Growth in South Africa’s information and communication technology (ICT) industry can be bolstered by combining the technology, research and development ability of major multinationals with the skills and knowledge of local companies.

Multinationals have a significant role to play in uplifting the industry and, consequently, the economy, through the enhanced, focused development of local skills, companies and partners.

“We have a huge opportunity as an industry to create a thriving home-grown ICT industry that is built on local skills and talent, and makes a greater contribution to the national economy,” says enterprise communications provider Itec Tiyend MD Simbo Ntshinka.

“The multinationals dominate the industry through their sheer scale, but can help ignite a renewed local ICT boom if we get to a point where small or large projects are implemented through partnerships with Level 1 black-owned businesses.”

Ntshinka explains that the industry’s efforts to drive empowerment, transformation and skills development have lost momentum in recent years and, while multinationals have well-established go-to-market channels in South Africa, there is more that can be done to empower and create a dynamic local partner network.

There are currently thousands of unfilled jobs within the ICT industry, owing to a lack of skills; however, there is limited ‘supply’ of upskilling opportunities for the millions of unemployed youth.

“The ICT industry has to understand the real intentions behind government’s broad-based black economic empowerment codes, and go beyond mere box ticking, if technology is to play the transformative role that it can in both business and the broader economy,” Ntshinka adds.

There is a need to create a new wave of partners using their local knowledge and insights to take the multinationals’ technology to market.

This will lay the foundation to build a bigger skills base and provide even more opportunities for young South Africans, he concludes.