TARSUS TECHNOLOGY GROUP: Industry Collaboration and Engagement Vital for Success

In May 2019, Tarsus Technology Group CEO Miles Crisp told Enterprise Africa that the pace of change in the IT sector was increasing quickly as the group looked to incorporate more cloud-based service in its offering. But with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the speed of change has been accelerated to a rate that no one could have imagined and no one has found a way to cope with.

“Constant changes in rules and regulation mean we have to remain constantly vigilant and adjust our strategy where necessary,” said Crisp in 2019. Today, rules and regulations are important but adjustment in strategy comes from the need to stay up to date with the ‘new normal’ and cater to the needs of a market which is under pressure.

The ICT industry is feeling the effects as customers from all sectors including consumers, governments, and businesses are faced unprecedented disruption. A total standstill in South Africa from March 23 hit SMEs hard with some unable to weather the storm.

The bigger businesses like Tarsus, have had to completely scrap most plans for 2020 and go back to the drawing board to build a fluid strategy that involves collaboration to ensure sustainability in the future.

VIRUS LIFE

“The last three months have seen us confront the very essence of what it means to be human. The amount of change that the Covid pandemic has put on us is unprecedented. We have never seen change like this,” said Tarsus Technology Group Strategy Director, Anton Herbst.

“We have had to also understand that all of the tensions that were already in the system, bought on by the rapid change in technology, have now been accentuated. We have had to make decisions which are almost impossible. We are trading off between keeping as many people as possible alive with the reality of impacting our real economic and financial lives, and in some cases leading to real ruin in the short-term.”

Tarsus is the leading distributor of technology products in South Africa, supplying wholesalers, retailers, service providers and more. As the lockdown hit, people stopped going to stores, people stopped going to work, investment into new technology ceased and the market was strangled. This was a challenge for Tarsus.

“We have been in a space where we are starting to see customers around us – companies with fragile cash reserves and fragile cash flows or business models – being suffocated by the lack of sales bought on by the lockdown. We have also had to see people make decisions that would have normally taken years. All the timelines have been compressed and people have to make those decisions and implement them in a matter of days or weeks. What is more important now more than ever is that the customer – the end user of technology – now becomes the primary focus for all of us,” said Herbst.

His idea to help come up with a sustainable solution is total collaboration. Herbst and Tarsus as a whole are keen to come together with the entire industry – safely of course – to generate a snapshot of the sector and understand where the challenges are and how they can be addressed.

“As an ecosystem we have to come together and our primary focus should be on making sure that the solutions we provide to our customers are actually solving their problems. For that to happen we have to listen, collaborate, engage and walk in their shoes to understand the challenges they are facing. Whether it’s the vendor partner, the wholesaler, the cloud service provider, the reseller, all of us together will have to make sure that as many of our customers as possible make it through this tough time.

“We require very specific customer solutions for each of our customers. That is very difficult to do when you are not used to it. Our culture and leadership, ethics, and the way we live our company lives our being exposed and it is plain for everyone to see – the way we treat our people, customers, partners, colleagues – it matters more than ever.”

For companies up and down the value chain, the challenge has been different. Whether its retailers not being able to open, logistics not being able to move, service providers being restricted because of working from home conditions or wholesalers seeing dips in demand, Tarsus is looking to connect with all to form innovative and unique solutions.

“For Tarsus On Demand and Tarsus Distribution, we have gone on an intensive drive to engage with our partners and vendors and understand what they are going through and what their customers are going through so that we can listen and learn and collaborate. It has been a fascinating journey, and in most cases inspiring. Some of our customers are going through tough times but some are going through very good times because they are working hard and they are agile. By solving customer problems as they arise, some are managing to thrive,” said Herbst.

Planning for the future is difficult and many businesses are adopting a ‘work in the now’ strategy, but Herbst – a 10-year veteran at Tarsus – is ambitious.

“Our view is to keep doing what we are doing as the situation is so fluid. The fascinating thing with the use of video conferencing and remote working is that it has been easier for us to engage quicker and we are having far more meetings than we would normally. We are getting better but we don’t have all the answers. There is a series of things that will come from us and we will continue to work on ideas that will get us out of the pandemic and create sustainable businesses as we try and combat and overcome the virus.”

COLLABORATION IS KEY

Gary Pickford, CEO of Tarsus Distribution – the largest of the companies in the Tarsus Group – is also keen on the idea of collaboration. For Pickford, sharing insight and strategy across the industry is the best way forward.

“We are in the middle of a crisis that has gripped our industry, gripped our country and gripped our global community. It has happened so quickly and so many were unprepared. The Tarsus Distribution exco has been sitting together, in our work from home environments, looking at the situation and asking what scenarios do we need to look at and what do we need to put in play for the medium-term. Right now, no one has definitive answers but as an industry we need to share our thinking and strategies so that we can best formulate scenarios that cater for all the eventualities and opportunities that are coming at us in the future. We are working very effectively remotely and we have been making sure that essential services are being supplied to key businesses through this period,” he said.

The industry is mixed with those that continue to do well seeing huge surges in demand and others grinding to a standstill.

“We went out to industry, to our corporate resellers and our larger partners, and we asked them the questions so that we can form a collective opinion to understand what is going on across the country. Our resellers have been polarised into two camps. One camp has been negatively impacted as they were supplying industries that were more adversely impacted by the rapid shutdown because of Covid-19 – tourism, hospitality, conferencing. But we have another group of resellers that are providing services to hospitals, clinics, government and SAP, and they still have a pipeline of requirement that needs to be supplied in the short-term,” said Pickford.

“We know one thing from all of the responses we have received so far – if we stand together in an ecosystem and collaborate on solutions together, we are going to have a better chance at formulating a response to what needs to be done in our industry and our channel going forward.”

Of course, as the coming weeks and months remain uncertain, job security, in a country where joblessness is already a virus in its own right, will become vital.

“We know that times are going to be difficult and tough, but by standing together as one industry we can get invoicing happening faster, we can start generating cash sooner and, more importantly, preserve as many jobs in the industry going forward.”

STILL DELIVERING

While the worry and difficulty of the pandemic has been for the excos to consider, those on the ground at Tarsus have been busy continuing to roll out vital services for clients. In July, Tarsus announced it would team up with long-term partner Microsoft to launch the tech giant’s Surface devices. Only the Pro 7 and Surface Laptop 3 will be available in South Africa to start with but the range could grow in the future. Initially, the devices will be made available through Incredible Connection and Vodacom retail stores. Both have top of the range intel technology and both are perfect for working on the go, away from the office.

Tarsus also teamed with HP – another long-term partner – to help distribute technology to schools and learners. Desktops, laptops and tablets will all be donated to communities in need to help learners who may be unable to attend school or where schools are closed.

This is another example of Tarsus working collaboratively in order to achieve results for those in need. Who knows which direction the Covid pandemic will take us next – like technology it is ever changing. But at Tarsus, by engaging with the industry, the company is well-placed to serve its clients sustainably and successfully.