IFSS Group: A role model of a Pan-African Organization
Updated 6/6/2023 8:00:00 AM
Arab Finance: IFSS Group is a premier pan-African automation, life safety, and security systems integrator with regional offices in Kenya, Egypt, and Nigeria. The founders of IFSS, originating from Egypt, are building a role model for a successful organization in Africa with research and innovation at its core.
Arab Finance has interviewed Mohamed El Kassas, Founder and Managing Director of IFSS Group, and Karim Afifi, Managing Partner of the group. They elaborated on the company’s journey, core vision, and services.
1-Can you please elaborate on the vision behind the establishment of IFSS Group?
The journey behind the formation of IFSS started back in 2003 when the founders were keen on exploring the rich opportunities of Africa and bridging the gaps in the cultures across the continent and its 54 sovereign states. Africa has always been a mirage in the eyes of foreign investors and a major challenge as an investment destination due to its various instabilities (both economically and politically). As the founders originate from Egypt and are privileged to have grown up in its western African part, we had a vision that, with a deeper understanding of the various cultures across its different countries, we would be able to build a role model of a successful pan-African organization that highlights confidence for the rest of the world to safely and confidently invest in the various industries and take advantage of the amazing human resources on the continent.
In 2009, we embarked on the first branch of the IFSS group in East Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. A company focused on automation, security, and safety solutions, capitalizing on Kenya’s rich human capital and understanding the complexity of the different markets within East Africa through the industry of life safety and security, allowed us to accomplish the first organization goal of bridging a wide gap, always considered a concern on our continent: security. Security is always a concern once Africa comes into play, which is unfortunate but true! By being involved in this industry, IFSS Group investors were able to gain a huge network of business relations and establish extensive growth opportunities to broaden their operations to 17 other African countries and also explore opportunities in various other industries.
Today, with pride, the organization has three strategically located offices: Kenya, Nigeria, and finally our beautiful Egypt, the youngest formed in 2015, yet the fastest growing venture. With the country's high demand for investments in infrastructure, the organization will always require the latest in the world of technology.
2-What are the company's core values and how do they influence the company culture?
As a board, our deepest value has always been service—service with integrity, honesty, and creative innovation. Our key strategy to success has always had service at its heart, as a DNA that we have engrossed throughout our organizational hierarchy, ensuring our various teams, in different parts of the continent, serve our customers or the businesses we support with the highest level of integrity. Through the supply of the highest level of cutting-edge technologies from all over the world and the assurance of a highly trained and qualified group of engineers, technicians, well-informed sales and marketing teams, and customer service personnel.
3-What are the services that IFSS Group provides in life safety and security solutions?
The company teams, specifically its research and development department, strive to always dig deep in research of the latest technologies worldwide, and with its rich partnerships with some of the world’s leading manufacturers of Technologies, software, and hardware, such as Honeywell, Johnson Controls, ALC, signify to mention some of the key partners, we always work closely with our customers to build solutions fit for purpose and ensure that our teams on ground of engineers and technicians are able to support a successful installation and commissioning, and always continue to support through the highest level of after-sale service, with our outstanding maintenance and facilities teams across the continent.
4-With advancements in technology comes the threat of a breach; how do you ensure the strength of your security systems?
We have a very active team of research engineers who are dedicated to researching the most advanced technologies to ensure we are steps ahead of getting into any breach by maintaining quality assurance procedures. Our primary goal is to always ensure that our customers are protected. This is IFSS’s key competitive edge and element of success.
5-What are the different vertical markets that IFSS Group serves?
IFSS Group has clients in all different market verticals: telecommunication, hotels, airports, factories, banks, malls, hospitals, universities, schools, residential, and commercial compounds, and we are always in search of solutions for all.
6-How does IFSS Group measure success and what metrics do you use?
Our core value is service; service to our customers, our teams, and humans as a whole. Our success measure is our happy customers, our teams, and our stakeholders. Our ability to continuously retain our teams and we have pride in having a very low turnover of team members, once IFSS, always IFSS!
Our ability to retain customers: IFSS has a record of retaining key customers; some of our key accounts have been with us across the continent for over 9 years, nearly since the company started. IFSS works strategically towards enhancing the lives of the communities in which we operate. We strive to always have a positive impact on the lives of the less fortunate. One of our key goals for success is to enhance the lives of more families by creating opportunities that allow people to find jobs, discover skills, and develop them. We care about numbers and measure our performance annually by the number of families that the group has influenced, as numbers are essential to the success of organizations.
7-As we like to talk in numbers, can you share with us the company’s financial performance in 2022?
With the challenges that we faced in Egypt importing products from our suppliers during 2022 and thanks to our businesses in Kenya and Nigeria, we have been able to achieve an approximate revenue of $7 to 8 million during 2022, with optimistic growth of approximately 25% to 30% for 2023.
8-Can you tell us about any recent projects that IFSS Group has worked on and their impact?
IFSS Egypt is currently supplying the fire alarm system for El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant and Tiba Rose Hotel in the administrative capital as part of the security system at the Egyptian Refining Company (ERC).
IFSS across Africa has several case studies; some of the key accounts are Safaricom (Vodafone Kenya), Airtel, TDB, Open Society, Boston Group, Citibank Africa, across various African countries, and various embassies, from simple standalone systems to highly sophisticated integrated solutions of over 9 to 12 systems integrating seamlessly with one another to support their facilities in one country or across the continent.
9-How do you evaluate the competition in your sector? And how does IFSS Group differentiate itself from its competitors in the market?
Competition is fierce in all kinds of businesses and industries, and we learn from all. The tycoons are many, and we strive to learn from them with all respect.
We, however, always find ourselves in a league of our own, taking our customers through a journey of knowledge and learning together, making our added value to them exceptional in its way, one in which we are in benefit to one another, building win-win relationships that cannot be destroyed by numbers but by deeper values.
At IFSS, we compete with ourselves every day, striving to be better than what we were yesterday and always in the process of making a better version of what we could be for our partners and stakeholders.
10-Which country has the biggest number of your customers? And what are the company’s plans for growth and expansion in the future?
IFSS Group was founded in Kenya, East Africa first. So, we have the biggest base of customers across the East African region (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Zambia, followed by Egypt, and then West Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana).
11-What are the biggest challenges that IFSS Group Egypt faces in the current market?
The challenges any importer is facing in Egypt nowadays are represented in importing our equipment from our suppliers, who have also been facing issues with their supply chain channels since COVID-19 and the Russian-Ukraine War. The challenges of sourcing the FX needed to settle our payments to our suppliers on time are something all major businesses are confronted with at this time. Previous experiences of those before us have taught us that, during challenging times, opportunities arise. Those who dare to take well-considered risks often end up gaining more market share and business. This belief is what drives us nowadays.
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