South African IT figure Guy Whitcroft will soon return to SA in a bid to turn around distribution company IT4Africa and boost its revenue by between three and four times in the next few years.

Whitcroft, who has been out of the country for the last seven years in various positions in Dubai and the UK, says he will be responsible for turning around the troubled company’s operations in the English-speaking countries in Africa.

IT4Africa is a subsidiary of the multinational Computer Information Systems Group (CIS) and distributes products into Africa, which is its focus area. It was established in 2001, but recently went through internal strife that impacted the company’s ability to function, says Whitcroft.

Whitcroft is known locally for his 15-year career with distribution group MB Technologies and nine-year role as CEO of Tarsus.

With nearly four decades of experience in the IT sector, Whitcroft has covered technical, marketing, sales and operations management with multinational vendors, distributors, resellers and end-users in markets spanning Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As a result of the internal issues, which Whitcroft cannot elaborate on as there are prosecutions pending, the group shrunk considerably, he notes. However, CIS is committed to rebuilding the company and Whitcroft aims to grow it into a “substantial” distributor in the next few years.

Although the group operates in the same space as Tarsus Technologies, it is different in that it only tackles the African market, he says. Whitcroft, who will be CE of IT4Africa, can see the company expanding into aggregating goods and services.

Currently, Whitcroft runs Business Advisors & Services, which is a UK-based general business and management consultancy. In October 2012, he was appointed as interim MD of JSE-listed Business Connexion’s London branch.

Whitcroft says IT4Africa will also hire more staff and will expand the local head office, as well as the branches in Namibia and Botswana. He notes it draws on CIS’s head office for back-office skills. “It’s quite fun, [being] able to pick my team and put it together.”

CIS, which is based in Lebanon, operates in around 30 countries and turns over about $400 million a year, says Whitcroft. He notes its business is a mixture of volume and value-added distribution and services. “It’s a nice business.”

Currently, IT4Africa has around 30 staff members, which will be boosted to about 50, says Whitcroft. He notes Africa has a growing middle class and many economies are gaining at between 7% and 9% a year, giving the sector great growth potential, although this has not been quantified.

Whitcroft expects a big jump in the use of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones in Africa, and hopes IT4Africa will have a first-mover advantage on the continent as this is its primary focus.