German-based digital engineering and technology solutions group Nagarro is expanding in SA and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange-listed company is looking at increasing its headcount to cater to growing business opportunities in Africa.
Nagarro, which entered the South African market three years ago, says it’s scaling up and will double the headcount in its SA operations in the next 18 months to 600.
The company says besides specialised skills, it will train and deploy university graduates and previously disadvantaged groups, which it believes will ease SA’s unemployment rate, currently pegged at 46.1%.
A recent unemployment report released by Statistics SA shows there were 39.3 million people of working age in the country in the fourth quarter in 2020, of which 22.3 million were employed, while 17.1 million were not economically active.
The 300-plus new local hires targeted, if successful, will join Nagarro’s workforce of over 10 000 employees in 25 countries across North America, Asia and Europe.
In SA, Nagarro services clients within the banking, financial services and insurance sector, as well as telecoms and retail.
In an interview with ITWeb, Manas Fuloria, Nagarro CEO (custodian of entrepreneurship in the organisation), says: “We are very excited to continue to progress in Africa. We see Africa as a huge opportunity, not just in terms of market but also talent. We are a global company but we expect more of our clients to be in Africa and we expect more of our centres to be in Africa as we continue to grow.
“Our focus is on digital services and products that move revenue and profitability for our clients. Most of our clients know that Nagarro is building great engineering assets. That’s why we have grown dramatically in the last few years.
“We are one of the fastest growing IT services companies on the planet, working with clients from all over the world. We are looking to access new areas, we would like to go in other directions and we are also fulfilling a role to bring people together.”
Fuloria tells ITWeb that Nagarro intends to get a strong foothold in the local market, before spreading to countries like Kenya and Nigeria.
Commenting on the company’s plans for SA and the rest of continent, Sharad Narayan, who heads Nagarro’s operations across the world, excluding Americas and Europe, says the firm requires top talent in digital engineering.
“We are in the process of onboarding new talent. The goal is to grow the Africa region. In terms of the skills we want, we are on-boarding a variety of skills, including some with a specialised skills set in terms of Salesforce and digital engineering.
“We are sure to double our head count in 12 to 18 months; we are also targeting fresh graduates from university, to train them and get them into the company.”
With the planned investments in SA, Nagarro has joined a growing list of ICT services companies that have been entering or scaling up operations locally in recent months.
Outsourcing specialist Sigma recently opened a new multimillion-rand contact centre in Cape Town, which houses 500 jobs.
Chinese-based ride-hailing service DiDi Chuxing is currently on a recruitment drive as it prepares to introduce its low-cost service locally. For DiDi, the South African expansion marks the e-hailing company’s first presence in Africa and the 17th active country globally.
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