As Kennedy Chinganya celebrates one year since he took up the role of managing director at Altron Nexus, he has systematically reshaped the firm to be better positioned to succeed in this changing economic and business landscape.
By focusing on growing enterprise and smart solutions revenue streams, Chinganya says this strategic approach will pay off – and the results are already starting to prove him right.
Chinganya says the unpredictable economic landscape has forced Altron Nexus to anchor its performance with enterprise and smart solutions. A year ago, he came into the Altron Nexus fold to get a full understanding of the business through its employees, its suppliers, and its customers.
“I had to ask myself three questions: What is it that we want to do? Why do we want to do what we want to do? Once those two questions were answered, the third question was: How are we going to do what we want to do?”
His leadership and the answers to these questions have led the Altron Nexus business on a journey back to its roots. “When you think about what built Altron Nexus in the market, it has always been our work in the critical communications sector. Our focus in this area is only expected to grow as we expand our reach further into the continent.”
With projects and operations already established in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, and Botswana, Chinganya says Altron Nexus is ready to go wherever the projects arise, which will likely involve new mine development projects in the regions.
“With public safety being a key component of our critical communications work, we are looking to add surveillance as an additional layer within our critical communications offering,” says Chinganya.
His strategy is to consolidate and bring together critical communications and surveillance as one consolidated solution that will bring forth a whole new level of efficacy and value in critical communications support.
Regarding the other portfolios designated for growth, Chinganya says this involves two specific directions. “First, we are keen on growing our reach in the enterprise solutions space, and second, we will focus on bringing smart solutions to the market.”
With the first portfolio, Chinganya is confident that Altron Nexus only has to follow its current trajectory given the business’s success in projects like the Gauteng Broadband Network (GBN) for the last eight years. The GBN is a transport layer network being deployed by Altron Nexus, which uses Huawei networking equipment, to connect the provincial government’s offices, schools, libraries, and hospitals and clinics to a world-class Internet connection.
In an interview with ITWeb, Chinganya said, “When you look at that space, we have got a footprint, and references of work that we have done. GBN is just one; we have also built a network for Limpopo Connection SoC Ltd in a similar manner. Limpopo Connection is now monetising the network by connecting other municipalities thereby, creating revenue streams for them. The City of Tshwane is another such big project.”
Chinganya is confident that Altron Nexus’s enterprise solutions can take full advantage of its software-defined network solution. “With cloud technology empowering our capabilities, we can deploy networks and software from anywhere to anywhere. The infrastructure we have helped to build only accentuates our ability to do this,” he concludes.
