Communication solutions company XLink Communications, which received the 2014 South African Frost & Sullivan award for Technology Leadership last year, is aiming help municipalities and big corporations detect water leaks, cope with power outages and improve other efficiencies with its machine-to-machine (M2M) service offering.

“Municipalities can use the company’s M2M services to instantly detect water leaks and unauthorised use,” says XLink CEO Anton Leal.

XLink Communications’ M2M platform, product installation, ongoing portal support and maintenance services enable it to transmit data from its reader logger, attached to the client’s water meter, to a base station and, ultimately, to XLink’s Insight for m2mconneXion, an Internet-based data acquisition and display facility.

He adds that the company is looking at acquisitions, forming business partnerships, assisting start-ups and providing smart services as part of its growth strategy.

XLink’s annuity-based turnover is currently in excess of R150-million and predominantly payment connectivity-related. It includes the Africa revenue for XLink, which amounts to about 10% of this value.
The company currently provides its services in ten African countries and is targeting an increase of its annuity-based revenue in Africa from the current 10% to 15% of annual turnover.

“We are optimistic about M2M opportunities in Africa, as technology can play a great role in improving both business and the lives of communities in an underdeveloped environment,” Leal tells Engineering News.

XLink focuses on primary and backup communications within the point of sale (POS) electronic funds transfer (EFT) space and is growing fast within the M2M and Internet of Things (IoT) arena.

The company has extensive experience in payment transactions and is a large carrier of EFT services across the global system for mobile communications network in the local market.

“We identified an opportunity four years ago to expand our offering into the African continent by developing a solution that could sell to the in-country service provider.”

The offering, he notes, includes all the required equipment and the necessary training support to implement the service and thereafter, through remote tools, to support the service from South Africa.

Business Structure

Leal says the company has a unique business model and has a CEO in every department.

He notes that the CEO concept was introduced to ensure that each operating area stays entrepreneurial and to ensure that each person running a key pillar runs it as if they own it.

Each business division has been empowered to create its own revenue.

“It has turned out well, we have creative reward systems and I believe, if you reward the right behaviour, you get the right results,” he says.

XLink’s scalable solutions and services enable the advanced monitoring and optmisation of utility use through secure Web portals.

“We have an operations division that has become so strong that we outsource the services beyond our own requirements and make a profit out of our service centre.

XLink also provides a downscale version of its local service, known as XLink-in-a-Box, which can be installed regionally, and trains the respective in-country business partner.

The third-line support is managed remotely through XLink’s Technical Services Division based in Johannesburg.

“The solution includes a full end-to-end monitoring platform of all communications to enable customers to quickly resolve faults during the communication leg of a transaction, providing merchants in Africa with a reliable, cost- effective and sustainable solution for their POS and ATM communications,” he concludes.