Steve Dalgarno, Managing Director of Strategix Technology Solutions, has been involved in IT for 17 years. Steve has been involved in numerous industries, including finance, which has been invaluable in his business and his customers businesses, to permit him to analyse and understand all industries finances, ITC and ISP connectivity, which puts Steve in a strong position to advise and consult to and for his clients’ needs.
Steve has been MD of Strategix Technology Solutions since 2007, specialising in Microsoft solutions, VMWare solutions and Cloud solutions for disaster recovery and business continuity.
Q: Tell us a little more about your experience in the business technology solutions industry?
A: I was involved in finance in the UK before I decided to write my MCSE (on NT4 … eish … giving away my age …). Normally I would tell people I made the move as I enjoyed the way the industry was constantly evolving; but in reality, it made more money than what I was earning in finance at the time! I returned to South Africa and joined Dimension Data as an engineer, but I wasn’t very good at that, so moved over to sales. It was here that I realised my passion was more for business rather than technology, but that I could combine technology with business to deliver the business drivers. I then moved to Datacentrix as a sales director for a couple of years before starting my own company, where I negotiated technology solutions for businesses with vendors. This was a good idea at the time but the market was already ahead of me and were employing individuals to do just that. I then joined a company called LightEdge and six months later Strategix Business Solutions came into my life, leading to the creation of Strategix Technology Solutions. The rest, I believe they say, is history!!
Q: What would you say is your biggest achievement thus far?
A: Progressing from a junior engineer to sales, and then being one of Dimension Data’s youngest sales managers – all in the space of two years would have to be it I guess.
Q: What is Strategix’s mission/vision?
A: We don’t really have a vision or a mission statement like other, but rather we carry an ethos or a culture of always providing our customers with the best solutions we are capable of offering. Our team ALWAYS goes above and beyond for our clients. Dedicated, professional, friendly, skilled and fun would be the five words I would say describes our mission; and our vision is to remain as such, if not better!
Q: What differentiates Strategix from its competitors?
A: I believe it to be three things:
- Our willingness to go above and beyond for our partners/customers.
- We get to know our customers and their business, and where they want to take their business. Then we design solutions that will assist in their direction.
- I used to believe that the only two ways to add value was to save our clients’ money or make them more money – this is true, but there is a lot more to that, such as the people, the team, the relationships, etc., that build with the customers and their team. Makes for a strong force together!
Q: What are some of the biggest developments in the Cloud and virtualisation solutions industry – specifically MS Hyper-V and VMware – today?
A: The technology to manage and move data centres from one place to another has also grown leaps and bounds, making data centres literally “limitless”.
Our increased network and ISP competition has forced fibre pricing down and increased its availability, thereby allowing companies like Strategix to offer a cost-effective solution for Cloud offerings and data transfers for either total outsourced Cloud solutions, to disaster recovery and Cloud backup solutions.
Q: Tell us about Strategix’s Cloud and virtualisation solutions and how it assists with laying a good for a business’ operations, from an infrastructure point of view?
A: Any Cloud partner can provide a good platform from an infrastructure perspective, but not many can design and optimise it like Strategix can. We invest heavily in our skills and best of breed products for our Cloud. Strategix uses Hyper-V and VMware for our virtual solutions to cater for various markets and demands, Fortinet for our security solutions and Veeam and ArcServe for our physical and virtual backups, as clients still have a mix of both physical and virtual solutions but want one company to manage their environment, their DR and backups/data protection. There are also no expensive set-up costs.
Q: What are the key ways in which your Cloud and virtualisation solutions – specifically MS Hyper-V and VMware – supports the small to medium-sized business owner?
A: Years ago, this conversation was only for enterprise partners but with new technologies and increased networking competition, SMEs can now start to enjoy the many benefits Cloud technology has to offer. The SME owner no longer needs to employ a IT manager and staff, no longer needs to procure expensive kit (expensive to buy, set up, run and maintain), no more licensing pains … all these costs are bundled into one solution, one SLA which is all on utility billing – so you only pay for what you use. This allows our customers to focus on their business.
Q: What important aspects should business owners consider when switching over to cloud and virtualisation solutions?
A: My recommendation to any business owner is to firstly assess which applications are mission critical to their business; and what could be the cost to business if that service was not available to their customers as well as how long that service could be down. There always needs to be a proper assessment on existing environment to ensure we know exactly what it is that we are moving into the Cloud. Your network can make or break your Cloud strategy. DSL/ADSL technologies are just not viable for Cloud. Assess data transfers, as this will no longer be in your LAN (local area network) but rather through your service provider, so we prefer to put in data bundles once we know the average data transfers; but this can often come back to bite the customer if the assessment was not done thoroughly.
Q: How does your Cloud and virtualisation solutions – specifically MS Hyper-V and VMware – empower business owners in growing their business and getting ahead of competitors?
A: There are many advantages to virtualisation and Cloud technologies; but in short, it allows our customers to react quicker to competitors, to be a lot more flexible, to invest their initial capital into the real growth of their business, and to manage their costs effectively. Their business now becomes 24/7/365 and there is very little, if any, downtime to the business.
Q: Why do you think your technology solutions can play an important role in growing the SME sector in South Africa and build up our economy again?
A: Sjoe! Small ask! I believe we have built a cost-effective solution that allows anyone with a business, or a business idea, the platform to either cut their existing costs and free up some cash to grow their own business; or reinvest in their business, which has a direct spin-off on our economy. Secondly, technology is directly linked with an economy’s GDP. Thirdly, technology creates jobs and opportunities so, as small as an impact any entrepreneur has as an individual on our economy. The fact is, if there are hundreds of thousands of us all promoting job creation and international investment, then it can only have a positive impact on our economy.
Q: What does your average work day look like?
A: Organised chaos! The joy of this industry is you never know what is going to happen in your day, no matter how well you’ve planned for it. I often try to get out on the road to go and see clients or meet new prospective clients, as this allows me to gain an actual insight to what is happening out in the market and what companies are looking for, not just what we read and study, but really what they want and need.
Q: What is the best part of your job?
A: Not knowing what my average day is good to look like! When we get an opportunity to get stuck into a client’s environment and financials, spend some time putting solutions together for them and delivering the end result – that end result with savings and the whole “more for less” thing is now fact for our customer – that is the best part for me. In other words, when we all win!
Q: What would you say is the biggest professional achievement you’ve accomplished up to this point?
A: I think my biggest achievement is not actually “my” biggest achievement, but rather that of my team. When I look at the team, I see them as the best achievement … to have allowed for an environment for this team to be the best they can be! They have achieved virtualisation and backup certification that makes us one of two companies in South Africa in both of those solutions.
