SITA focuses on relationships

By Kimberly Guest for SITA
Johannesburg, 26 Mar 2008

The State IT Agency (SITA) has stabilised, with the team working "extremely well together", says CEO Llewellyn Jones.

However, Jones says he is still not satisfied with the health of its relationships with staff, partners and, most importantly, customers.

"The organisation is starting to gel in my view, but it is quite clear that we are still not there yet. We have done several audits on our various relationships and are working hard to improve on these areas," he explains.

Staff matters

Jones reveals that SITA's last internal culture survey saw a drop in employee satisfaction.

However, this was to be expected considering the turmoil following ex-CEO Mavuso Msimang's February 2007 announcement that he would exit. The four remaining members of the executive team - Jonas Bogoshi, Noedine Isaacs-Mpulo, Mfanyana Salanje and Fatima Habib - all left in the months following Msimang's exit.

"We certainly do have challenges in terms of our internal culture, but we are doing a lot of things to improve this situation. Of course, the management team can't always be there, so communication is a large part of this programme. We are trying to speak to our employees as much as we possibly can," explains Jones.

He adds that employee turnover has become less of a hindrance to the organisation, with less than 10% of available positions vacant and average turnover at around 10%.

SITA will do another culture survey in April and expects to see an improvement in these results.

Customer challenges

Jones admits the organisation still has a record of disappointing its government customers.

"Lots of our customers come to us with very high expectations; it's not good enough that we can't meet those expectations. So obviously we must improve on this. We have done a customer satisfaction survey and the results weren't too bad. But, as is the case, those customers that are unhappy are very vocal," he says.

The agency has been introducing formal processes that should help it improve its service delivery. Additionally, it has geared up to become an ISO 9001:2000 certified company.

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) says this certification provides a "tried and tested framework for taking a systematic approach to managing the organisation's processes so that they consistently turn out product that satisfies customers' expectations".

Says Jones: "We've already been audited and expect the certification to come through in a few weeks."

Acting up

However, the organisation will not sit back once the certification is received.

"We have got to prove our worth to our clients. We've got to become the service provider of choice at national, provincial and local levels. I don't want to rely on legislation for revenue. I want SITA's growth to come from us improving our competitive pressure around pricing and service delivery."

The SITA Act was expected to be amended this year to increase the number of government organisations that would be required to route ICT spend through the agency. However, Jones says this is unlikely to take place in this session of Parliament.

"That's ok for us. The current Act does not inhibit us; we can still approach provincial and local government departments. We just have to give them reason to work with us. Besides, I think it is very important that the mandate of SITA undergo a complete review. We must establish whether a SITA is necessary and whether it should be state-owned or private. The questions must be explored and addressed," concludes Jones.