Because we are a consortium of dedicated members we can ensure that your project is not dropped when the key supplier drops out. No longer will you be held ransom by a small business operator that suddenly walks out or relocates, leaving your critical project half done.
Our members are able to hand over tasks and pick up where others left off. As part of our project management processes we ensure that quality controls and code consistency is applied, ensuring easy handover and milestone management, thereby reducing the risk and exposure when using us as your outsourced service provider.

We (Riebens Systems) are importers of the popular Pcsoft range of products (Windev, Webdev and Windev mobile)

We also do custom software development for busineses and private individuals using Clarion, Windev, Webdev, Windev Mobile, Dreamweaver.

What effect does belonging to the consortium and what do the consortium membership rules and promotions as discuss have on these types of operations.

It is nice to promote that doing business with the consortium, someone else can take over if thigns fall apart, but I don't see any indication of exisitng skills from other members. ( unless I just don't know where to look)

Kind Regards

Hi Riebens,

The world is big but the Garden Route is small. There are very few "IT houses" in the area that can stand their ground against a national company like DD or BCX. Even local govenrment tenders regularly pass locals by because of the perception of "one man shows". Take what just happened in Plett with their system... R10m to a big player and it didn't work. Now R5m to another one - and what are the chances? Why not harnass the energy from this exceptional part of the country?

The skills in the area are staggering. We have people around here in charge of international companies, guys developing network equipment for telecoms carriers, people winning international Microsoft and Nokia competitions, developers that can put together major business systems in weeks, wireless network operators and start-up entrepreneurs. This list goes on.

With that in mind, GritCon is a place to put "the little guys together" and through the collective unlock opportunities that would just never be possible if one were to try on your own. If nothing else, we give moral and consultative support to each other in our various ventures.

An important objective of GritCon is to stimulate and grow the local economy and attract IT business to the region. This can only happen through skills development and subsequently excellent delivery to the market. As much as people like the idea of better chances at government contracts and bigger projects, I believe it is these socially and economically responsible activities that will actually benefit us most. By building a strong foundation for an IT skills pool in the area, the future must be bright for us.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that we get from the consortium what we make it. It is up to all of us to make this work.

We can decide to sit back and watch and only join in once the rewards start rolling in, or we can get stuck in now and make it work for all of us.

We are already well over 70 tech bodies strong, so there is nothing holding us back but ourselves.

I for one think that we need to put competition aside and work together. As Rudie pointed out, a multi million rand IT project on up doorstep could have come our way if we had gotten our act together in time.

Thanks guys ... great feedback, and just the thing i was thinking myself.

One way of 'gettting together' is then obviously to firstly do business with each other where we can, and in so doing, learn each other's strengths and weaknesses and find ways of creating a unified front to present to the rest of the world and make sure that we can effectively compete with the more popular guys out there.

Towards this end, I have already started contracting a small guy in Swellendam and started pushing some of our overflow work to him.

I also have a computer business in Riversdale that has started contracting us for custom solutions for their clients.

I have also responded to the tender on this website and am waiting to hear what is going on.

I think we can achieve what we set out to do if we unify.

I have spoken wit ha few guys in regard to settign up a "mentorship" program in the region, and there is a lot of talk, but very little movement. Unfortunately we are not big enough to carry the cost of mentroship although we have the skills and the resources to mentor.

We did a very short mentorship for a guy from Montague recently, and it was really great to see someone learn and understand and grow within himself as his knowledge if IT and it's capabilities also grew.

Kind Regards
Ben

Hi Ben,

Welcome to the community.

Some of the benefits of being part of our community only truly become apparent once you come to one of our events.

We meet up regularly for what we call a #geekbreakfast.

Our community has been growing steadily over the past few years and our members have got a wide skills base.

The Geek Breakfast is attended, by service providers from various sub-industries, infrastructure management, software and hardware development. Business and legal consultants.

In the Garden Route, most business is done on the basis of relationships. We work with people we know and trust.

As you'd imagine, most people in the tech industry spend almost all of their time in front of their PCs solving problems and creating things, with a social life and business networking coming in very low on the priority list.

Being part of our community, puts you directly in touch with people who work in similar fields and face similar challenges.

We get excited about similar things and can learn a lot from each other. We explore new technologies and build relationships that would otherwise not be possible if the community did not exist.

I'd encourage you to join us at out next geek breakfast and sign up for our newsletter.

greetings
Nathan

Hi

Thanks for the welcome.

I do dearly want to attend, but I am looking at a roundtrip of 320 Km just to attend one of the meetings at we are at just about the furthest point away from you guys on the garden route.

That is a lot of productive time away from the time spent in front of the pc.

But we will meet, even if I just pop into thebusiensses to say hello when I need t o go that way. I have to be in George on the 26'th march so I will definitely drop by the offices.

Kind Regards

Let us know when you're in town and maybe we could meet for a coffee.