More than a third of global IT companies do not have a woman in an IT management role, and 92% of CIOs are male.These results come out of a study by Harvey Nash, in association with TelecityGroup. The 14th annual CIO Technology Survey 2012 probed the views of 2 400 CIOs and technology leaders in 20 countries.
Harvey Nash’s survey reveals there is growing concern over the question of gender diversity, in particular the availability of female talent in the technology sector, a section the research included for the first time.
According to the results, the male-to-female ratio in IT leadership remains highly unrepresentative of the population at large, as 93% of the CIOs who responded to the survey this year are male, compared with 92% in 2010.
Harvey Nash Group CEO Albert Ellis says the lack of gender diversity is a challenge “for technology companies and IT departments around the world”.
Over a third of CIOs – at 35% ‑ said there were no women in IT management roles in their organisation. In addition, 46% of respondents said less than a quarter of their IT management roles are populated by women.
“Traditionally, all forms of engineering have suffered from an image problem. In the past, female graduates have not aspired to be ‘tech geeks’ and a career in IT has not been seen as attractive,” says Ellis.
Missing out
Harvey Nash director Rob Grimsey says its expectation is that, in the short term, the proportion of female CIOs will remain relatively static. He says, globally, this is about 7% of total IT leadership, which does not represent the population.
“The data suggests IT currently lacks the pipeline of talent, not to mention the female role models, to create the next generation of female technology leaders,” says Grimsey.
Grimsey notes that what is “especially interesting” is that its research shows that nine out of 10 technology leaders believe they are missing vital skills as a result of low representation of women in their teams.
“As IT departments and the technology industry, in general, look to compete in an increasingly global, diverse and user-driven market, the need for diversity, creativity and relationship building has never been more important.”
Ellis adds that technology companies and groups without female representation will miss out in the future, which makes the skills shortage even more acute. However, such high-profile marketplace developments like the up and coming Facebook listing will draw attention to the enormous potential offered by careers in technology, he adds.
Grimsey explains that women generally do not find technology attractive and a supply of talent is at the heart of the problem. He points out that 75% of women CIOs believe there is a lack of qualified women candidates available for technology roles, and 88% of men share this view.
JSE-listed Gijima will trim between 8% and 12% of its R1 billion-a-year staff bill through retrenchments as it faces declining revenue because of lost deals and increasing costs.
The group, which recently lost half an Absa deal and a police desktop contract, currently has 3 080 employees. It says it will trim its “human capital” costs, mostly through retrenchments, but refuses to provide numbers as it still needs to follow a consultative human resources process.
In a statement, Gijima CEO Jonas Bogoshi said changes in the global market, and pricing pressure, means the company has to reassess its business operating model and restructure it to make it relevant. “Our aim is to enhance our business competitiveness.”
Gijima’s statement says the ICT industry landscape has changed dramatically and ICT spend globally is under pressure. “At the same time, clients, particularly those in the financial sector, have come under pressure to be even more competitive following global acquisitions.”
Revenue declines
An e-mailed communication sent to staff yesterday morning, which is in ITWeb’s possession, reveals the staff cuts are linked to lost revenue and higher costs.
“We have to take into consideration revenue forecasts for the new financial year, the investment required in new service offerings aligned to Vision 2025, and the investment needed to secure the company’s sustainable future,” said the mail from the CEO’s desk.
The mail says Gijima needs to “optimise our resource capability and utilisation” to remain competitive, “particularly in light of the loss of the SAPS [South African Police Service] contract for desktop computers and Barclays’ decision to in-source more than half of our contract with Absa”.
Gijima lost 200 staff members after Absa took half of a R200 million-a-year desktop contract in-house in March and took over employee contracts. At the time, CFO Carlos Ferreira said the group was not in a retrenchment phase.
A Gijima spokesperson says the current retrenchment plans and the March staff move are two separate matters and should not be confused. However, the loss of the Absa deal, which was secured in 2006 and worth R960 million over five years, has hurt the company.
Gijima has also lost part of a R20 million-a-month desktop supply and maintenance deal with SAPS.
Falling behind
In the first six months of the year to December, the company reported results that, while an improvement, were below expectations. Revenue gained 7.5%, to R1.3 billion, and it posted a R28.6 million net profit, compared with the previous R208.7 million loss, which it incurred as a result of the settlement with home affairs.
Bogoshi was not happy with the company’s performance as it fell short of expectations. He explained Gijima’s new client-centric business model was running four months behind schedule.
Bogoshi explained that the new model involves deep restructuring of the company’s operations. It should be completely implemented by the new financial year, which starts in July.
Bogoshi said the optimisation strategy, which involves cutting staff, is part of Gijima’s Vision 2025 plan, which it initiated in early 2011, in a bid to become more competitive. “We are already seeing traction of the plan we have put in place.
“We aim to improve our performance and enable the organisation to look for and create new opportunities in the ICT space. We are realigning our service and business offerings to create greater efficiencies and enable the organisation to adapt appropriately to market conditions,” said Bogoshi.
Top talent will be retained and the process will be completed by mid-August, while the business restructuring will come into full effect on 1 July.
As competition begins heating up in the cloud storage space, last week Facebook quietly began rolling out a file-sharing feature for all groups.According to a Mashable report, the feature allows users to upload files of up to 25MB (but music and executable files are not allowed). The file-sharing service was originally included in Facebook’s Groups for Schools initiative, but this required users to have a .edu address to use it.
Facebook says malicious, copyrighted or inappropriate files can be reported using the same mechanism for all other content on the site.
Facebook Groups reportedly has 380 million users, and the file-sharing feature has been added as a result of user requests.
While the initial release of the service comes with a number of limitations, it is widely expected that Facebook will continue to update the file-sharing service – potentially posing a threat to the long-term growth and appeal of other free cloud storage services like Dropbox.
File-sharing on Facebook has been a long time coming for the social network, and in 2010 it acquired file-sharing start-up Drop.io.
In the run up to its IPO, Facebook has been consistently rolling out updates to its service offering and user interface. Last week, the social giant also announced plans for its own “App Centre” in which all social games and apps will be featured in a single place.
Facebook will also for the first time begin offering paid-for apps in the new store, which will be a new revenue stream for both Facebook app developers and Facebook itself.
The past year marked some significant milestones in terms of the Internet in SA, notably that of mass market adoption – due, largely, to the proliferation of mobile telephony.According to World Wide Worx’s 2012 Internet Access in SA study, the Internet user base in SA grew 25%, from 6.8 million in 2010 to 8.5 million at the end of 2011 – a development underpinned by “the impact of both smartphones and ordinary mobile phones”.
As a result, says World Wide Worx, the Internet is “finally” arriving in the hands of the mass market. This is the key finding of the study, backed by the Howzit MSN online portal and undertaken using multiple methodologies – including primary research, interviews with providers and market intelligence
With Internet penetration approaching 20%, World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says the Internet has finally awoken “fully” in SA. He says, for the first time, it is evident the mass market is using its phones to engage with digital tools.
The findings revealed that a total of 7.9 million South Africans access the Internet on their cellphones. Of these, 2.48 million do not have access to computers and log on to the Internet only on their cellphones.
The remaining 6.02 million users, the study shows, access the Internet on computers, laptops and tablets. “However, 90% of this number – 5.42 million – also accesses it on their cellphones. This means that almost eight million South Africans sometimes or regularly access the Internet on their phones.”
According to executive producer of Howzit MSN, Justin Zehmke, the findings have “huge implications” for media and social networks, in that all online services will in future also have to be offered on cellphones.
Imminent explosion
Zehmke says the findings are a “powerful signal” that demand for online content in SA is likely to explode in the coming years. “The spotlight will not only be on online media, but also on social networking and electronic services in general. As the market grows and matures, we are likely to see a diversification in the landscape that will create space for successful niche media, a greater choice in information sources and a maturation of online services.”
World Wide Worx forecasts that the current growth trend will continue during 2012, with the Internet user base passing the 10 million mark by the end of the year. Goldstuck says that, while smartphones are the main driver of Internet growth, the cost of data use is being driven down by the proliferation of undersea cables connecting sub-Saharan Africa.
The study shows that undersea cable capacity to SA at the end of 2011 was 2.69Tbps. “[This is] due to rise to 11.9Tbps by the end of 2012” – and, according to Goldstuck, that capacity will be twice as much in 2013.
Teraco Data Environments today announced the launch of the Africa Cloud eXchange (ACX). This makes Teraco the first premier grade data centre environment in Africa to provide access to a vendor-neutral co-location space for sharing and selling cloud services. The Africa Cloud eXchange is providing a secure data centre environment where cloud providers can co-locate their service offering.
Due to the lack of power and general infrastructure around Africa, the opportunity exists to establish South Africa as a central hub for international access providers and cloud services to support the rest of Africa. There are many challenges in building data centres around the African continent, says Lex van Wyk, MD of Teraco Data Environments.
“With the rapid growth in IT requirements, Africa needs a solution to keep up with the demand. With the recent growth in fibre capacity along the East and West coasts, Teraco has identified the opportunity to offer the ideal data centre environment to all service providers wanting to provide IT solutions into African markets.”
Along with current benefits like free peering, cost-effective interconnects, access to all major carriers, resilient power, remote support and high levels of security, Teraco is the ideal space for cloud to be established in Africa. “Our facilities in South Africa already boast connectivity to all the undersea cables offering a combined 28 landing points along the East and West coasts of the continent, as well as all major carriers operating in SA and several active cloud providers. This, in effect, means the Africa Cloud eXchange is already in operation,” says Teraco Managing Director, Lex van Wyk.
Casper Kondo Chihaka, Managing Executive, Telkom Wholesale Services, says: “With Telkom’s ability to offer international connectivity via EASSy, WACS/SAT3/SAFE and terrestrial connectivity into South Africa, Telkom can backhaul numerous African countries to Teraco’s environments. Telkom has deployed infrastructure into Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban Teraco sites, and has been offering services to Telkom clients from these environments since 2009.”
Aidan Baigrie, Head of Business Development at SEACOM, says broadband connectivity will be one of the major spurs to the growth of African economies over the next decade, but there is still plenty of work to be done in building the telecommunications backbone that will connect the continent to the global village. “Broadband is to the 21st century what railways were to the 19th century – the engine of social and economic progress that forges economic links between countries and supercharges trade and transactions.”
* EASSy (Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System) is a 10 000km submarine fibre-optic cable system deployed along the East and South coast of Africa, linking South Africa with Sudan via landing points in Mozambique, Madagascar, the Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti. EASSy is the highest capacity system serving sub-Saharan Africa at 4.72Tbps. * The SEACOM cable network directly connects South and East Africa with Europe and southern Asia, covering a distance of over 17 000km worth of fibre-optic technology. The cable lands in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya with a capacity of 4.2Tb/s. The latency on this cable is 195ms. * WACS (West African Cable System) is a 14 500km-long optical fibre submarine cable that, when launched, will land in Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, Portugal and the United Kingdom, with a capacity of 5.12Tbps. The cable is landing in many countries without undersea cable access, and will dramatically change the connectivity landscape in those countries.
Teraco’s most recent offering, NAPAfrica, was launched in March 2012, providing an open, free and public peering facility with the aim of make peering simple and available to everyone. Van Wyk says the Africa Cloud eXchange concept is no different. “We want to provide a highly secure data centre environment with easy access to global connectivity providers,” says Van Wyk.
Richard Vester, Director of Cloud Services at EOH, says: “Teraco provides a world-class data centre facility which meets our unique SLA requirements, and more importantly, allows for our customers to connect from any network onto their private cloud. The ability to deliver services on-demand across Teraco’s data centre ensures we meet the operational requirements of our customers.”
Ronald Doyle, Principle Consultant from Bytes System Integration, says: “One of the essential characteristics of cloud computing is broad network access to offer services to customers wherever they may be. Teraco offers BytesNet the ability to connect and peer with other providers to ensure that our cloud services are delivered in the optimal manner for our customers within South Africa and throughout Africa.”
“The Africa Cloud eXchange allows South African and African cloud providers to host their platform, and offer services from a vendor-neutral, well connected and highly secure data centre environment, thereby opening up South Africa to the rest of the continent,” concludes Van Wyk.
Follow Teraco on Twitter: @ TeracoDC Visit www.teraco.co.za for more.
