BONISWA CORPORATE SOLUTIONS: Clear Vision of Success Unites Boniswa

What started as an amazing entrepreneurial journey for the determined and driven Lynette Magasa is growing to become a vital and strategic asset for South Africa as Boniswa Corporate Solutions – a turnkey telecoms services group – continues to drive connectivity and innovation.

Established in 2004, Boniswa – a Seswate (Siswati) interpretation of the English word meaning vision – began with a small group of people across two teams, servicing a Vodacom project from a radio frequency installation (RF) perspective. Growing out of the recruitment world, where Boniswa was already present with a focus on telecoms, an opportunity was identified to build a new offering across infrastructure. With not much experience in the industry, this project yielded early success and allowed Magasa to build a reputation. The following years saw the company grow aggressively and, without major financial backing, the largely male-dominated industry started taking notice of this ambitious female-led start-up. Boniswa became known for manufacture and erection of comms towers, manufacture of protective telecoms cabinets, installation and engineering at the relevant sites, project management, construction, logistics, and much more.

Today, Boniswa is home to more than 250 people across multiple divisions, and is a core player in the telecoms industry, providing digitisation opportunities across South Africa.

DRIVING DIGITAL

As of January 2021, 36% of South Africans remained unconnected to the internet. This digital divide is a driver of unemployment, poverty, and inequality. Mobile data users face high costs and unreliable connectivity, and just 1.2% of the rural population has access to high-speed broadband in the home (32.4% of the population live in rural areas). For those with access, 14.04 Mbps is the average national broadband speed – 97^th in the world. The GSMA Mobile Connectivity Index ranks countries’ connectivity according to their infrastructure, affordability, consumer readiness, and content and services – South Africa scores 60.1 out of 100 making it a mobile connectivity leader on the continent but with barriers to entry still in place. Clearly, there is much to be done from a technology and infrastructure perspective.

Magasa tells Enterprise Africa more about shifting operations as a result of the pandemic, and how, in true entrepreneurial fashion, she saw opportunities to solve problems instead of threats and negativity.

“With Covid, like any other business, we were affected. But we always look for the silver lining,” she starts. “We were forced to start thinking differently and what we now do is make use of a Just-In-Time method. Because we are in telecoms – a critical sector – we remained busy. We also had to move to where the end users are. Initially, we were ensuring we had businesses covered at their offices, but we had to move towards covering employees at home. Our strategy changed and, since 2018, our vision has always been about bridging the digital gap between urban and rural areas. When Covid came, people quickly started moving back to the countryside where there is space instead of the city, and we are now busy building rural sites. We support the fact that even kids in rural areas need access to education online.”

The pandemic lockdowns have spurred a move away from the well-connected cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town as home buyers search for property with more space to live, work, and play, in the smaller towns and coastal regions. Even those who live in the popular suburbs of big metros are opting for country-style estates with room for outdoor activity, home working, home schooling, and home exercise. Caveats in the agreements around construction of new housing estates include strong connectivity – a factor that is also now included in Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs.

“No one saw it coming but it forced businesses to shift,” says Magasa. “We had to ensure that those in rural areas or on farms could not be forgotten. Many offices are now empty so we are busy shifting connectivity in the rural direction.”

A study from Old Mutual in August 2021 showed that 56% of respondents were still working from home or as part of a flexible working scheme. This hybrid environment brings considerations beyond just being connected. Whether through mobile or fixed line, companies now have to consider security, availability, monitoring, power supply, and more.

For Boniswa, opportunities quickly materialised as the company was called on by the likes of Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Mascom to assist with new capacity.  

VERTICAL INTEGRATION

“The company provides services across three legs,” says Magasa. “Firstly, it’s about service. Secondly, it’s manufacturing. And then we have a new division that owns infrastructure in partnership with clients including Vodacom, MTN and Telkom. They come and install antennas on our infrastructure as an Opex model. We offer both Opex and Capex models in the Boniswa Group.”

It is the control over the entire value chain that makes Boniswa different from others, and an easy choice for the country’s big telcos.

“We have vertical integration. We don’t just give service, we partner and we look for a long-term relationship,” explains Magasa. “We have our own factory and everything we use is manufactured and supplied by us – that gives us competitive advantage. Some of our competitors actually come to us for installation services. Whenever we cost things, because it is done internally, we gain cost advantage.”

The company’s factory is based in Midrand and is able to service sites across the entire country, making use of a presence across southern Africa to assist telcos in expansion on the continent. 

“We have grown quite well and we are active all over South Africa as well as Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and we have an office in Ghana,” explains Magasa. “In late 2019, we registered an office in Florida and we were preparing to tackle the USA but, because of Covid, we had to wind down that office. In France, we have a marketing office that use to market our products across Europe.”

Access to manufacturing has helped the company to diversify and management is keen to explore all avenue for future growth, utilising the innovation within the business to push new boundaries.

“We are suffering extensively with loadshedding and we came up with another facility that will instruct a tower to switch off certain sectors, using inverters, and redirecting power to core sectors,” she says.

“Our factory continuously innovates and we are looking at batteries and involvement in the electric car industry. We have the platform to do this because we have our own manufacturing and that is what truly sets us apart.

“The batteries is something in its infancy for us, but we are trying to diversify and break into new industries in the future. By Q3, we hope to have a prototype of a battery for use in the manufacture of electric cars.

“In Africa, there is high unemployment and theft can be a problem. We have innovated with cabinets that store batteries. Each site needs a cabinet that stores batteries, and we came up with a new design for the subterranean cabinets, with high security, that cannot be broken into.”

INSPIRING TOP DOWN

After 18 years, Boniswa continues to thrive and search for innovation. This is driven by Magasa who is always on the hunt for opportunities to remain at the industry’s cutting edge.

The entrepreneur is an academic with an award-winning history, having claimed multiple tiles around excellence in leadership. Masters Degrees in Informatics and Business Management, (Administration) a successful Management Advancement Programme, and a future Doctoral candidate, Magasa states that these interactions result in competitive advantage.

“I am currently studying Strategy with Harvard Business School and I always say that entrepreneurship can be lonely – now we have a Board, but when you start it is a challenge. I calibrate myself by taking short courses and you can then benchmark yourself and see what is happening out there across industries – it helps you to stay competitive.”

Managing a multinational operation while studying, raising a family, and navigating a global pandemic is not for the fainthearted. But, to add extra flavour to an already tasty recipe, Magasa also participates in the B20 SMEs Cross-thematic Group as a co-Chair and member where she leads discussion on digital technology.

“As an entrepreneur, one thing is for sure – you have to capitalise on what you know. Once you have capitalised, you can start to follow your dreams. Discipline and being consistent is very important as it is easy to lose focus on the journey. Whenever there are challenges, they force you to look at things differently and innovate. I always welcome failure as it helps you to think differently,” she says.

In the future, Boniswa will go from strength to strength, and Magasa is eager to continue making a difference. Excitingly, there is a big long-term vision that will make this South African success story even more inclusive.

“The big vision I have for the company is to create meaningful employment. I want to grow the company globally and have our brand footprint across different continents. It is also vital that we bridge the digital gap. Long-term, our vision is to list on the AltX exchange,” she concludes.