Johannesburg, 21 Oct 2022
As we progress into the technology epoch, our appreciation grows for what a digital world is capable of. It's nothing short of a renaissance that can uplift companies, communities and countries. Growing our experience and understanding of the opportunities before us, we become evermore capable of realising this bright future.
Nexio has been operating in this paradigm for 24 years. Initially founded in 1998 as StorTech, Nexio has grown and evolved with the market's twists and turns. As a systems integrator, its pedigree with infrastructure and digital 'plumbing' is highly renowned. But today's technology world is much bigger and Nexio is expanding its reach towards new horizons.
"I've worked in many different businesses in my career," says Ed Gassner, Nexio's Acting CEO, "but I've seldom been in a business that has so many opportunities. Nexio is really a great place with much untapped potential. Watch this space!"
Activating Nexio's opportunities
Gassner identifies several key opportunities for Nexio. Foremost, he is helping revive the company's entrepreneurial spirit, giving executives and managers more room and support to take the initiative. Apart from making Nexio a more competitive player, this culture also invites ambitious IT professionals to join the organisation.
"We need to be an employer of choice. We've got a great strategy and we're working to make sure it's very clear, simple, easy to understand and well executed, so that we attract good people. Good people bring other good people with them. The change is happening. We've started attracting top talent back into the organisation. This is very high on my agenda: to make Nexio an employer of choice."
Strategy and a revitalised culture will attract top IT professionals. But it's not enough. Nexio must evolve to match the market's needs, including software-defined and cloud technologies. The company is finalising its choice of hyperscale partners, and has set its sights on expanding Nexio's pedigree with infrastructure to deliver the best hybrid cloud solutions. It also has a renewed emphasis on engaging with established partners and finding new collaborators.
Productisation – the ability to offer a catalogue of solutions and fine-tune these for bespoke customer needs – is part of Nexio's strategy, emphasising key sectors. Rather than diluting its potential across too many sectors too quickly, Nexio emphasises working with the telecommunications and financial services industries. It offers solutions to practically any type of business. But organisations in the telco and FSI spaces will find particular advantages in working with Nexio.
"We can't be too generalist. Today's customer is very tech savvy – they know what they want, and they generally need to have specialists sitting in front of them. If I'm in a specific industry and a solution provider says: "I understand your industry, I know your value propositions and pain points and I can provide a full solution," that is a good story to be able to tell," says Gassner.
Realising the technology renaissance
Nexio's acting CEO has experience with the market's many ebbs and flows. Starting his career among monolithic software solutions and a market divided into a handful of vendors, Gassner has participated in how choice expanded for customers. Today's IT market is much more complicated and customers require solutions partners that make sense of their options.
It's a very competitive space. But Nexio has a significant advantage. As part of the Vodacom stable, it delivers IT projects for one of the continent's most dynamic and technology-savvy enterprises. And by partnering with the respected Vodacom Business teams, Nexio enjoys access and experience working with top companies looking for genuine technology value ranging from fundamental digitisation to bleeding-edge technology.
All these ingredients bode well for Nexio's future. It's reviving its entrepreneurial spirit, becoming more attractive to the best IT talent, expanding its pedigree for infrastructure into the hybrid cloud and software-defined worlds, reinvigorating its partnerships and focus on key sectors and leveraging bold opportunities within its parent company. This is the Nexio story that Gassner and his team are creating.
"I'm teeing up this business so that I can hand it over to a future CEO," says Gassner. "It's already got direction. People are motivated. I have a great executive team who are very enlightened. Nexio is becoming a significantly different and more exciting organisation. We have the opportunities and we're making them into reality."
Share