In 1993, the first GSM Networks were installed in Africa opening the door to exciting new business opportunities in the telecommunications sector. 4C Group’s journey began a decade later when our pioneering founder, Rudolph Du Plessis, combined his extensive on the ground experience in information technology with a desire to solve some of the continent’s biggest technology challenges.
With a firm belief that data is the best fuel for innovation, and a keen awareness of the unique set of challenges presented by the continent’s diversity, Rudolph and his dynamic team set about designing information management solutions for Africa in Africa.
And so, the iNSight Solutions Suite was born – a robust, scalable, secure, and affordable solution specifically designed to support enterprise data management in the telecommunication sector.
It’s About Time to Insight
Data quality has always been in iNSight’s DNA and this allows us to unlock the true value of data in new ways. Our ability to provide a complete and consistent view of a business at any point in time enables our clients to make informed critical decisions and improve operational efficiencies. We achieve this by reducing their time to insight.
Over time, we have amassed extensive industry-specific knowledge that has allowed us to evolve in close alignment with the needs of Africa’s telecommunication industry. We now offer broad functionality across several domains critical to mobile network operators, including information management, business assurance and business systems, which has been adopted by many of telecoms biggest players.
Disrupting traditional financial models
One of our biggest innovations has been our movement into the disruptive fintech space, which was jump started by a sharp increase in mobile penetration across Sub-Saharan Africa and the arrival of Mobile Money in Africa in 2008.
What is Mobile Money, you may ask? Simply put, it is a mobile financial service that is now widely offered by Mobile Network Operators in emerging markets where large parts of the population are either unbanked or underbanked. This digital payment platform allows for the transfer of money between mobile phones and SIM-enabled devices so users can receive, withdraw and send money without being directly connected to the formal banking system.
We developed the iNSight Payment Gateway to enable our clients to harness this technology. Over the years it has expanded to offer more advanced financial functionality including Customer 2 Business, Business 2 Customer, and Business 2 Business payments, as well as point of sale enablement.
The integration of additional value-added services, such as utility services, insurance, loan origination, event ticketing, lay-bys and much more, has further enhanced the value proposition that our platform brings to the market by simultaneously generating revenues and enhancing user experience and retention.
Today our fintech solutions provide mobile financial services to millions of mobile money users across Africa on behalf of our customers, and that number is growing daily.
Our commitment to Africa
By supporting Communication Service Providers in their transformative journey towards becoming Digital Service Providers, 4C Group continues to play an integral part in enabling digital and financial inclusion that drives economic growth and expansion in Africa.
With current operations in, South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, and Mauritius, we have an extensive African footprint. We pride ourselves on creating local employment opportunities in each of the markets we operate in. We are committed to creating a highly-skilled workforce through knowledge sharing and critical skills transfer, while harnessing local knowledge of culture and customs to ensure we provide a solution with the best fit possible.
Where to from here?
Over the last 18 years our agility has allowed us to evolve from data management specialists to a company that has kept our clients on the cutting edge of technology.
As Africa moves into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and exciting new technologies like 5G and the Internet of Things begin to gain traction, we are confident that we are best positioned to continually deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving information and financial technology challenges of enterprises that operate in emerging markets.
There is a lot more to come from 4C Group, so watch this space!
