A Cape Town based start-up has landed a dream contract and at the same time affirmed that local really is lekka, and South African start-up firms can compete with the best and win.


Ben
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Contact 4, a call center company that was started at home with only three computers eight years ago, has landed a big maintenance contract with the City of Cape Town.

Owners Ashraf Allie and Rashieda and Shahieda Soeker still consider themselves small players in the industry.

But Allie, who is delighted the city showed such confidence in their abilities, said "small doesn't always mean failure".

The company is to oversee the maintenance of all electrical and mechanical systems at the Civic Centre. It was awarded the 12-month contract last month. It has also appointed an engineer who will help manage the council's existing artisans.

Allie said the company's niche was maintenance management. This meant dealing with complaints and queries about a company's maintenance work and also assisting the company with its non-core functions.

One of Contact 4's first clients was Engen, for whom it co-ordinated maintenance at its 1 262 service stations across South Africa.

Allie said Contact 4 would field calls from service station owners about maintenance work and would then send out people to do the work - on the pumps and dispensers, or doing electrical and plumbing work.

Allie said Contact 4 had come a long way since 1999, when the three started the company with three computers, some wireless technology and three telephones.

Allie was involved in research and development at a fishing company before he set up the company with the Soekers. He left to pursue his passion - working for himself.

Rashieda and Shahieda Soeker had been in customer relations at banks.

Today, Contact 4 is based in Rondebosch, but the trio spend most of their time working on-site at the company they are contracted to.

Most of their 10 employees are working in the call centre at the Civic Centre. They were all trained by call centre recruitment or training companies.

Since starting up, the company's turnover has grown by between 60% and 70%.

Allie attributes this to its strong management team whom, he says, observes four rules - their employees are key to the business, the business's prices are competitive, the business is proficient because it combines technology with staff knowledge, and that staff take the initiative and are pro-active in making businesses better.

Apart from maintenance management, Contact 4 services also include training solutions, facility hiring, information management, and setting up call centres and helpdesks.

It has two contracts at the moment - with the city and Clicks. Allie said there were a few initiatives lined up in the next few months, geared at achieving the goal of being international players.

"Because we can sit here and do work for overseas companies," he said.

It is also working on an off-shore deal that should see the company managing queries for an overseas company via e-mail. Contact 4 has also submitted a tender to the Post Office to manage its national facilities.

Allie encouraged companies to outsource call centres involved in their non-core functions because this provided benefits such as cost reduction, the transferring of skills, job creation and cost optimisation of their assets.

Allie also called on bigger businesses to consider contracting the smaller players in an industry. He said smaller businesses valued clients more because they only handled a few, and "smaller players hold contracts dearer to their hearts because we want to and have to make it work".

Zara Nicholson


www.capeargus.co.za