{"id":12704,"date":"2012-05-16T17:46:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T15:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=12704"},"modified":"2012-05-17T11:45:29","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T09:45:29","slug":"bytes-takes-aim-at-public-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/12704\/bytes-takes-aim-at-public-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Bytes takes aim at public sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob Abraham<\/a>, CEO of the Bytes Group<\/a>, sees growth potential in gaining more business from the public sector as one of the biggest spenders on IT in the country.<\/p>\n

Bytes Technology Group, a principal subsidiary of JSE<\/a>-listed Altron<\/a> and part-owned by Kagiso Tiso Holdings<\/a>, recently reported an 11% \u00a0growth in EBITDA<\/a> to R527 million and improved EBITDA margins from 7.8% to 8.7% in the face of flat revenues for the year ended February 2012.<\/p>\n

Its headline earnings performance consequently increased by 22% to R253 million.<\/p>\n

Abraham believes that the local market remains extremely competitive with the really big contracts being highly contested where the winner takes all. As a result, he points to expanding selectively into Africa to ensure that the group remains a key player in new and developing technology and cloud based offerings.<\/p>\n

\u201cInformation Technology, like everything else today, has been commoditized and this requires us, as one of the leading players in this field and the biggest locally owned IT group, to consistently find and develop new products and services that will add value to our clients and that will command higher prices,\u201d Rob Abraham said.<\/p>\n

Abraham stressed that the local IT market is by no means in a negative phase, and said it is segments such as banking and retail that especially contributed to the excellent performances by several of the Bytes companies.<\/p>\n

Abraham noted that apart from Bytes Document Solutions (BDS), where LaserCom and Nor Paper recorded disappointing performances, the rest of the operations all exceeded expectations. \u201cWe are not worried about BDS as a profit contributor over the long term following some corrective actions in the form of management changes and restructuring of some of the divisions within that business,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n

In reviewing the sectors in which the group are operating, Abraham also commented on the health industry and he welcomes the government\u2019s national healthcare initiative as the only solution for the nation\u2019s health challenges although he is not sure that the money required for such a venture could be raised.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are already active and highly successful in large parts of the African continent, the Middle East and the UK and we will continue to consider acquisitions in all areas as and when they prove to add value to our group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this regard\u00a0 I believe that the new government sales team that we have put together, alongside\u00a0 the recent acquisition of Unisys Africa which is an active participant in the public sector, will contribute to us enlarging our service portfolio to the\u00a0 public sector segment of the IT market. We believe that the public sector offers huge potential growth as it is currently the biggest local investor in terms of IT expenditure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Altron\u2019s Bytes to acquire Unisys Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Higher revenue, lower profits for Altron<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Powertech CEO steps down<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Abraham, CEO of the Bytes Group, sees growth potential in gaining more business from the public sector as one of the biggest spenders on IT in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[309,2842,26,2844,2843],"class_list":["post-12704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-altron","tag-bytes-technology-group","tag-headline","tag-kagiso-tiso-holdings","tag-rob-abraham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12704"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12708,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12704\/revisions\/12708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}