News & Views
The road ahead for SITA: Extending the
service delivery footprint
 “2008
may not be a momentous year numerically, but when we look back
in a few years’ time we may see it as a watershed year,” said
Llewellyn Jones, CEO of State Information Technology Agency (SITA)
in his address shortly after the opening of this year’s GovTech
conference.
Jones’ comment is situated in the context of the current global
economy, which he said has shocked and surprised many -
including economists – with the level of change that is being
experienced in many countries.
“With the world engulfed in a predicament with slowing growth in
major economies, rising inflation and food security concerns,
South Africa is experiencing similar challenges,” he said.
“However, we believe that South Africa will weather the storm
and may be a good place to wait out the next few years.”
Outlining the road ahead for SITA, Jones emphasised that 2008 is
going to be a defining moment in SITA’s history. There is a
radical shift in strategic focus to support government and move
ahead with a renewed sense of direction. “Previous strategies
had a strong internal focus, aimed at transforming SITA, the new
strategy has our clients and innovation for improved delivery at
its core,” said Jones.
“We would like to become a high-performance service provider of
choice,” he said, explaining that choice was important and that
the agency did not want to rely on legislation that forced
departments to make use of its services.
Talking about the cornerstones of SITA’s three year plan, Jones
said that SITA’s mission was to leverage ICT as a strategic
resource to enable government to meet the challenges faced by a
developmental state.
Four of the strategic imperatives were externally focused; the
first of these is the optimisation of infrastructure and related
services to improve productivity and security and reduce costs.
The agency will also play its part in modernising public service
operations through the use of mobile technology and electronic
innovations to make services accessible and convenient.
To reduce costs, the services need to be affordable, and Jones
said this implies the use of a shared services model and
standardisation of software licenses in order to avoid
duplication. In addition SITA will introduce new products and
solutions to grow new revenue streams as a replacement of those
that are becoming obsolete, said Jones.
The fourth external imperative is to extend SITA’s service
footprint, which could include municipalities and the
development and implementation strategies to extend service
offerings to existing customers.
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