Natcom Electronics, the defence communications development contractor, has just gone through a complete, company-wide restructure. Deon Barnard, the company’s Director of Strategy and Business Development, said that significant shifts within the industry had forced the company to respond quickly and radically to these challenges.
Natcom Electronics, the defence communications development contractor, has just gone through a complete, company-wide restructure. Deon Barnard, the company’s Director of Strategy and Business Development, said that significant shifts within the industry had forced the company to respond quickly and radically to these challenges.
“It basically came down to adopting a sustainable strategy throughout the whole structure of the company,” he explained. We have moved up a notch in the system engineering layers to become a module integrator and system installer instead of creating our own new products at circuit board level.”
Barnard added that in the past, the lengthy development cycles had required large components of sustained self-funding which had previously compromised the company’s cash flow. He said that Natcom’s new strategy was to focus on shorter time-to-market projects by drawing on a wider range of commercial and military off-the-shelf (COTS and MOTS) solutions.
“The key was in transforming our development engineering capability into creating and sustaining supply chains of hand-picked, viable products and boosting our system integration competence. Natcom’s value added service is now in the selection, integration and installation of these suppliers’ products into system solutions that meet our customers’ requirements,” said Barnard.
Natcom intends to continue to work closely with government, current partners, system houses and turnkey project providers in supplying the actual installation and product integration layers of larger contracts.
“Previously, Natcom targeted the development of military vehicle intercoms and wireless digital-voice networked products which took years to produce. We now find our attention moving towards far wider capabilities such as industrial system health monitoring, VIP protection technologies, security and surveillance solutions, while still retaining our strong communications experience.
“The difference is now that projects are much quicker and the immediate access to diverse products is astounding. A large portion of our clients require networks, data (wireless) communications, video and vision systems as well as satellite links,” emphasised Barnard.
He reassured that Natcom would continue to target the defence, peacekeeping and armoured vehicle market as they have had significant history and success there. However he added that the petroleum, industrial monitoring, telecoms and security sectors were increasingly looking towards Natcom for their system design and integration expertise.
“We are not a traditional IT or CCTV company but our embedded electronics and defence communications background sets Natcom apart in these markets. Offering niche technology solutions has worked well for us and we will continue to provide tailor-made solutions but over a wider field of expertise,” said Barnard.
“We are currently rolling out a VIP protection system in West Africa that incorporates all the elements of the new Natcom; namely: a six month project turnaround, on-site customer consultation, supplier and technology selection including control consoles, satellite, radio and data communications, wireless direction finding and interception, access control, body scanners, night vision and CCTV systems, as well as integrated vehicle and personal tracking.”
He concluded that the new Natcom was more agile and had increased capability. “As a trained development engineer it was hard to forego our design lab but I am excited about the pace and possibilities that solving the engineering problem by linking existing modules and products brings.”
For more information contact Natcom Electronics, +27 (0)12 804 6750, info@natcom.co.za, www.natcom.co.za
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