I N T R O S TAT
INTROSTAT
The One-Stop Shop for
IT Provisions PRODUCTION: Timothy Reeder
With its national distribution network and a dedicated and highly qualified sales force, Introstat has been a leader in the technology industry for the past 25 years with specialisms in printing and IT solutions. Marketing Manager Jessica Blackburn told us of the company’s plans to further broaden its service offering to capture an even greater share of this lucrative South African market.
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The life of an IT solutions provider has become rather more complex over the last 30 or so years, Introstat Marketing Manager Jessica Blackburn tells us, as she describes the evolution of the company over its nearly 30 years of operations. “We have been around for quite a while now, and when we started out, we were fairly unique in our field. We were one of the only IT supplier companies around and we were able to use this effectively to our advantage in order to expand in the early days. “Back then, it was a little easier as there were far fewer competitors for the same business. This has been an obvious change in the ensuing years but we plan on keeping ahead of the rest for the foreseeable future.” One obvious way to ensure this is through the constant expansion of what it can offer, both physically and in the services at its disposal. “Originally, we were a supplier solely of HP goods to our clients in South Africa, but now we offer an all-round service and have expanded to have a presence in the likes of Cape Town and Durban. This allows us to accommodate our clients much more easily.” The Introstat offering combines solutions that fulfil the complete ‘IT Lifecycle’ requirement, and does so within a business environment which was founded in 1989, seeing it able to offer the best all-round printing and IT solution for any business. “We had to expand what we could offer, realising that clients no longer want just one thing from one supplier,” Blackburn further explains. “They want to get as much as possible from one place in order to make their lives easier and streamline operations. This has seen our product range grow in line with our footprint and ensured that we are certified to carry on providing our clients with what they are looking for, and keep us ahead of the chasing pack.” Blackburn goes on to detail how Introstat is looking to draw positives from what is a challenging economic environment, seeing it as a chance to supplement its already 250-strong team
//SOMETIMES, EVEN CLIENTS THAT HAVE BEEN WITH US FOR YEARS ARE UNAWARE OF THE BROAD SPECTRUM OF WARES THAT WE HAVE AT OUR DISPOSAL// with additional expert personnel. “We have a dynamic team of people that are really just go-getters, and always looking for the next opportunity,” Blackburn explains of the characteristic Introstat employee. “The number of opportunities continues to grow for us, however, and even in a climate sometimes conducive to much financial negativity, we try to see the positives at all times. There is a great recruitment opportunity for us, to acquire staff who have already been trained or have the requisite skillset if one company does not remain viable.” She goes into some detail of how the company’s diversification translates to its everyday work. “We are possibly most well-known still for being a platinum HP supplier, which translates to ink and toner cartridges and similar. We are currently trying to broaden our
horizons somewhat, and the value side of our company is doing very well at present. “This encompasses in part our managed print services (MPS), where we provide clients with a complete solution, for example a printer which is tailored to their environment, and then we work with them to help them to get the very most out of their printing. Every month we will give them their supplies, help them to ensure that they are not printing too much in one area of the company and not enough in another and provide maintenance and repairs as required.” This will be backed increasingly by employing the advancements at Introstat’s disposal, including e-commerce. “In South Africa, we have been taken in by the allure of online stores to an extent, but we still find in
the IT industry that clients still want to be able to see a laptop in the flesh, see how it feels in their hands and ensure that it is a good fit for them. I do think that the online stores are going to start to become the main source of Introstat’s income, given the steady growth we see in comparison with our other departments. “What sets Introstat apart from our many big competitors is that we offer the whole package in one spot, while a lot of the other players can possibly only provide to the home user or businesses, not both. We have a broader prospect list that we can work with, which even stretches to government services.” Among the biggest challenges for Introstat is communicating to clients, both current and potential, exactly how much it can offer them to help facilitate their operations. “Particularly of late, we have always offered a wide variety of products and services, but increasingly we are trying to make it known that we do offer such a comprehensive range,” Blackburn continues. “Sometimes, even clients that have been with us for years are unaware of the broad spectrum
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INDUSTRY FOCUS: IT & PRINT
of wares that we have at our disposal. One of our biggest accomplishments in recent times, for example, was becoming one of South Africa’s first A3 retail suppliers, placing us among the first companies able to provide for the HP A3 printers. We have dedicated staff trained in this specific competence to find the best possible solution and then fully install it, and we will look to add to such achievements further and further. “We are constantly working to discover how best to help the clients and make it easier for them, and equally how we can make it easiest for ourselves at the same time.” At the same time, the arrival of such a wealth of information technology has, perhaps surprisingly, been something of a double-edged sword for Introstat. “At the outset, it was much simpler; we were mainly supplying only HP products, and so it was simply a case of applying the appropriate mark-up and things ticked along,” states Blackburn. “The advancements since and the presence of an ever-greater number of competitors means that clients are able to research as
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much as they wish to find the best price, and can make an informed choice as to who they wish to use. “This means that we have had to look at offering a much greater variety as our margins are relatively much smaller today. In order to ensure that we are keeping our clients happy we may have to shave off some of our profit, which certainly makes it more difficult but equally it is so easy to shop around and find the best deal that it is something that we have to do. “We are at a stage now where we are having to change the way that we have done things previously and reassess what works - try to make sure that we are doing it effectively, in order to stay on top of the market. If we do not adjust to the way the economy is, or the way that clients shop nowadays, then we are asking for trouble.” Rather than setting foot across the border, a move fraught with potential difficulties and obstacles, Introstat is set to take on a much greater share of the market in which it currently operates. “To focus on HP, we are informed that on the supply side we only reach something in
the region of 7% of the country’s supply sales, and this is from our standpoint as a platinum partner of theirs. The question we therefore pose ourselves is: where is the other 93%? This is our philosophy for the whole business - if we take the hardware side, again we are told that we only supply 3% of Lenovo’s hardware, and so logically we have to ask who is fulfilling the remaining percentage, and, by extension, how do we penetrate and profit from this huge potential. “While the thought of expanding into Africa is clearly an idealistic goal, our main target is targeting those massive market percentages which are currently eluding us. South Africa still has plenty of room for us to expand, and we are making this a primary focus for now. We wish to supply to the majority, in all areas of our business,” she concludes.
INTROSTAT 011 723 7500 info@introstat.co.za www.introstat.co.za
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AFRICA
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR AFRICA’S INDUSTRY LEADERS
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Issue No.62
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G4S DEPOSITA:
When Cash
is King
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
Van Schaik Bookstore / Zoona / IPSS / Safire Insurance
A S F E AT U R E D I N
ENTERPRISE AFRICA
SEPTEMBER 2017