A local publishing house, launched in 2002, Jacana Media publishes a wide range of trade books and manages custom publishing projects for companies and clients.

The Johannesburg-based independent publisher’s list includes political biographies, current affairs, memoirs, natural history, cookery, business, local literary fiction and children’s illustrated books in all South African languages.

Jacana was the Sunday Independent’s publisher of the year in 2006. It employs 12 full-time staff and a host of freelancers for the production of their books.

The business challenge

Connectivity, telephone downtime and bandwidth were some of the issues Jacana Media faced in the past, making it difficult to run smooth daily operations like communicating with customers and stakeholders.

The production department struggled with large file downloads, posing a challenge for productivity. “We had issues sending print-ready files to print and receiving files from freelancers and other co-publishers,” says Jonathan Dhlomo of Jacana’s accounts department.

The publishing house also needed remote and managed IT support to provide seamless communication across the business.

The business solution

When seeking a suitable service provider to check all the boxes on its list of challenges, Dhlomo says Jacana wanted a reliable service, but affordability was a key factor as well. Enter Vox.

In 2017 Jacana Media enlisted the services of Vox to speed up business processes across all departments.

“Vox Verto Supreme is very reliable and worth every penny. It has been value for money. Telephone downtime is a thing of the past. We have control over our communications bill, and we have offsite and onsite support all the time,” says Dhlomo. “And thanks to Vox Fibre, we can now send and receive large files quickly without hiccups.”

During Covid-19 and the necessary move to implement working from home, Vox has benefited the business immensely, says Bridget Impey, MD at Jacana Media.

“The superior equipment and telephony provided by Vox has facilitated ease of working from home as calls can be answered directly on cellphones from Vox dedicated lines,” says Impey.

“The support desk has attended to all queries and fixes timeously, allowing for minimal interruption. Offsite access to our server, arranged by Vox, has been a blessing, especially during Covid-19.”

Overall experience with Vox

Impressed by the impact of Vox’s services on Jacana Media’s operations, the company has implemented more Vox products, including Everlytic digital marketing services, desktop and server support, and Vobi voice service.

“All our departments have been positively impacted by Vox services,” says Jacana Media co-owner Maggie Davey.

To learn more, please visit vox.co.za.