TFG INFOTEC DIVISION


POSITIONING

TFG Infotec is responsible for the information and communication technology (ICT) function of the entire group. It employs 240 full-time staff members and its workforce is supplemented by contract and outsourced personnel to the extent of, at any time, a further one-third of that number.

TFG Infotec is run as a cost centre and is separated into a number of functional units as follows:
  • infrastructure;
  • development centre;
  • project office;
  • service management centre for technical support and business relationship management;
  • enterprise architecture;
  • governance and ICT security management; and
  • administration functions.


OBJECTIVES

The level of IT activity during the past year and the planned future activity provide an indication of the group’s strategic intention to take full advantage of the benefits that technology can offer a complex modern retail business. By doing so TFG wishes to ensure that it can become technologically competitive with its peers anywhere in the world and will rank as a world-class business in all respects.

A simple example of the benefits which IT can bring to a group such as TFG is the fact that a customer seeking to open an account in one of the group’s stores may now make the application in the store, and receive approval for the account in less than 15 minutes, and sometimes within four minutes. This speed of response does not in any way compromise the integrity of the numerous checking and processing steps that are taken before approval is given for the opening of a new account.

ACTIVITIES IN THE PAST YEAR

Total ICT capital expenditure in the year under review amounted to R85,2 million, with operating expenses of R230,8 million. The combination represents 2,3% of the group’s revenue. By international benchmarks this leaves scope for a degree of expansion in expenditure in the coming years.

Operating costs in the past year were broken down into the sectors illustrated in the pie chart below:

The graph below illustrates the group’s ICT expenditure (capital investment plus operating expenses) over the past eight years:

Cost synergies were again extracted for the group through continued application of the policy of consolidation, rationalisation and collaboration on common IT standards and platforms. This policy is being progressively implemented throughout the group, leading to the seamless sharing by the group’s divisions of infrastructure and of services provided by outsourcing partners.

The year was a rewarding year for TFG Infotec. Among the chief advances made were the following:
  • The time and attendance system project at store level was completed.
  • The new Manhattan warehouse management system was implemented in the Foschini and Sports divisions. It is expected that installation of the system will take place rapidly through the other divisions. The @home and Jewellery divisions are likely to have it in place by the end of the next year.
  • The next phase of the group’s supply chain management initiative was successfully carried out. Implementation of this project at this stage is being done by Infotec’s business intelligence systems team.
  • In selected @home stores, interactive product information kiosks were introduced for the benefit of customers, enabling them to find and study technical and comparative information on products of interest to them. Similar kiosks are planned for the Markham division and a more general roll-out may follow.


In addition, TFG Financial Services division was supported with various strategic system-related initiatives.

STRATEGIES

With a clearly-defined IT strategy in place, the division’s key initiatives for the next year centre on:
  • upgrading the group’s digital local area network (LAN) and its wide area network (WAN);
  • implementing a group enterprise knowledge and collaboration platform, based on the Microsoft Sharepoint solution;
  • implementing a customer relationship management tool named SAS for the TFG Financial Services division; and
  • commencing the implementation of a replenishment and forecasting system named Logility across the group’s trading divisions. Those likely to receive Logility in the next year are the Markham, Exact! and Foschini divisions.


The group’s reliance on ICT for its day-to-day operations means that IT security, risk management and corporate governance (including compliance with King III-defined principles) are key focus areas for the division.

TFG Infotec uses best-practice methodologies for system delivery and support via the ITIL service delivery framework, the Cobit model for IT governance, and it updates and tests disaster recovery plans on a regular basis.

Further steps towards the attainment of its goals in the next few years include the implementation and upgrading of intrusion prevention and IT security tools on the group’s networks and devices.

The main constraint on achieving the division’s goals is, and for some years has been, the scarcity of suitably qualified potential employees. The pool of potential IT professionals is fundamentally kept small by the low quality of mathematics teaching in the bulk of South African schools. This means that it has been necessary to look further afield and fortunately several Zimbabwean postgraduate candidates have presented themselves in recent times. At senior levels it has also been fruitful to recruit South Africans living abroad but willing to return to South Africa and six employees in this category were engaged in the past year. There are, however, indications that this source of skilled candidates is on the point of depletion.