Case studies

Media multinational Naspers digitises its vast archives with the help of First Coast

As a massive multinational media company, Naspers has an enormous amount of historical paper-based information. These include photographs, illustrations, articles, back issues of publications, documentation, and many more assets.

All South Africans needed to do on election day, 22 April 2009, was make a cross on a piece of paper. But for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), this is where a robust and secure counting process began.

After closing the voting process in more than 20,000 voting districts, boxes full of ballots are sent to 297 counting stations in relevant municipal areas, countrywide.

Dr Morton & Partners is a large radiology business, with over 20,000 patients passing through its nine Western Cape-based practices every month. Each patient visit generates a plethora of documentation: a GP referral letter, proof of medical aid, medical aid authorisation (when needed) and other clinical information.

Distell is Africa's leading producer and marketer of fine wines, spirits, ciders and ready-to-drinks. In their large operation, they were struggling to ensure prompt document delivery to clients and suppliers, as they were relying on information from their SAP system to be distributed via the unreliable postal service.

Dr Tuft & Partners runs three radiology practices in the Western Cape. As the business grew, it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage the many documents that were part of each patient's visit.

Typically these would include a GP referral letter, proof of medical aid, medical aid authorisation (when needed) as well as any other clinical information.

In 2004, one of the biggest problems facing multi-national financial institution Old Mutual was the sheer volume of the 10,000 faxed pages it had to deal with daily. In addition, there were usually crucial time deadlines associated with the faxes. Documents had to be delivered to the right people at the right department within a specified time, as well as being tracked and monitored.With many of these faxes constituting financial documents, security was also paramount.

Media24, South Africa's leading publisher of magazines, books, newspapers and digital products, introduced a black empowerment share offer in 2006 called Welkom Yizani.

In 2002, Naspers Medical Fund was taking care of 12,000 members and 9,500 claims a month.

Finding source documentation for medical aid claims and queries was an enormous problem: it was time-consuming and extremely labour-intensive.

Dilli is an initiative to digitise South African books and make them available in new platforms on new formats to new markets. These include the distribution of digital content via the web and printing on demand for publishers. Dilli is a joint project between ViaAfrika, Media24 and NB Publishers (encompassing Tafelberg, Human & Rossouw, Jonathan Ball and more).