tt100 Awards Interview: Netstar

Netstar, a trusted brand established in 1994, pioneered the vehicle tracking and stolen vehicle recovery industry in South Africa. The company provides industry-leading stolen vehicle recovery services, advanced vehicle and fleet tracking, fleet management solutions for all-sized business and commercial fleets, commanding insurance telematics solutions, and best-in-class bureau services. According to the company, “no IoT solution is out of our reach!”

They have 14 regional offices based in Midrand, Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, George, Pietermaritzburg, Rustenburg, Richards Bay, Newcastle, Witbank, Bloemfontein, Polokwane, Klerksdorp and Nelspruit. Netstar operations extend into Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia, with customers throughout the rest of Africa and global operations in Malaysia and Australia.

IT News Africa spoke to Danny De Gouveia, Development Manager at Netstar and asked the following questions.

What is the core focus of your business?

• Vehicle Tracking & Recovery
• Fleet Management Solutions
• Insurance Telematics
• IoT

What have been the company’s biggest highlights in 2018?

• Winning eThekwini Municipality contract for vehicle telematics
• SqwidNet and Netstar signed a partnership agreement
• Being able to attain good business growth in a tough economic environment.

Could you tell us about your future plans and upcoming programs?

• We have developed a great IOT platform that has proven itself locally to be able to handle large amounts of connections and able to consume large amounts of data reliably. We will be rolling out this now proven IOT platform to our international partners.
• Keep expanding our data analytics competency in different markets and fields.
• We have formed a close partnership with SqwidNet, and we will be intensifying our focus on using the SigFox Network that has been rolled out in South Africa for SigFox-enabled IOT devices.
• We will continue with our global expansion, with specific focus within the Australian and Indian markets for the next twelve months for our products and services.

Why are programs like the tt100 beneficial to enterprises?

It is a great way of motivating our staff and highlighting to our customers the great technology and innovation that is being used or being created by the staff within the company. It also challenges us to keep improving on how we manage innovation and technology within the company.

How has winning the award impacted your business?

It further motivates and encourages our staff to continue to improve our customer services and products as well as our internal systems and processes by using innovation and technology, as recognition has been received from an independent prestigious awards program (tt100).

What advice would you give to future leaders who are starting out within the same industry?

Netstar as a business started out small and had several struggles to overcome in its initial formative years, yet it has managed to grow into a large enterprise with a National and Global presence over the last twenty years. So it is about persevering, managing people well (staff and customers), and using innovation and technology to the benefit of all and to get a competitive advantage.

Staff Writer