1. CASE IN POINT
by CD Anderson
The Backbone
of the World
Derek Wilcocks, Managing Director, Internet Solutions
In the second decade of the 21st century, Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) has become more than just an industry, it is a fully fledged way
of life for business and society at large.
I
CT business can be considered as any country’s in- Stock Exchange), as well as the private consumer. With
frastructural backbone for economic growth and significant investments across East and West Africa, in-
building a strong international reputation. cluding Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana, IS
Internet Solutions (IS) is South Africa’s leading Inter- strives in connecting businesses and organisations of
net Protocol-based Communications Service Provider. Africa with the rest of the world.
And, as an integral partner in the global systems inte- IS’ operations revolve around four major service
grator Dimension Data’s Middle East & Africa opera- areas, namely connectivity services, communications
tions, the company offers a substantial client service services, cloud services and carrier services. Over the
experience for client and partner organisations across years, as technology worldwide advanced drastically
the continent. Since 1993, IS has been at the forefront and continuously, it has become paramount that play-
of telecommunications innovation, from being the first ers in the ICT industry such as IS approach the new
commercial Internet service provider in South Africa, to digital way of doing business on all fronts in order to
becoming the most stable network available in Africa, give clients the best and latest advantage.
with the widest and most innovative scope of whole- Derek Wilcocks, IS Managing Director, has been
sale services to small, medium and large organisations part of the Dimension Data Group since 1995 as a
in both the public and private sector (including more founding Managing Director of Internet Solutions’ sub-
than 80% of companies listed on the Johannesburg sidiary, Trusted Network Solutions. Through several

2. CASE IN POINT
executive positions within the Group, Wilcocks has de- The partnership will see IS become Symantec
veloped and actioned various successful growth strat- Hosted Services’ primary route to market in South
egies for the company, particularly as a key player in Africa, with a dedicated Symantec data centre hosted
their African operations, and in South Africa, streamlin- on Internet Solutions’ infrastructure, and Symantec’s
ing Dimension Data’s Black Economic Empowerment hosted security, anti-virus, anti-spam and archiving
and Corporate Social Investment initiatives. He became solutions will be made available to IS clients. The roll
MD of Internet Solutions in 2009. His leadership philos- out for this began in January 2011, and Wilcocks says
ophy for the success of the company is based on having this is a big coup in delivering world-class service to
the right kind of people involved. clients on the continent.
Internet Solutions’ operations revolves around four major service areas, namely
connectivity services, communications services, cloud services and carrier services.
“I spend a lot of time focusing on the management IS’ Carrier Services includes a range of alternate
team of any company I am involved with,” Wilcocks last-mile technologies, which Wilcocks explains, is the
says, and at IS he has gone to great lengths to ensure carrying of the broader communication network to the
that the primary objective for the company is strong end-user. Last-mile technology, particularly in Africa
management leadership. “Once that is in place, we have and much of the developing world, remains a challenge
created a strong vision for the company and then, more to the ICT industry to provide cost-effective, high-speed,
importantly, successfully executing that vision, which high-bandwidth services to individual subscribers. In
also revolves around the people at the company.” 2010, IS began installing their own fibre-optic connec-
The IS vision, Wilcocks states, is based on how the tions for end-user clients, and placed more emphasis on
company segments its client base, and identifying spe- the creation of wireless networks to replace traditional
cific focus areas of product and service offerings for cable-based connectivity. Wilcocks and IS hope to im-
these clients. “The growth in our connectivity busi- prove and advance these services in the next few years,
ness, the oldest and more established part of the in order to bring the Internet and mobile communica-
business, is under a lot of pressure with changes in tions to as much of the population as possible, as well as
technology and as well as the competitive prices of offer fast and effective services to its business client base.
service,” Wilcocks admits, “but, the increase in our Future plans for Internet Solutions, Wilcocks says,
international bandwidth and our own involvement are about building on the client base for the company.
in the Fibreco Telecom project, which will deploy an “Cloud computing, for instance, is a tremendous data
extensive open access fibre-optic network in South centre network asset that can build up into more in-
Africa, promises a significant increase in the national frastructure and software service-based opportunity.
network and are exciting new developments for the Over the next few years, IS wants to bring to enterpris-
company as well as the country.” es, big and small, and the public, an effective unified
As for the Cloud Services business, Wilcocks says communications service, which is about taking the
again there is a lot of room for growth from this busi- technological and business complexity of telephony,
ness, stating that “we have had, over the last year, a email, Internet and so forth, and integrating it all into
lot of expansion of capacity in our data centres to ac- one seamless service.” Wilcocks believes the company
commodate this new area of online data storage, as is, and can continue to be, an early leader in this space,
well as some exciting deals we’ve struck in 2010 where but there are a lot of opportunities to be taken, and, as
we have attracted data centre business, namely a com- he says, “a lot of hard work to achieve this.”
pletely outsourced data usage and storage, from a Concluding, Wilcocks hopes that IS can deliver
number of large enterprises and public sector clients.” clients’ short term expectations of an increased qual-
The IS Communications Services division, with ity at lower costs, but at the same time, retain some of
its primary objective of facilitating people-to-people the company’s unique culture of innovation, “which
communication through mobile networks and email, is possible to execute, more through the right kind of
has also had some new development in 2010 and this people we have in the company and the management
area promises, Wilcocks says, to expand even more of these people, and less through processes and systems
over the next few years. “A lot of the action in this area in place that can impose on these people. Keeping the
in the past has been about ‘voice minutes’ for mobile balance right between the two is probably my biggest
communications, which continues to be a growth area challenge, but also what makes my job here the most
for us. But the most significant development for IS has exciting, the developing of people. People in a com-
been the signing up of the exclusive partnership for pany who understand and believe in what they can
Symantec Hosted Services in Africa,” he explains. do, make for a hugely successful company.”