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How Trident Steel's Divestment Led to Tech Transformation

Following its divestment by Aveng Group in April 2023, Trident Steel Africa finds itself in a crucial phase of technology transition. CIO Duke Mathebula assumed his role a month later and is now tasked with revamping the IT architecture. His focus is on incorporating cloud and other cutting-edge technologies, aligning with the company's digital transformation road map.

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It is still uncommon for a CIO to work on a company’s IT strategy almost from scratch. With the company retaining only 20% of legacy systems, Mathebula views this as both a challenge and an opportunity to redo the remaining 80% from the ground up.

"We are starting with a clean slate, which requires getting the priorities right with multiple projects running in parallel. Simultaneously, it also offers us an opportunity to build a future-ready IT infrastructure without carrying the burden of legacy systems," he said.

Its top priority lies in migrating over 90% of its workloads to the cloud, a significant increase from the current 40%. "Our focus is on adopting a forward-looking approach as we aspire to transition to the cloud and establish the essential elements to become cloud-ready. The design decisions are aligned with creating a robust architecture that can effectively support the business in the future," he said.

In this interview with Information Security Media Group, Mathebula discussed:

• IT transition at Trident Steel Africa post divestment;
• Building new IT capabilities and operating model;
• Architecture design revamp to support cloud and modern technologies.

Mathebula has more than 22 years of experience in the IT domain. He leads the IT strategy and digital transformation initiatives at Trident Steel. Prior to that, he was head of IT - business applications at Saint-Gobain Africa. He is also the chairman of the board for the African SAP user group.