How Telkom plans to fix BCX

[Bradley Prior]

How Telkom plans to fix BCX

Telkom Group CEO Sipho Maseko said the company is in talks to provide a boost to its struggling BCX business unit, reports the Sunday Times.

 

[RonSwanson]

This is laughable, BCX was profitable before Telkom acquired it in 2014.

 

[longboy]

 

[Sapphiron]

A tech company that did not grow during the pandemic.

Seem they are too invested in Legacy technologies and were not ready to meet their clients new requirements.

 

[longboy]

A tech company that did not grow during the pandemic.

Seem they are too invested in Legacy technologies and were not ready to meet their clients new requirements.

This was due to management having no future planning or foresight. It's all too common amongst gov and small corps.

 

[Sapphiron]

This was due to management having no future planning or foresight. It's all too common amongst gov and small corps.

So may of the large corporate's top leadership have no technology or engineering background. So many failing companies fail because they are run by the Finance and MBA leadership. You need those skills, but not as the prominent skill in leadership.

 

[Shadowchaser1]

Agree on all comments. I have a friend who worked for Telkom. He told me via skype that time when Telkom bought BCX. Said it was not a good idea. Needless to say in 2016/7 they were moved internally to BCX from Telkom. I think in 2018 near the end of the year they were given voluntary retrenchments. Doesn't look like if BCX ever made a positive impact though.

 

[j4ck455]

Following the release of Telkom’s results last week, Maseko told the Sunday Times that Telkom has plans to acquire niche technology companies to improve BCX’s offerings.

What that tells me is that Telkom wants to buy BCX's competitors because BCX is incapable of competing.

He also claimed there are plans to enter into a strategic partnership with an unnamed international company — a relationship focused on scaling BCX’s cybersecurity option.

That suggests that BCX is probably/currently easily hacked due to a lack of cybersecurity skills that Telkom thinks can be solved by outsourcing.

And while that might work in the short term, a company like BCX needs to have a plan to employ people with the correct skill set to secure BCX from the inside. BCX's clients would want to know that BCX has in-house skills and isn't going to have to wait for someone in another timezone to wake up.

This relationship will be valuable because a “strategic equity partner with international footprint provides economies of scale to provide the right solutions to clients,” said Maseko.

So Telkom wants this international company to not only solve all of BCX's cybersecurity problems, but also invest money in BCX? That sounds like a pipe dream of note, maybe Telkom's CEO needs to check what he has been smoking.

Telkom should just sell BCX for whatever it can get because there's no way that BCX will improve under Telkom.

 

[SubtleBeast]

Remember when Telkom paid billions for BCX and then still had to pay it's debt of more than a billion or their customers would be cut off?
That purchase was nothing more than a non-governmental bailout.

 

[KikzAzz]

That suggests that BCX is probably/currently easily hacked due to a lack of cybersecurity skills that Telkom thinks can be solved by outsourcing.

I think you read something into the article that was different to the intent.

The intent is that Cyber Security is a very critical service and the idea therefore being that they would be a company providing Cyber Services.

 

[lkswan747]

But BCX was not broke before being bought by Telkom?

 

[j4ck455]

I think you read something into the article that was different to the intent.

The intent is that Cyber Security is a very critical service and the idea therefore being that they would be a company providing Cyber Services.

Why would you need to outsource cybersecurity to an external company if you already have the skills in-house?

Telkom's intent was most likely to try and spin the crap out of partnering with an international cybersecurity company, whilst trying to shift focus away from BCX being inept and arguably useless.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Did some work that involved both sides (Telkom & BCX) and it was the most broken and incredibly slow moving thing I have ever experienced.

Ancient people working with ancient technology using ancient logic and absolutely nobody taking accountability for anything and simply directing you to the next person to get things done.

Literally 5+ people involved to do basic things one person could do.

Not at all surprised there isn’t profit to be seen.