New Dawn Prophesy has positioned itself to capitalise on a hungry Oracle market, albeit with a third of its original staff complement and about half of the annual revenue it used to generate.
The Oracle solutions provider was pulled from the edge of bankruptcy by new management, who implemented a turnaround strategy to get the company back on sound footing.
New MD Deon Ferreira says the company has reinvented itself to do more work with less people and now has the necessary controls in place to ensure its work is up to scratch.
"There is a lot of potential for the business, especially in the public sector," says Ferreira. "There is a lot of money out there and a lot of opportunities for a black-owned company, especially to get in there."
In 2006, Prophesy was on the brink of bankruptcy. It was a newly-created arm of New Dawn Holdings, after the parent company had grown in four years from employing 10 people to employing 300.
Ferreira explains that, after Prophesy was created as one of the holding company's four sub-companies, there was simply too much money coming in with too little financial control behind it, leading to cash-flow problems.
Company revenue at that time was in the region of R100 million a year and Prophesy had about 100 employees.
After salaries and bonuses were not paid on time towards the end of 2006, the bulk of Prophesy's staff walked out to join competitor Simeka, which also landed Prophesy's two biggest clients in the process - Vodacom and Absa. The disgruntled staff members also instituted legal proceedings to liquidate their former employer to access their pension funds.
Subsequently, Ferreira was brought on-board and has managed to pay back the millions owed to the pension fund, with only interest still outstanding. He instituted a turnaround strategy and has now reached the stage where he is looking at engaging Simeka as a partner in Oracle implementations.
"We don't want to start a war again," Ferreira explains. "While we were experiencing problems, the [available Oracle] business did not go away and there is a very limited skills base for it. If we can work with other companies, we develop the market, which is good for all of us."
Making it happen
Some of Prophesy's clients include the State IT Agency and the North West Provincial Legislature. Ferreira says the company has agreements in place for R50 million worth of business and is looking to expand on this base. It currently employs 30 people.
"There have been enough Oracle licences sold in the country to keep everyone busy for the next two to three years," maintains Ferreira.
He adds that Prophesy will invest heavily in cultivating new Oracle skills as the same limited pool of people tend to have done most Oracle implementations for the past 10 years in SA.
"The quality has not improved - the skills have become antiquated because there was no development."
Ferreira says it is important to note that the pool of available work is still there - "you just need the right company, with the right people and the right focus to make it happen".
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