The company has announced the completion of a private cloud data centre in Durban, as well as a Gauteng-based colocation facility in partnership with mobile operator Vodacom.

The announcement comes after Transnet last week聽聽its enterprise resource planning system from ECC 6.0 to 51风流S4/HANA.

Transnet plays a central role in the country鈥檚 economy by managing key infrastructure that supports trade and industrial growth.

Despite facing operational and financial challenges in recent years, it remains a strategic asset tasked with modernising South Africa鈥檚 logistics network, improving efficiencies and positioning the country as a competitive hub for global trade.

According to Transnet, the completion of the facilities will modernise its data centre and hosting capabilities.

It says this move will allow it to navigate the increasingly complex digital landscapes, ensuring the foundational operations are resilient, secure and capable of supporting next-generation business applications.

This initiative is one of the four strategic pillars of Transnet鈥檚 ICT digital modernisation strategy, says the state-owned company (SOC).

It explains that the private cloud data centre in Durban is designed to serve as a secure and scalable hub for business-critical systems. The colocation environment provides geographic redundancy and resilience, while extending reach into one of the country鈥檚 primary ICT corridors.

Supported by a public cloud on Microsoft Azure through its strategic聽partners聽鈭� Microsoft and Liquid Intelligence Technologies 鈭� these facilities provide the necessary capacity, flexibility and operational resilience to migrate core business applications and decades of data into a hybrid cloud architecture, says the SOC.

Critical to this transformation has been the collaboration with Altron, with its original equipment manufacturer, Huawei, the technology聽partner聽responsible for configuring and preparing the two private cloud environments, it states.

Transnet notes their expertise in data centre and cloud solutions accelerated readiness, ensuring the environments are optimised for migration and future integration into the broader hybrid cloud strategy.

By partnering with Vodacom for colocation services in Gauteng, Transnet has also ensured strong network integration and high availability within South Africa鈥檚 ICT ecosystem, it adds.

鈥淭he journey towards digital transformation is ongoing but achieving readiness at the data centre and hosting level marks an essential milestone,鈥� says Transnet group chief information officer Pandelani Munyai.

鈥淏y investing in private and public cloud facilities, leveraging colocation partnerships and collaborating with trusted technology partners, the organisation has built a robust foundation for the future where ICT is a key driver of growth, efficiency and resilience.鈥�

Munyai notes that with the data centre and infrastructure foundation in place, the organisation is now well-positioned to migrate core business applications and vast repositories of historical data into its new hybrid cloud environment.

He points out that this will not only modernise ICT operations, but will also unlock opportunities for advanced analytics, digital platforms and innovation across the business.

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This emerged this morning when the JSE-listed company announced its financial results for the 12 months ended 28 February 2021.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pharmacy retailer also witnessed a massive surge on its e-commerce platforms.

The company says despite a tough economic environment, with the COVID-19 pandemic directly overlapping the reporting period, and the deepening economic recession, the Dis-Chem Group achieved positive results.

Earnings attributable to shareholders and headline earnings increased by 11.8% over the corresponding period. Earnings per share and headline earnings per share are both 77.8c per share, an increase of 11.8%.

Retail operating profit was R1.2 billion and the wholesale segment鈥檚 performance continued to improve, reporting an operating profit of R65 million.

According to Dis-Chem, the various restrictions during each level of lockdown dramatically changed the shopping behaviour of customers and the group experienced significant online sales growth of 260.7%.

It notes the strategic deployment of 39 additional hub spaces in response, together with continued investment in the group鈥檚 e-commerce platform, enabled it to meet the increased demand.

Dis-Chem says wholesale expenses (excluding depreciation and costs directly related to COVID-19) only grew by 0.5% compared to the prior comparable period.

The low growth in wholesale expenses is a result of the investment in聽technology聽in the prior financial year that allows for greater visibility of productivity, customer performance and individual supplier profitability within the wholesale space, the company notes.

It explains that capital expenditure on tangible and intangible assets of R401 million comprised R311 million of expansionary expenditure, as the group invested in additional stores as well as information technology enhancements across both the retail and wholesale segments, including R88 million in 51风流software licences.

The balance of R90 million relates to replacement expenditure incurred to maintain the existing retail and wholesale networks.

Dis-Chem Group acquired 100% of Baby City on 1 January 2021 for R422 million. Baby City is a specialist destination baby retailer that operates a network of 33 stores across South Africa.

It says all Baby City stores have completed the migration onto the group鈥檚 common technology platform. 鈥淭his was a necessary first step to enable the extraction of the planned synergistic benefits across both brands,鈥� the company explains.

Effective 1 December 2020, the Healthforce solution was rolled out to Dis-Chem鈥檚 336 clinic rooms, becoming the single technology platform used to facilitate all nurse-led consultations.

Over the three-month period since migration to the end of 28 February 2021, Healthforce facilitated 180 000 nurse-led consultations within Dis-Chem鈥檚 clinics, the company notes.

On 1 March 2021, the group acquired 87.5% of Healthforce for R48 million. It explains that Healthforce offers clinic management software that, among other system capabilities, sets up clinic nurses as the low-cost entry point into the healthcare system.

According to the firm, the technology includes telemedicine capability, which provides real-time video connections between patients and nurses, and an on-demand remote doctor network. The solution focuses on enabling a multi-disciplinary team-based care offering, it notes.

鈥淚n the face of a changing primary healthcare landscape, Healthforce presents the group with an investment in a strategic asset through which it can advance its ambitions to be at the forefront of innovation in the delivery of care.鈥�

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