Risk management solution developer SearchInform is looking to capitalise on increased interest in its software from within South Africa’s public sector.

The company, via its sales partner and Russian export promotion institution Tech Global, recently concluded a deal with Ntiyiso Consulting to implement the time-tracking and performance evaluation tool TimeInformer.

According to SearchInform the solution is proposed in both on-premise and cloud configurations, perpetual license acquisition and subscription mode.

“… given software allows to identify top performers of the company, idlers, compare user efficiency, set targets and KPIs, define those who deserve promotion or demotion. The solution becomes even more important at the times of recessions as it allows to identify employees who don’t perform and thus losing them would not cause any damage to the company allowing to save costs.”

SearchInform adds that this implementation could serve as a foundation for Ntiyiso Consulting to represent the Russian vendor solution firm in South Africa going forward and that the management consulting firm has expressed interest in this regard.

However, a formal agreement has not yet been reached.

“Ntiyiso Consulting is currently implementing the solution internally. They were not yet appointed as an official distributor. Preliminary agreement was reached, but the details are yet to be discussed,” SearchInform stated.

SearchInform has confirmed that it is present in the South African market and has been for over two years and adds that while there are further deals in place regarding solution implementation in South Africa, it cannot divulge details because of NDA clauses.

Sergey Ozhegov, CEO of SearchInform, added: "We have been working with local partners in South Africa since March 2018. Thanks to collaborative work with Tech Global, we managed to find not only a new client, but also a reliable partner in the region. We register the growing interest in Russian products in the information security sphere from both commercial organisations and the public sector. That is perfectly reasonable since there is a general trend towards digitalisation of business and public administration worldwide. Considering the mentioned above, I conclude that the current deal is just the beginning of mutually beneficial cooperation between our companies.”

Georgii Mikaberidze, CEO of Tech Global JSC, said: "We appreciate the approach of Ntiyiso Consulting. Before putting forward SearchInform solution developments to the market, Ntiyiso Consulting decided to test-drive all product functionality to prove that the software solves critical business problems. This year Ntiyiso, following an overwhelming trend, was forced to restructure the work and shift its employees to remote work, while considering how to maintain the productivity of the team. The customer's specialists have already been trained, deployment of the solution was approved by the legal team and the Board of the company and an official notice by the CEO was released, TimeInformer was approved for official use.”

In December 2019 Ozhegov, speaking during the launch of the company’s IS outsourcing services offering, said South Africa is the only country showing equal data leak score due to internal and external violations (38%), which means that a company has to protect both from external and internal security threats equally.

Ozhegov says the global cyber security market size stood at US$131.3-billion in 2018 and is projected to reach US$289.8-billion by 2026.

"(The) data security market is expected to account for the second largest category of expenditure in South Africa by 2023."