One of the growing ICT firms in the country, Sparc Systems Limited, has celebrated five years of existence with a promise to make Malawi the hub of offering ICT certification trainings in Africa the same way India is to the world.
Sparc Systems held a colourful cocktail at Sunbird Mount Soche Hotel on Thursday where its outstanding staff were rewarded.
The company’s Managing Director, Wisely Phiri, said despite a shaky start the firm has registered massive growth from a team of only 3 people to about 250 and also extended to other countries.
“We have grown into having 5 branches in three African countries, that is Blantyre-Malawi, Lilongwe-Malawi, Kigali-Rwanda, Lusaka-Zambia and Copperbelt in Zambia. We have grown from a company of three people to now having over 250 employees (46 permanent employees across the Sparc group and over 200 temporary employees working on various projects). This is a huge milestone bearing in mind that we require highly skilled employees with a minimum of a degree,” he said.
Phiri said the company has done implementations in about 10 African countries including Ghana, Bukina Faso, Sierra Leone amongst others.
“We have been flying our engineers from our bases. This growth is mainly due to the skills levels we have. We invest a lot in skills for our employees. Our Sparc Educational Services has been in the middle of training our employees and we have opened this up to offering certification training for other ICT professionals out there.
“Our engineers are certified to the global level meaning that if a company calls an engineer from the USA for example they will find out that they have the same certifications that the Sparc Engineers have.
“Our engineers are on the ground which mean they can respond to issues within minutes as compared to companies involving engineers from overseas who are costly in terms of moneys as they will charge air-tickets and accommodation and also in terms of time for an engineer to fly from overseas to these African countries,” said he.
Phiri said at Sparc they work as a family meaning information is shared amongst the employees and no one looks down on another person.
“At Sparc we work with a vision that is to be the best Skills based ICT company in Africa and this vision is shared amongst all employees. This is a great milestone for us. As you might be aware critical time for businesses is the first two years. Those are make or break moments for start-ups. As Sparc Systems we are talking of 5 years of existence, 5 years of offering premium enterprise ICT services to African companies and business which not only include enterprise ICT for telecoms, banks and government but also offering ICT trainings and certification exams to enable ICT professionals be recognised on global level,” he said.
During the cocktail, Sparc also rewarded some of its outstanding staff.
Sandra Mulatho won the 2018 Top Performing Employees Award for her work in Sparc Education Services and Exams Administration whereas Robert Ward (who is our Senior Systems Engineer) won the Best Service Delivery Employes Acward.
Chikondi Koloko, who is the Head of Technical Support Services was named the Longest Service Employee Award while Alena Chiwaya, who is the Head of Sales and Marketing, won the Top Sales Award.
Each one of them went away with a certificate and MK 500,000 from the company.
Sparc Systems Rwanda Technical Sales Manager, Srimal Rajapaksha, and his Zambian counterpart, Misheck Mweemba said the company is registering massive growth in those countries.
