Cheers to 10 years

A decade since its inception in March 2015, Evotel, like any other company, has been hit by challenges over the years but managed to keep its grip on South Africa!

Despite a relatively small team of dedicated individuals, the company has managed to hold its own in a highly competitive South African market against some of the biggest names in the business. Evotel has made it its mission to serve its communities with both fiber-to-the-business and fibre-to-the-home, utilizing the open access model, (allowing the top ISPs to serve clients on its network.)

The Founder, Albert Oosthuysen, built up the brand from scratch with a skeleton team dedicated to the core. Today, the company is a massive enterprise that employs over 100 committed employees, multiple subcontractors, SMME’s and has built network access to just under 150 000 homes and businesses across the country.

This milestone is an achievement that many companies in this industry will never reach, as the competitive markets can make capital-heavy businesses like this, a difficult, expensive, and risky exercise.

In honor of the year’s festivities, The Evolution Magazine team spent time with the longest-serving employees, to get unique insight into the inner workings of this South African brand. Most of them agree that Evotel is a great brand and are looking forward to many more years of service, dedicating themselves to playing their part to help to turn Evotel into a massive brand.

We reported a couple of years ago about a Rant-en-Dal resident, Piet Nel, who is the first client to jump onto the Evotel network in its genesis area in Krugersdorp. He explains his experience;

“I am ecstatic with my Evotel fibre network! I almost forget that I have fibre and internet, because I don’t have to think about it,” he said at the time.

The first schools followed, having the honor of being among the first to be connected with free access to the internet. Starting with Monument Primary School, Krugersdorp High School, St Ursula’s School, Diederichs Technical High School, and CURAMUS School of Autism, Evotel has now connected more than 100 schools across SA.

We thought that our readers would like to know what it’s like to work for Evotel for almost a decade. So who are the longest-standing Employees other than founder Albert Oosthuysen?

She has been with Evotel since 2017, celebrating her eighth year in April since she quit retail and jumped onto the moving telecommunications train.

And she doesn’t regret ever leaving retail where she says was limited to selling, and had little to no learning or growth opportunities of any sort.

“It was the best decision that I’ve ever made in my career,” said the cool as cucumber Group Accounting Manager.

“I’ve always prayed to be in the corporate world. In retail I was limited to selling; you just sell stuff, but I wanted a challenge. Now I know everything about the telecommunications industry and Evotel. I understand all the roles today. I’ve grown with this company, and been promoted three times since I started.     

Sbo said that the telecommunications industry was a different atmosphere for her compared to retail, but she has grown to understand and enjoy it.

“When I joined, I had minimal experience within the finance department. But being under the leadership of the then Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and shareholder, Steven Auf, I grew a lot.

“He needed a finance administrator and that is when I started with minor things. He then promoted me to an accountant within six months of working with him. As time went by, I added Payroll, Installations, Marketing, and Support experience to my resume. Basically, I’ve done almost everything. At that time we were three and would rotate responsibilities. Finance was my prime focus and I’ve jumped onto the other roles because we had 10-12 employees at the time.

At the time when I joined the company, I didn’t know what the vision of this was, but the chief executive sat us down and shared with us. We just let Albert lead us and we followed.”

In all, she believes the future looks good for Evotel as there will always be a need for the internet for the centuries to come.

Andrew joined the company back in 2016. Initially he was hired with the purpose of doing quality assurance on the existing Evotel network and making sure what was already built was built well. But shortly after starting with the company, Albert had a vision for him and he was pulled into doing planning for builds in new areas, ensuring from the start these areas were built to the highest standard and fixing the issues with the previous network at the same time. “At the beginning, we were trying to figure out the best ways to deliver the services people needed. Now we’re at a point where we are defining how everyone should do it. We’ve gone from being in the shadows to leading the way for the industry.”

“I’ve been here for a long time. I’m looking forward to growing with this good company. To me, it’s a huge company with great future prospects. It’s been growing fast since I’ve been here, I’ve been promoted enough, and though I joined the company with previous experience in my field Evotel has taken me to greater heights in the five years ive been here.

“The future is bright for Evotel. Internet at people’s houses and in places where it hasn’t been traditionally available is only the first step in unlocking all the other potential that comes with access. When you’re at all these conferences where they talk about AI, Wi-Fi, the 4IR and all these technologies, you realize that access to information is the enabler of progress. The internet is anything that you want it to be, from a teacher to an entertainer. Considering the impact that the internet has had on my life and the lives around me, I’m very excited about what amazing technology is going to replace the internet.”

“I started my tenure here as a receptionist and I’m still doing exactly that, booking travel, and accommodation, answering and directing calls, and many many other things. This company has grown and grown. I’ve joined this from a mining company and I’ve also been in the banking, vehicle and assets industry. I have always been involved in administration. Evotel has taken off fast blossoming from when we were still small at Desmond Road, to now our larger premises I’m sure it will grow a lot more. I love managing the reception desk, it’s fun that I’m at the front door and everyone knows me, and love getting to know all the interesting characters.”  

“When I joined this company, it was only seven of us. I started as an Installations Coordinator and moved on to Support Agent, then Senior Support Agent all the way to being NOC (Network Operations Centre) agent and NOC supervisor and finally manager. NOC is where we look after the whole network. If there is an outage, I will have to know why, and ensure that its fixed as quickly as possible. I come from a background in fibre. I learned the skills from different fibre companies, learning all about how ONTs, OLTs, routers and backhaul work. As an ambitious person I’m very happy with the growth of the company. We trust the process and share the vision. The future looks amazing for us and we will be creating many other things.”

“There’s a lot of growth in the company; I started as Installations Coordinator.  Back then it was just a few of us in a small office. Fortunately there are still many more opportunities coming for all staff members. It’s unbelievable how I’ve grown with the company, an fact that rings clear everyday for me. They say that time flies when you’re having fun, and time has flown by. Thanks for the opportunity, Evotel. It’s a rough business driven by numbers all the time. But you learn something new from different people every day and have a fun while doing it.”

“Since I’ve started here, the company has grown a lot. Things have changed. I started here as a Junior Graphic Designer and I’ve grown into a Marketing Manager. I’ve got a dream to grow this company to a much bigger brand, recognizable across all of South Africa.”