Zensar, Kapela Holdings, The Tomorrow Trust join hands in SA

Dr Ganesh Natarajan, vice-chairman and CEO of Zensar Technologies, says: "This new Company reiterates our commitment to South Africa and its transformational agenda will help consolidate our leadership in the region. We have had an extraordinarily successful decade of operations in South Africa and established leadership in providing technology solutions to the Banking, Insurance, Retail, Manufacturing and Mining sector. This venture will help us expand our footprint into Government contracts and also enhance our standing in the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) code of the Government."

Speaking to the press, Israel Skosana, executive chairman of Kapela Holdings said, "We are delighted to partner with one of India's IT leaders to establish a trailblazing venture in our country. Zensar has established an excellent reputation in the South African corporate sector and we will work jointly for both Public and Private Sector projects."

The Board of the Company will have representation from Zensar, Kapela and The Tomorrow Trust.

Kim Feinberg, CEO of The Tomorrow Trust said, "The Tomorrow Trust is a perfect partner in this very important BEE deal. We are ensuring that we have youth who are educated up in order to be proactive participants in both our economy and society. For business to succeed we have to make sure that education is a priority in our country.

Zensar has acknowledged and has committed to this fact and therefore has partnered with us to make sure that this indeed happens. Our synergies with bursaries and leadership will be highlighted and developed, creating sustainable impact. The Tomorrow Trust Board of Trustees and I are all very excited about this deal."

Harish Lala, vice president and Africa Region Head, Zensar said, "In line with Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) framework, Zensar launched its Learnership Development Program (LDP) and has been identifying local students from the PDI community in South Africa and training them in both South Africa and India.

We are pleased that over eighty of them have already joined the workforce. The new Company will widen and deepen these partnerships for community development and reinforce our 'Proudly South African' vision for the country."

The Learnership Development Program primarily equips students with crucial IT skills, such as software development and testing to ensure they are eligible for quality jobs. Sarvesh Batta who heads the initiative said, "Our aim is to home grow skills to service local Zensar clients in South Africa and also across Africa and increase our global capacity. By building a globally competent IT workforce, we can be part of the development of a world-class IT industry in South Africa."

The South Africa program is part of Zensar's Centre of Excellence (COE) initiatives around the world focused on training local students to join the workforce.

Dr Natarajan said, "The objective of the COE programme is to enable IT workforce development and facilitate the creation of global clusters of services-oriented competence across the world. The programme focuses on familiarising students with services-oriented solution patterns, processes, problems and pressures so that we have access to a pool of globally employable talent. We are expanding the initiative to UK and USA in the current financial year.

The programme is not just about local skills development, but it is also a strategic initiative given Zensar's future plans in South Africa. We see this country as a potential centre for research, education and software development, and plan to invest significantly in developing global delivery capabilities here. This will be an important hub of development activities for all our new markets in the coming years."