Telkom appears to be moving ahead with plans to move its head office from downtown Pretoria to its campus in Centurion, already the site of its main network operations centre and its mobile division.
TechCentral first reported in June that Telkom was giving serious thought to relocating its head office to facilities closer to Johannesburg in a move designed mainly to cut costs.
The move could save the company as much as R200m/year.
Telkom’s head office consists of four large concrete office blocks straddling Johannes Ramokhoase Street (formerly Proes Street) on the western side of Pretoria’s central business district.
Telkom has already moved some head office functions to its Centurion campus, which has housed the group’s mobile business and its national network operations centre for years.
Earlier this year, Telkom said it had begun a review of “all owned land and leased network, infrastructure, retail and head office buildings around the country”.
“The objectives of this exercise are to right-size the property portfolio to ensure that Telkom maximises shareholder value from the way in which the company owns and uses its property and to systematically reduce property-related operating costs.”
On Friday, Business Tech, a website, quoted Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko as saying in a letter to staff that the long-term benefits of the move were “undeniable”.
“This move gives momentum to our turnaround strategy and will strengthen our ability to be more dynamic, more engaged and more focused on serving our customers,” he is reported to have told employees. — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Mail
