group company concerned. The first self-assessment cycle will report on the year ending 28 February 2009.

The King III draft report released recently included an increased focus on IT risk and governance. The IM Council will review these requirements and identify appropriate processes to ensure alignment of the group with the additional requirements with respect to IT in the new report.

Bytes

Bytes’ business requires that it hold both customer and supplier data, including names, addresses, contact details and bank account details. This highly confidential information is retained by each company on its own IT system, which is managed by Bytes Outsource Services (BOS) for Bytes Managed Services (BMS), Bytes Specialised Solutions (BSS), Bytes People Solutions (BPS), Bytes Healthcare Solutions (BHS), Bytes Systems Integration (BSI) and Bytes Head Office.

Responsibility for the security of customer and supplier information is jointly held by the chief information officer, the dedicated Bytes group security office and the financial managers of each operation. Bytes has non-disclosure and privacy clauses in place to provide protection and IT security includes, but is not limited to access control, firewalls, antivirus and anti-spyware software and intrusion detection and prevention devices.