Bauba Platinum, a JSE-listed platinum exploration service, is a holding company for various mineral prospecting rights for platinum group metals mineralisation, collectively known as the Bauba Project.
The company operates primarily in the Eastern Bushveld Igneous Complex of South Africa. As with any company that aims to be competitive in today’s business environment, IT services and support are critical.
When Bauba’s previous service provider failed to deliver expected levels of service and their offering was no longer cost effective, the company turned to then newly formed Green Apple IT to offer the solution. Almost two years later, Bauba is still making use of the services of Green Apple IT, and they have been more than happy with the experience.
“We were introduced to Green Apple IT by one of our staff members, who had previously worked with the founders of the company, and recommended them for the job. After meeting with the team and listening to their proposal, we took the decision to implement their services, and we have not looked back,” says Grant Pitt, CEO of Bauba Platinum.
“Our main consideration was the level of service as well as the personal touch that a small business like Green Apple IT is able to deliver. In today’s economic climate where IT budgets are constantly being squeezed pricing was another important concern. Green Apple IT delivers superior service levels across all of the services we require along with excellent value for money,” he adds.
Green Apple IT provides in-house IT management for Bauba, including server management and maintenance, backup and restore services for data protection, desktop maintenance and day-to-day troubleshooting. They also deliver a weekly service check to ensure that all systems are up and running optimally, along with ad hoc services should any issues arise with printers, servers, desktops, notebooks and so on.
As an additional value-added service the team at Green Apple IT offers advice on any new solutions that need to be purchased, to help ensure that Bauba retains the best products, services and solutions to meet their exact individual needs.
At the outset of the contract, Bauba purchased a variety of hardware and software from Green Apple IT as well, ensuring value for money on the purchase as well as superior support for the products and solutions throughout their lifecycle.
“IT is an important component of our business, as the majority of our communications are conducted via e-mails and online and all of our intellectual property is stored on our server and databases. We need to have the right infrastructure in place to ensure we can continue to work productively.
“It is also vital that our backups are completed correctly so that in the event of a disaster our critical information can be restored quickly. Furthermore, our information needs to be secure and comply with corporate governance guidelines and regulations, and Green Apple IT works with us to ensure that all of these issues are suitably addressed,” Pitt adds.
During the implementation at Bauba, Green Apple IT was faced with the usual challenges of switching services, along with the additional challenge of the company moving offices across the same office building at the time. The transition was completed smoothly, and all services were kept up and running while new wiring was completed and services handed over.
“Since Green Apple IT took over our IT services the experience has been nothing but excellent. The team are always willing to assist, no problem is too big or too small, and they go out of their way to resolve issues in short order.
“If problems cannot be resolved remotely, a member of the team is on site quickly to solve the problem, and they go out of their way to ensure that our IT is back up and running as soon as possible if things go wrong,” says Pitt.
“While the benefits are difficult to quantify, we have definitely seen a return on investment (ROI) in terms of improved productivity and savings resulting from less downtime. We also experienced an immediate saving at the outset as a result of more competitive pricing. We are very pleased with the service levels delivered, as evidenced by the fact that we have just renewed our contract for a second time,” he adds.
“Bauba was our very first client, and the fact that they are still using our services almost two years later stands as a testament to our philosophy of value-added, personalised services.
“Our objective is to provide solutions that are tailored to each individual client and which are fit for purpose, along with services that deliver real value. We look forward to building an even stronger relationship with Bauba in the future,” Dawie Bloomberg, MD of Green Apple IT, concludes.
