IT focused on driving IT and digital transformation more earnestly to ensure we enhance our current IT posture, giving heightened attention to using data-driven insights, self-service capabilities and cybersecurity enhancements to deliver a better customer experience and increase revenue.
The year has seen progress in our multi-year IT transformation initiatives in Operations Support Systems (OSS), Business Support Systems (BSS) and our IT Enterprise Application landscape. Further enhancements in our fintech initiatives saw the delivery of services such as Telkom Pay, Retail Funeral Services and Employee Scheme.
The Digital Strategy aligns with the PIVOT Business Strategy, underpinning salient business capabilities and IT improvements with transformative IT capability.
The Digital Strategy is centred around providing API‑powered services to the customer. The approach serves to enhance IT architecture, improve simplicity in service and enhance the cybersecurity posture of the application landscape. This strategy is delivered through a three-tier model focusing on skilled employees and efficient and effective processes, powered by leading-edge technology.
Effective billing through consolidation, standardisation and modernisation of BSS
Improved customer satisfaction through simplified self-service capability
Insight-driven decision-making through leveraging machine learning capability
Increased efficiency through modernisation of platforms and improving time to market
System and cyber resilience through continuous strengthening of cybersecurity posture
Order to cash transformation
Customer experience
Data-driven insights
Operational efficiency
Governance and risk management
The order to cash BSS transformation project consolidates multiple BSS systems into a modern Openserve BSS, improving efficiency by standardising, simplifying, and automating processes. This project optimises legacy infrastructure, mitigates billing risk, and simplifies ordering. The new accessible product catalogue, standardised billing, and common ordering system improves our customers’ experience.
In FY2023 the project successfully delivered on broadband and complex product billing, with automated invoicing and an accessible catalogue. The broadband billing and invoicing time was reduced from weeks to between two to three days. In transforming our billing platform, we are also aligning our billing cycle to the signed customer contract, which will have a positive cash flow impact. The simplification and automation of the billing system reduced errors and human intervention, resulting in a further improvement in accuracy and consistency.
The next phase will focus on all other product billing, order and lead management, and financial account management, with the aim of enhancing the entire order to cash process and improving customer satisfaction.
The Lead2Cash project is underway to streamline and automate the order to cash process at BCX.
In Gyro, the Tarantula Tower Management application went live and will enable monetisation of our masts and towers portfolio.
Our approach to customer satisfaction is centred around self-service, making it easier for customers to consume services anytime and anywhere. The focus areas have been on ensuring the services are always available and stable, simplifying channels to make it easy for customers to engage us, and launching products faster.
In Openserve the transformation of our digital channels led to a self-service capability for user management and self‑service deal and promotion management for our wholesale customer channel.
The Openserve mobile digital app for user management, Openserve Connect, obtained international recognition by winning the 15th Annual TM Forum Excellence Award in Denmark in September 2022. This app is enabling the end user customer’s capability to manage their broadband connection and internet service through a digital channel.
In Telkom Consumer, the MyTelkom mobile app was enhanced by introducing simplicity and additional sales capabilities for better customer interaction. The app is being further enriched, with rollout planned in the third quarter of FY2024.
Telkom Consumer addressed network capacity in FY2023 through a structured programme to increase and address redundancy capacity at various points of presence to enhance stability and reliability of service in the mobile network.
Openserve and Telkom Consumer are making sales and marketing recommendations based on insights drawn from historical and churn data to optimise revenue and marketing strategy. This goes a long way in enabling a data-driven approach to business decisions.
In Openserve this has contributed to an improved fixed-line active service and fixedline connected home rate as a result of using data insights for focused marketing campaigns that identify target areas.
We are consolidating our data centres to drive efficiencies and cost optimisation. In adopting a Hybrid Cloud Strategy, we brought agility and improved IT operations.
In FY2023 BCX went live with its enterprise business transformation project on a cloudbased platform which consolidated the ERP systems of its subsidiaries to enable seamless and streamlined processes.
In Telkom Consumer, the hosting of SMB service for Trudon was relocated to the Centurion data centres operated by BCX. This improved efficiency and enhanced service availability.
We base our governance of the technology and information framework on King IV principles. In addition, we factored in ISO 38500 and COBIT 2019 from an IT control perspective. The Board assumes responsibility for policy and direction over matters relating to technology and information.
The following objectives underpin our governance framework:
Initially, IT Governance defined 14 process areas as part of the plan, build and run model. These were incorporated as part of the IT governance framework. In FY2023, the framework was revised and now incorporates emerging technologies and compliance as part of the process areas. These two areas are becoming increasingly important in the technology world.
The below guidelines and frameworks were approved during FY2023:
Guidelines and frameworks
Governance guidelines for the Metaverse, including opportunities and challenges.
Involve guiding principles on what is deemed acceptable and ethical behaviour by employees, contractors, third parties or other, when personal information is identified, assessed, monitored, utilised and disposed.
To prescribe and guide the way Telkom will ensure the availability of IT services.
Ethical practice applied to digital platforms.
Telkom pursues a risk-based approach to information security, considering the ever-changing technology landscape and potential threats. We improve our security posture and the maturity of our Security Programme in line with regulatory requirements, best practice guidelines and industry benchmarks.
Due to the rise in cyberattacks, it was necessary to increase our focus on strengthening our cybersecurity resilience by introducing additional security domains to align with the newer threat vectors. We also strengthened analytics to enable threat intelligence.
Telkom retained its ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification to ensure effectiveness and adequacy of its comprehensive information security management system. In addition, Telkom obtained the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Certification in support of the Fintech Strategy.
Key achievements across the information security domains:
| Endpoint protection |
Data loss prevention capability has been implemented via Netskope, IronPort and Exchange Online Protection. Anti-malware coverage for end-user devices and servers is 100%. |
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| Security training and awareness |
An information security culture survey was conducted across Telkom to determine readiness of cyber awareness. Email phishing simulations were conducted throughout the financial year. |
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| Security compliance |
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and ISO 27001 Standard Certifications were achieved. Reviewed and updated 21 security governance documents in line with industry best practice standards. |
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| Perimeter and network security | Completed email gateway migration to Cisco Cloud email security to leverage on its advanced email gateway capabilities. | |
| User access governance |
All critical applications are managed via user access and privileged management systems. Progressively onboarding additional applications as they are identified, with 441 applications already onboarded. |
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| Vulnerability management | Increased vulnerability scanning of unsupported infrastructure to identify, monitor and reduce the impact of exploitable vulnerabilities. | |
| Security operations | Ongoing onboarding of critical applications to managed detection and response system. Several critical systems have already been onboarded. |
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| Security testing | Completed penetration testing of PCI systems/ applications. Completed JSE attestation/security controls assessment. |
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| Third-party risk management | Third-party security risk management framework has been approved and implementation is in progress. | |
| Data protection | Completed implementation of data protection capabilities to analyse and label PCI and PII data across all Telkom systems including the top 44 applications. |
Our focus areas for FY2024 are in line with the Telkom strategic objectives:
The industry’s fast-paced and ever-evolving nature demands a strong commitment towards research and development.
In FY2023, we invested in an innovation lab focused on strengthening the development of products and services that meet our customers’ needs. We further invested in start‑ups that built new technologies through our FutureMakers Programme.
We continued supporting the incubation of language-translation technologies through the Telkom Strategic Insights team. Our investments enable Telkom to meet customers’ changing needs while staying ahead of competitors by leveraging new opportunities for growth and innovation.
In March 2023, Telkom marked a key milestone in its continued commitment to research, development, and innovation. Telkom signed a five-year strategic partnership with the University of the Witwatersrand to launch the first Industry Solutions Lab as part of the Wits Innovation Centre. This strategic partnership supports Telkom’s investment in intellectual property and accelerates the development of industry-leading solutions, supporting business unit innovation across the Group.
A dedicated solutions lab based on the Wits campus will enable collaboration between Telkom employees and partners to co-operate on developing industry solutions for Telkom, focusing on key strategic projects. The lab was preceded by ideation sessions focusing on key projects for the lab partnership.
Research and development will continue to future-proof our business and improve customer satisfaction and value.
Start‑ups are often agile in innovating new products and services, presenting themselves as key partners in diversifying portfolios.
As part of our focus on investing in start‑ups in key technology areas, Telkom invested R58 million in Aions through the FutureMakers Programme. Aions is a technology company that builds and invests in digital value propositions that complement the suite of adjacent products and services Telkom focuses on as part of the innovation strategy. Since its inception in 2020, Aions has made several investments in technology start‑ups in South Africa.
Our focus areas include the healthcare, financial services, education and mining sectors. We continue investing in start‑ups through funding, mentoring and market access.
Telkom’s investment in Aions aligns with the strategic pillar of partnerships while contributing to the growth of SMMEs in the country. The aim is to invest in and grow relevant digital value propositions and technology capabilities.
Our strategic focus areas for FY2024 are in line with Telkom’s strategic objectives:
Telkom’s purpose is to seamlessly connect our customers to a better life. We want to enable South Africa to build a digital economy and improve the lives of South Africans.
Telkom leverages several tools, services and policies to ensure the purposeful impact of the Telkom brand and reputation in the market.
Openserve: Openserve is at the heart of connectivity and has successfully built and run high-speed broadband networks that link banking systems, hospitals, schools and every part of society.
Telkom Consumer: Telkom Consumer focuses on consumer and small and medium enterprise solutions such as fixed and mobile broadband services, voice technology and related value‑added services.
BCX: BCX is Africa’s premier end-to-end digital solutions partner and helps enterprises to future-proof their business.
GYRO: Gyro is structured to provide three business services – masts and towers, property management services and property development.
Swiftnet: Swiftnet is one of the leading tower companies in South Africa, with the aspiration of occupying the number one position as they continue their journey to make connectivity a fundamental human right – accessible to everyone.
Openserve recognised for excellence in innovation with Connect app, winning Gold in global award at the 2022 TM Forum Excellence Awards.
Openserve lands Google’s Equiano subsea internet cable, which promises faster internet speeds and reduced internet prices.
Top 3 Finalist in the Ask Africa Orange Index in 2022, measuring customer satisfaction, emotional satisfaction and loyalty to companies that show exceptional performance across client experience metrics.
Voted Coolest Telecommunications Provider at the Sunday Times GenNext Awards three years in a row (2020, 2021, 2022). This recognition speaks to the on-trend products and services we have been giving South African youth over the years.
BCX achieved several partner awards in FY2023 and is a top-tier partner of our ICT OEMs, whose products we resell or utilise as part of our solutions.