Case Study: South African Government’s Department of Science and Technology achieves a secure, modern digital workplace with Microsoft Azure

South African government department leads in digital public sector success

The Pretoria-based South African Department of Science & Technology (512 employees) needed to modernize its IT after years of fragmented legacy systems—an inconsistent mix of older Microsoft, Linux and open-source tools that hindered file sharing, collaboration, support and security across the organization. Poor internal communications and rising security risks were slowing workflows and limiting the department’s ability to support national R&D objectives.

The department signed an enterprise licensing agreement and, with Microsoft partner Global Computing & Telecoms, migrated to a unified Microsoft stack (Exchange Server 2016, Skype for Business, SharePoint 2016, Active Directory and System Center on a Windows Server/Windows 10 platform). The rollout centralized management, strengthened security, sped up support and collaboration, transferred skills to internal IT, and delivered measurable productivity gains and positive user feedback—about 90% of the deployment was complete by the end of 2016.

South African Government’s Department of Science and Technology

Clement Mtetwa

Director: Information Systems