Dimension Data operates as one
Technology firm Dimension Data has almost completed rebranding a number of its business units under one name as part of an effort to simplify its operations. “There are just a few formalities … but at an operational level, with everything that we do with our clients, we’re operating as one Dimension Data,” Setumo Mohapi, chief go-tomarket officer, said in an interview with Business Day.
Dimension Data has almost completed rebranding a number of its business units under one name as part of an effort to simplify its operations.
Setumo Mohapi, chief go-tomarket officer for the company, said: “We ’ re not trading under the old trade names for sure. We ’ re now all Dimension Data, across the board.”
The technology group, headed by CEO Grant Bodley, has been made up of four business units: the traditional Dimension Data systems integrator business; call centre unit Merchants; digital solutions unit Britehouse; and internet services provider Internet Solutions. It launched a cybersecurity arm, Dimension Data Security, in 2019.
The effort to simplify its business follows a trend in the industry which has seen firms such as Altron consolidate its businesses under its own “One Altron ” strategy. At EOH the story is similar. Before Stephen van Coller and his team came in, EOH was made up of 268 entities and operations, which it is working to consolidate and bring under three business units: iOCO, Nextec and IP.
Dimension Data was once considered one of the largest technology companies on the JSE, with market capitalisation of R77bn at its peak in September 2000.
It delisted from the exchange in 2010, after being bought by Japanese technology firm Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) for £2.1bn. Dimension Data remains an independently branded affiliate of the NTT Group and retains the Dimension Data brand.
Earlier this year, the group said it would retire its brands Britehouse, Internet Solutions and ContinuitySA in a move that will result in the group operating under one name and reduce duplication.
“There are just a few formalities that have to play out for the brands to be formally retired but at an operational level, with everything that we do with our clients, we’re operating as one Dimension Data,” said Mohapi.
Part of the justification for the new operating model is to reduce redundancy and duplication of services in the company and to have a unified approach to dealing with clients.
Mohapi explained that clients consume, access and use a number of services and products from the firm, which made for an inefficient structure where its business units would offer similar offerings and often compete for the same business.
“We can [now] have a conversation with you [the client] that deals with your IT operations, workplace environment, client offering, security, risk or governance environment, and so on. This is what one Dimension Data is able to offer our clients. Something we were not able to do easily in the past.”
Mohapi said Covid-19 has not slowed the progress of realigning the business.