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ISSUE NO 75 ON THE MONEY

BAYANET TARGETS THE EGYPTIAN SME MARKET

BayaNet is an outgrowth of Standard Data, which has been providing IT, hardware and networking infrastructure solutions in Egypt for the past 25 years. The company has been studying the Egyptian market since 1999 in preparation for the unrolling of application service provider (ASP) services. BayaNet has made the decision to go after small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the distribution and services industries, offering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and customer relations management (CRM) applications.

Its pricing models vary depending on the flexibility of the application vendor. Some vendors offer licensing agreements based on an ASP pricing scheme, that is, prorated payment rather than a lump sum up front - in this sense, sharing the risk with the ASP. Others have demanded full payment in advance. For BayaNet, the most common pricing scheme for applications is based on a depreciation of the value of the licence and support services over a period of three to four years. For the least costly offerings, the scale is five years.

The median client BayaNet is targeting will be ordering licences for 7 to 12 computer users. The company anticipates a client base totalling 500 computer users by the end of 2001 and expects to work toward 100% compound growth annually. This would be more than double our forecast for growth of overall software sales in Egypt for the period.

(source: Pyramid Research via DigAfrica)

VODACOM’S TANZANIA SUCCESS THE SPUR TO AFRICAN EXPANSION STRATEGY?

For a long time SA’s leading cell-phone company Vodacom lacked an African expansion strategy. With investments in only Lesotho and Tanzania, it lagged rival MTN in forging into the continent. But success in Tanzania has given it the go-ahead to target deepest Africa.

(source: http://www.fm.co.za/01/0831/busaf/abusaf.htm )

IFA SA’S GROWTH OUTSTRIPS THAT OF ITS PARENT COMPANY

Paul Whalley, MD of IFS SA, says the company’s local growth over the last year has exceeded that of its parent company.

( http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/business/2001/0108210738.asp )

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