Retailer rewards radical thinking

Gerhard Roux, of Woolworths and Fareed Regal, CEO of Reagola – winning all the way.

The two had a fresh approach to IT, a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and an appetite for success, and the outcome was Reagola, a new black economic empowerment (BEE) company, in 2005.

The retailer helped the pair get their company off the ground by giving them access to Woolworths' technical training, human resources department, and the retailer assisted the fledgling company with its business strategy. Critically, the retailer allocated work to Reagola, ensuring cash flow for the company right from the start.

However, it was not a one-way street, benefits-wise, because outsourcing work to the new company helped the retailer fulfil some of its BEE requirements; in addition, the relationship with Reagola saved the IT department R3.7 million on head office desktop support alone in the 2006/7 financial year.

According to Gerhard Roux, the retailer's chief information officer, the partnership is clearly win-win. “We used our corporate muscle to set Reagola up for success, and Reagola in turn worked with the IT department to find innovative ways to deliver on our IT needs more cost-effectively,” he says.

Innovation is at the heart of Reagola's approach. Working closely with Woolworths, Reagola devised the new remote-support model for head office desktop support, as well as a new IT support model for stores in the Western Cape, which saved Woolworths 7.5% on maintenance costs in 2006/7.

According to Fareed Regal, CEO of Reagola, the secret to their success is their agility and their relentless focus on people and customer service. “We can make decisions quickly and implement projects in a short space of time,” he says.