Matrix Communications Group’s (Matrix Group’s) medium-term goal is to set up a future-fit business ready to position itself as a pan-African business. To achieve this, the group has partnered with Isaac Nkama, a renowned and respected foresight strategist and professional futurist, to establish a consultancy called Africa Foresight Consulting, and Zindi – a group of African data scientists who will help make sense of the numbers.
They have also acquired specialist agencies over the last nine months, including most recently SoulProviders Collective, a creative agency. Their new tagline ‘The sum of us’ talks to the essence of the real and authentic relationships they have built with their teams and current partners.
‘The Matrix Group is excited about these partnerships as we believe they will help propel our footprint, and also allow us to tap into local talent in each country to solve business pain points within the continent to future-fit our group. These are the skills required to drive business solutions and broadly the African economy post the pandemic,’ said Dineo Mahloele, managing director of Matrix Group.
Zindi has built a platform that provides Africa’s young talent with the tools and experiences, and the skilled labour force is deployed to solve Africa’s and the world’s most pressing business and social challenges through data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
Mahloele added: ‘The group has also partnered with Fieldstone Helms, part of BFH Group based in Kenya, as well as Peacock Media in Lagos, Nigeria, as we believe creativity will continue to be at the heart of the recovery for the African economy as we try to live with and post the pandemic. Both agencies will allow us entry points for partners who wish to do business in East and West Africa. When travel opens up, we will continue to seek opportunities in countries like Senegal and Rwanda, and possibly Egypt in North Africa.’
‘At the heart of the group’s existence, however, and possibly our key differentiator will be the launch of the Social Cohesion Foundation of South Africa (Socofsa) in the next quarter. We believe the only way we are going to drive business growth is by understanding our people in our country, and over time the continent. In return, the group will have access to the data collected by the foundation within all the cities and provinces in the country, and, together with the data scientists and research company, will curate insights and tools as well as localised content that will be key to our ideation and problem-solving for our clients. We want to be known as a continental creative hub that’s strong in business strategy, not just as agencies,’ said Mahloele.
According to the company, Africa needs to redefine what global means – we need to be at the heart of what the word global will represent. Not a Eurocentric benchmark, but one influenced by the continent to be a ‘glocal’ company – locally and globally relevant.
To celebrate Africa Day, which took place on 25 May, they partnered with Good Governance Africa (GGA), which is an NPC led by Chris Maroleng, global advisor and SADC executive director of GGA. The organisation exists to improve governance performance across the continent and on this appropriate day, they launched the interactive Africa Digital Databank (ADD), a searchable database created into one databank with application programme interface (API) functionality and metadata coding.
‘We are proud of the work we have created, which amounts to an encyclopaedic overview of the continent and will serve as a useful reference guide for academics, students, corporates, marketers and government entities for many years to come. Additionally, it is easily accessible and clients can access the latest available data,’ said Maroleng.
MATRIX COMMUNICATIONS GROUP
www.matrixgroup.co.za
