Africa-Press – South-Africa. Veteran business executive Mteto Nyati has acquired a 40% stake in medium-sized technology consulting firm Business Systems Group (BSG) for an undisclosed amount.
Nyati, who formerly headed up MTN – and who left his job at CEO of Altron at the end of June – will assume the role of executive chairperson at the company, taking over from BSG founder Greg Reis.
He says he was intentional about seeking a growing tech-focused company as his new investment destination after decades of holding leadership positions at some of the country’s top blue chip companies.
“When I chose to leave my last role at Altron, I was clear that I was not going to choose any more CEO roles. I wanted something different,” he said from the company’s offices in Johannesburg.
BSG, founded by Reis in 1997, provides corporates with data-driven solutions and insights that allow them to improve efficiency and customer experience.
“Data is an asset, and if used correctly, it can help companies to grow,” he said.
Nyati said his focus at BSG would be to help the business grow its market share beyond its strong footprint in the financial sector as an era of digitalisation takes root in South Africa. Fighting for market share would see it make moves in the same space as industry giants like Deloitte and Accenture.
“They are a company that I believe in and would like help grow, so that it can have more influence. Our work is required here as we are investing in the future,” he said.
He added that South Africa’s private and public sector presented enormous growth opportunities as the adoption of technology, whether in security or analytics, was still uneven, although there were pockets of excellence.
“Different sectors are at different phases of integration of technology into operations. I believe that the financial services are leading in terms of technology adoption, while manufacturing is still behind. The same can be said with the public service, where some departments are far ahead of others.”
Wide experience
As BSG looks to grow its client base, it is evident that Mteto’s extensive experience in tech-led companies, including holding leadership positions at IBM, Microsoft South Africa and MTN SA, would have a positive impact.
Nyati was appointed to the board of Telkom this year and is also a nonexecutive director at Nedbank and Eskom.
He is adamant that there is no conflict of interest between his new role and the links with the companies whose boards he sits on.
“I have acquired knowledge, and it is not like I sat down and planned to strategically insert myself in these companies. I have not applied for any of these board positions. Those companies asked me to come and help and there are criteria that I use in selecting which ones I agree with.”
He added: “With Eskom, I had senior people in government call and ask for help. There is not going to be any conflict of interest.”
South Africa’s tech sector has in recent years seen a number of investments by technology and computing companies, including Amazon Web Services, which is expanding its operations in the country and Oracle which in January opened its first cloud region in Africa to cater for the growing demand for enterprise cloud services on the continent.
Telkom’s subsidiary BCX this year signed an exclusive deal with Alibaba Cloud to bring its services to the South African market.
Nyati said the investments by these global hyperscalers were significant for the country and their presence would benefit our clients by providing them with wide choices.
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