ITSS started out as an IT project Management and Advisory Services organisation in 2002. The collective experience of the founding member’s lay in IT Managed Services and IT Infrastructure Outsourcing.

ITSS was initially appointed the largest apparel retailer in South Africa to aggregate and optimise their Telecommunications and Data Networking infrastructure with the objective to simplify the management and cost control thereof.

In 2002 the Telecommunications landscape in South Africa was very different to what it is today. The industry was extremely regulated, and Telkom had monopolized the market through this regulation. Organisations operating in this environment had little control over the costs of Telecommunications, which as services and infrastructure expanded became increasingly expensive to own and operate.

ITSS helped its client negotiate and implement service and supply agreements that enabled the centralised management of these services and the aggregation of infrastructure, which reduced the overall cost of Telecommunications to the group. We designed, built and operated systems that helped manage the consumption of these services which further helped reduce overall cost.

The development of these services and systems quickly led ITSS to develop and deploy supply management, cost management and benchmarking methodologies that it would use to help its client in doing the same to other services and infrastructure such as Mobility Management and Printing Management.

With the deregulation of the Telecommunications market in South Africa which began with the intention to award a Second Network Operator (SNO) License in 2002, actually began in earnest in 2005 when the SNO license was finally awarded to Neotel. Neotel would however eventually only start offering services in late 2007. During this period service providers such as Internet Solutions and VOX started offering limited alternatives in telecommunications, but all of these service providers still relied on Telkom for carrier infrastructure.

The advent of platforms such and BlackBerry and VoIP in its various forms started promising alternatives in Telecommunications, but at the same time they introduced additional complexity in the deployment and management of these services for corporate organisations.

With this background the mandate our client gave us was simple. We had to continually optimise the services being consumed in a manner that ensured the services were available and the cost was contained.

In delivering on this mandate, ITSS designed, developed and implemented a bespoke document management system that replaced all fax machines used in the store environment used to open new customer accounts and manage customer returns. This alone cut over R3 Million out of the annual operating expenses.

ITSS assisted and advised its client in implementing a revised and refreshed Contact Centre that spanned three locations in South Africa handling over 200,000 calls a day with more than 800 Agents.

We deployed and managed a store printing platform that reduced printing costs and consumption by more 40%.

We developed, piloted and implemented the first VoIP system at the client. The system demonstrated the ability to radically reduce the cost of Telecommunications by a staggering 70% from where they had started.

ITSS Designed and Implemented an SD Wan pilot that demonstrated the technologies ability to reduce WAN costs whilst yielding vast improvements in reliability and speed of the WAN.

Some of our other notable solutions and projects include:

• We supported a large bank in its transition to a digital platform by improving their mobile service offering to their staff members. Our services covered their entire mobile landscape: process, policies, governance, vendor management, security, mobile applications, TMS and technology. These services led to a direct 26%reduction in costs to the client.

• The implementation and management of a unified VoIP and WAN service, built on Cisco Meraki SD WAN infrastructure, for a customer across multiple locations in South Africa providing a 24x7x365 service offering 99.9% availability.

• The design and development of a surveillance solution used by one of the Major Banks in South Africa for real-time monitoring of construction operations at various sites in Southern Africa.

• The implementation of an integrated Access Control and Time & Attendance system for a large insurance brokerage.