Sarina de Beer
Sarina is multi-faceted and multi-talented as one would expect from a woman with two master’s degrees and several other academic achievements.
Sarina is multi-faceted and multi-talented as one would expect from a woman with two master’s degrees and several other academic achievements.
Magdalene’s world is one that fuses matrimony, innovative training techniques, progressive study and chocolates – and a vibrant teenager that keeps this world spinning around.
My career started off in the insurance industry as a claims supervisor. Later I ventured into the learning and development sector. Fast forward eleven years, I am now the Head of Talent at Talksure.
Specialist Trainer & Content Design
Team and Business Performance coach
Certified NeuroLinguistic Coach
Chief of Strategy Implementation & Operational Efficiency
Natalie is qualified in Psychology, Short Term Insurance, Human Resources and Business Commerce.
She started her corporate career as part of the start up team for one of the first Direct Insurer businesses in South Africa. Prior to the company’s “go-live”, she enjoyed the privilege of a 6 month Business Management Internship Programme. Within Guardian Direct, Natalie was ultimately responsible for the Sales Call Centre.
Jeffrey is primarily focused on supporting organizations improve performance through COPC Certification and Consultancy services. As Vice-President Digital Customer Experience and Consultancy EMEA, Jeffrey is responsible for the development of the COPC framework in regards of Digital Systems and Digital Channels as well Consultancy services.
Mikovhe Mulaudzi is a young woman who is running a company in the cutting edge of ICT solutions. Mikovhe is a graduate of the university of Johannesburg and runs a company that employs over 40 people most of whom are professionals. MBV IT has developed its own voice platform during the pandemic and offers true value for money for clients especially contact centers.
Abdul is a founder of a telecommunications company Primo Dialler, he has a wealth of experience in sales of tech solutions and running contact centres. His background allows him to resonate with call centre owners, understanding their issues and finding solutions that can work for them.
Navlika Ratangee is currently the Managing Director of ICAS SA. A GIBS MBA graduate and Clinical psychologist with diverse experience in human capital management, behavioural risk, change management, managerial consulting, global management consulting, leadership, women in leadership, organisational resilience and organisational strategy.
Karl Reed is an ICT expert with more than 30 years of industry experience. He currently applies his vast knowledge and experience in his role as Chief Solutions Officer at Pivotal Data, where he delivers a range of basic to highly complex cloud and premise-based contact centres, process automation/workflow, and enterprise unified communication solutions.
Karl combines his strong technical background in multiple fields, including engineering, development, process and product management, complex solution design and architecting, and deployment, with his proficiency in business development, pre-sales, sales and support to deliver a return on investment for clients.
He fulfils an active executive role to connect resources and competencies across the company’s entire sales, solution development, project deployment and support value chain.
Yolande is a contact center professional who believes in the value of people, process, and technology. She is a qualified life coach and NLP practitioner.
She has more than 15 years’ experience in contact centers, where she held roles from agent level to heading up the quality and training functions within BPO’s for various industries and had won the BPESA regional accolade for quality.
Yolande finds herself working side by side with Contact Center Operations Teams and has impressive insight into how effective training and quality can drive performance.
Yousuf Karodia opens the line of communication between clients, customers, and businesses to get the business’s message across its internal and external platforms. With over 5 years in both internal and external communication, Yousuf has experience in management consultation, team building, professional development, strategic marketing implementation, and company collaboration.
Rita Govender is an Accredited Management 3.0 Agile Leadership Facilitator, a Licensed Individual and Team Enneagram Practitioner and Transformational Coach.
Dr. Tahir Khan, fondly called Doctor Bot, is an international business consultant and a traveller of 25 years. During the last two decades of his contact centre & customer service career, he has operated across India, the Philippines, Ireland, UK and South Africa. A post graduate from Moscow, he speaks 5 languages including Russian. His previous roles include, contact centre agent, team leader, operations manager, director and country manager of 3000 people. He specialises in building global contact centres delivering customer service solutions to multinational companies. He is one of the most sought after consultants in the BPO world for his expertise in contract & commercial management, client and vendor relationship management, RFP & SOW engineering, KPI development, cost efficiency and project management.
Company Profile: TRS Consulting Pty LTD
Based in Cape Town- TRS E Management and Consulting, is a provider of range of service offerings for the digital and the physical world through a network experienced and skilled professionals around the world.
TRS is partnering with multinationals, local South African companies, startups and individuals, to bring as many jobs as possible for our talented workforce professionals.
TRS is addressing the gaps in the current system for our youth to develop their skills needed for the new world. To achieve this, TRS is partnering with a range of technology, training and knowledge management companies across the world.
TRS believes we have to build an ecosystem/infrastructure for learners, starting from our kids in schools, youths who have finished schools and professionals who are in need of up-skilling or are looking for better opportunities.
Lauren Potgieter has extensive experience and knowledge of the local and global BPO and contact center outsourcing landscape, and has been involved in this industry for almost 20 years.
Peter is the epitome of enterprise transformation expert. With over 30 years of senior experience, both in the UK and worldwide, he has consulted on, managed, set-up and right-shored large contact centre Sales and Service operations. In addition, Peter has led training and development functions and helped major change initiatives in IT implementations, target operating model transformations and omni-channel service strategies.
Pommie Lutchman is the founder and CEO of Ocular Technologies, the Chairman of the Board at the Contact Centre Management Group or CCMG (the registered professional body of the South African Contact Centre industry) and the Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) of OcularCloud™, Ocular Technologies’ Cloud Solutions division.
In a career that spans over two decades, Pommie played an in integral role in the Business Development and Integration Services divisions at Siemens Enterprise Networks, and, was instrumental in the implementation and management of the MultiChoice Distributed Call Centre network in the late 1990’s.
He now heads up Ocular Technologies, a specialist Customer Engagement & Digital Experience solution provider and tech incubator that provides Intelligent Interaction Management, Robotic Process Automation, Natural Language Processing and Cognitive Analysis & Design, as well as Contact Centre Technologies, Workforce Management & Social Media Integration solutions to the Southern Africa region.
A finalist in the “Top Black Male Entrepreneur” category at the 2011 Impumelelo Empowerment Awards, Pommie features regularly on the South African speaking circuit, providing Thought Leadership insights and advice on topics such as The Consumerisation of IT, Social Media in the Enterprise, Contact Centre Best Practices, Cognitive Computing & AI, and even Generation Theory.
A dedicated and diligent philanthropist, Pommie has committed much of his professional life to giving back to the community and, together with the Ocular team, has concentrated much of his corporate social investment initiatives on Sport and Education in South Africa, while also participating in various local and international fundraising events.
After many years in the education field, Gail moved into Operations Management, Training, Consulting and Coaching where she been working for the past 23 years across multiple corporates that include the financial, insurance, legal, telecommunication, e-commerce and consumer support industries. The work she does integrates directly into Operational activities, helping leaders navigate organisational complexity, their roles and responsibilities and the work they are accountable for. Her professional focus is on the development and sustainability of a competent, capable and robust workforce which supports the VUCA business terrain and helps leaders navigate challenges while building resilience. This places people enablement at the core of her work. She engages with executives, managers, team leaders and frontline staff at ‘the point at which work gets done’ – and delivers a performance partnership that has learning at its centre. Her vision for the work she does is: businesses optimisation through people optimisation.
For the last 30 odd years I have been actively employed in the South African Contact Centre market – in almost equal parts – as either an Employee or a Business Consultant & Trainer.
Over the years, I have had the good fortune to gather hands on operational experience through a career progression from entry level as a Call Centre Agent through Team Leader, Manager, Executive and Director of various Corporations.
In addition to my experience of hierarchical career progression, my Consulting experience has been the source of exposure to lateral working experience across diverse industries and operational functions. This has culminated in my having a thorough and holistic understanding of Service Operations in general and Contact Centres in particular.
As a Service Operations specialist I bring a holistic understanding to the nuances required to achieve sustainable customer service delivery. Customer Experience Management is my personal passion & Contact Centres my particular expertise.
Company Profile: Nodube
READ AS “KNOW-DO-BE”
MARGIE MIDDLETON
Nodube is a B-BBEE Level 2 South African registered Management Consultancy specialising in providing robust solutions in Service Strategy and Customer Expectation Management.
Margie Middleton created Nodube to provide a vehicle for collaboration between a network of experienced professionals with complementary skills and expertise.
The core expertise of the members of the Nodube Professional Network is in the disciplines of Service Operations and Customer Experience Management. Each member has extensive hands-on management experience across a range of industries and in turn has their own area of specialisation.
Nodube is driven by the philosophy that in every facet of business there are things that each individual needs to KNOW, things they need to DO and things they need to BE. By understanding and integrating these three dimensions of individual competence, it is possible to create a collaborative and accountable culture in any organisation.
With cooperation and collaboration underpinning the Nodube Operating Model, each project undertaken by Nodube is in partnership with business owners and both internal and external subject matter experts. This ensures that the unique context of the client organisation and existing institutional knowledge are built into the planning of the improvement initiative to ensure sustainability.
Craig Shalekoff has over 20 years BPO experience. with a proven track record, with ‘hands on’ experience, in developing and implementing major transformation projects and efforts involving large international BPO organisations. Craig has run multiple IT departments and has worked across Africa and Asia Pacific building multiple global networks.
Joel Walker has spent 25 years in BPO leadership roles, most recently as Global Head of Procurement for Vodafone, Corporate Services. Vodafone has over 35,000 agents, with multiple suppliers across multiple markets. He first worked with South Africa BPO providers in 2003 and has moved a number of roles to South Africa over the years.
Tanya Phillips is an accomplished leader and is considered a stalwart of the Call Centre Industry. As Operations Director for some of the leading Outsource Providers in South Africa she has developed comprehensive experience, including multi-site management, inbound and outbound operations and in-sourced, outsourced and co-sourced solutions.
Topic: A venture into vanquishing violence – How do we vanish GBV together?
Topic: WELLNESS – the NWOW (NEW-WORLD-OF-WORK*™) chill-pill for mental health?
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away CCMG held the Annual Contact Centre Conference inviting ‘the force to be with us’ as we became Jedi’s in our quest to find the ultimate solution for all our operational and people challenges…. Yep, that was 2018 … A long long time ago! And who would have thought that in 2020 we’d be conjuring up our inner YODA to source answers to inexplicableness. The song almost got it right – what a difference a year (and a bit) makes!
As most of us believe AFRICA IS CALLING indeed – it’s bunker down time for our contact centre operations to get better getting right what we do so that it’s portable and transportable across the continent. And that absolutely starts with getting our people ‘right’ first.
In our VUCA world, where VUCA 2.0 was promulgated even longgggggerr ago – i.e. 2017… I’m proposing it’s time to look at: ’VUCA 3.0 – 2020 and beyond’. Where we acknowledge that volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguousness IS THE WORLD OF WORK – and not the mastery of a leadership style or a short-term business challenge.
Right now business unusual is where we are at – and we need to REIMAGINE the future (thanks Tom Peters)- or we might not have one to our liking at all. This new future of work is defined by Knowledge Resources as seeing a world driven by ‘collective purpose and well-being’. We need to look at a recovery, reform and regeneration strategy that genuinely has people at its core. Putting aside, though not in any way dismissing the economic crisis business is facing worldwide, we need to take serious cognisance of the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented stress on workers’ mental health. The amount of research being published, and the statistics made available, indicates how critical mental health issues are …not just right now … but for the future of our workforce (and the extended families they support).
As organisations we need to be stronger and self-sustaining – yet more accommodating and collaborative. We need to be resilient, flexible and wise – and we need to see that people are not an HR commodity or a ‘labour-force’ boxed comfortably in the Excel spreadsheet column of Human Capital.
COVID-19 has taught us that when humanness, volatility, vulnerableness and mental health is challenged – there is no capital to tally on the balance sheet. The sum total of our business output is directly proportionate to the sum total of our workforce wellness. This is no longer a discussion for the internal ‘wellness committee’ ; ICAS or Team Leaders to manage in isolation. It’s becoming a corporate strategy line item – if not the number one line item – and it needs to sit on the SOP documentation right there with values, vision, mission, projects and budget bullet points.
The new normal should not the buzzword it’s come to be – it’s the actuality of THE NORMAL every single day. It’s only new because tomorrow is indeed different from today – and that’s normal too, in a VUCA context.
We’ve got this colleagues – and we’ve gotten it before. This time our employees’ mental health just needs to be elevated as a priority. This is not a silver bullet discussion with a packaged solution – and at no time can employers take on mental well-being, and motivation of the workforce for cotton wool soft landings as a corporate deliverable. That’s extrinsic to our sphere of both control and influence. But we certainly need to examine how we can take on the levels of collaboration and engagement – and provide the tools required – for our employees to be better equipped to protect and motivate themselves in the “future as it emerges”!
We can only focus as best we can on ensuring that for all our employees, and also for ourselves, that tomorrow – everyone’s wellbeing and wellness will indeed be better than it was today.
Hello Africa – we hear you calling – and were getting ready as an industry!
Join us for the CCMG conference – its intriguing stuff.
A brief overview of what will be explored:
In May 2020, Rebecca Gibson from Gibson Learning and Performance – a company that plays in the contact centre realm – reconfigured operational intent around two key questions:
Let’s be thinking about this in advance of the conference – as it’s going to come up in a number of the speaker’s presentations – and let’s definitely be asking those questions of ourselves and our organisation, in the meantime.
Biography
After many years in the education field, Gail moved into Operations Management, Training, Consulting and Coaching where she been working for the past 23 years across multiple corporates that include the financial, insurance, legal, telecommunication, e-commerce and consumer support industries. The work she does integrates directly into Operational activities, helping leaders navigate organisational complexity, their roles and responsibilities and the work they are accountable for. Her professional focus is on the development and sustainability of a competent, capable and robust workforce which supports the VUCA business terrain and helps leaders navigate challenges while building resilience. This places people enablement at the core of her work. She engages with executives, managers, team leaders and frontline staff at ‘the point at which work gets done’ – and delivers a performance partnership that has learning at its centre. Her vison for the work she does is: businesses optimisation through people optimisation.
Topic: From Covid Crisis to the New Normal : From Favoured Destination to Winning Businesses – A journey awaits for South Africa
Topic: New Normal Management – Lessons From The Frontline
Topic: The Modern Leader
Topic: Practicing Agile in a Rapidly Evolving VUCA and Digital Environment
Cape Town: June 2020
Durban: July 2020
Johannesburg: August 2020
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31st March 2020
Notification: 4th April 2020
Reviewers: CCMG Advisory Board members
Submit abstracts: https://www.ccmg.org.za/page/2020callforspeakers
Building the Customer Experience Centre of the Future
Noble Systems is a global leader in the customer communications industry, providing innovative solutions for Contact Centre, Workforce Engagement and Analytics technologies. Tens of thousands of agents at client installations worldwide use Noble platforms to manage millions of customer contacts each day. Noble offers a unified suite of inbound, outbound and omnichannel contact processing, strategy planning, resource management and compliance tools for companies of all sizes.
Visit the eSTUDY and BEE Analyst stand to learn more about the essential skills components, namely:
We will show you how BEE Analyst and eSTUDY can help create the ideal learner experience carefully planned to stretch your budget without compromising on learning purpose and objectives.
FurstPerson designs, implements and monitors pre-hire and post-hire talent assessment solutions. FurstPerson’s products include a portfolio of talent assessments and job simulations, which are implemented in over 40 countries. FurstPerson’s tools allow organizations to holistically measure and forecast a candidate’s skill, ability and motivation to perform on the job.
Get a taste of Customer eXperience (CX): Ocular Technologies to demo SA’s first locally developed ‘pizza bot’ at Africa’s Calling 2019
Ocular Technologies to introduce the first local ‘digital employee’, developed by South Africans for South Africans, to CCMG’s Africa’ s Calling 2019 delegates
Come visit the Headset Solutions stand to view the latest Poly (Plantronics + Polycom) and Jabra technologies. Includes hands-on experience with the new Polycom Studio as well as the full range of Plantronics and Jabra Contact Centre headsets. We will also demonstrate the Plantronics Manager Pro software for asset tracking and firmware updates. Visit us at Stand #7 to find out more.
The talk addresses key issues currently facing CX professionals, including:
Primo Dialler specialises in call centre software. Our innovative solutions are designed to integrate with multiple CRMs to create an omnichannel platform.
We will be showcasing our latest contact centre solutions at the exhibition, including our call centre virtual assistant, Agent X, and our AI chatbot for financial services, Atura.
Q-KON SA, part of the Q-KON group, has been importing and distributing VoIP hardware for nearly 20 years. Starting with the well-known Quintum gateways, that was so popular during the PBX-to-SIP migration years, to the latest inclusion of our headset products.
Over the years, we’ve learned that seemingly subtle changes in the work environment can have a huge impact. A friendly ambience translates into greater engagement from your people, which is why axtel encourages you to personalize our products by playing with color. By changing the color of the o-ring, you can create a headset that visually underlines the individual character of your company.
Where Do Old Contact Centres Go to Die?
Living the Promise One Moment at a time
Translating the social paradigm of CX for C-suit impact
Introducing Specific Al into the wild