Press Release FAQ

In South Africa, Merchants is the leading Customer Management Outsourcing solution provider. They’re also pioneers in spearheading and positioning South Africa as an offshore destination of choice, and have designed built and operated contact centres in partnership with blue chip clients around the world. Headquartered in Johannesburg at the Dimension Data Campus, Merchants are pioneers in the contact centre industry, with 35 years’ experience in designing, building, and operating contact centres across the globe.

Merchants has grown its market share despite a number of global competitors entering the South African market. Merchants’ strategic vision is to become the first truly digital outsourcer with global capability, providing multi-lingual, omni-channel customer experiences through the deployment of world class expertise and cutting-edge technology.

Click here to view a few Merchants’ customer stories.

Founded in 1977, Millennium is headquartered in Toronto and employs 2,131 staff across five locations in Canada. The company also has an offshore facility in Manila in the Philippines. Today, Millennium serves more than 35 customers in the Canadian market.

Millennium’s growth rate outpaces the industry in Canada. Millennium has a strong client retention rate when compared to other BPO providers: seven years for many of its largest clients. Millennium’s distinctive competitive advantage is its strategic focus on outsourced services in highly regulated industries.

Millennium offers a platform with a broad suite of services across three service towers with a revenue mix of:

• Contact Centre Solutions
• Credit Card Solutions
• Back Office and Administration

Given its focus on client brands where a premium is placed on brand and customer experience, Millennium has focused its client targeting to the higher end of the value scale and more complex interactions. As a result, Millennium has played a more strategic role in its partnerships.

Many of Millennium’s clients utilise its platform for their end-to-end service delivery across the customer lifecycle. The company also designs and delivers the entire customer experience and its touchpoints on behalf of its clients, including the company’s technology platform and suite of digital services. It is on this foundation, that Millennium leverages its Business Insights and Analytics capabilities as a core offering to its clients.

Merchants and Dimension Data are always reviewing the market for potential acquisition opportunities where we believe it will build scale, enhance our offerings, or build on our current strengths, skills and expertise. Discussions with Millennium began nine months ago. Acquisitions of this scale take time to conclude.

Dimension Data/Merchants acquired Millennium for a number of compelling reasons:

• The acquisition gives Merchants a foothold into the North American market for the first time since the company’s inception.
• The acquisition increases Merchants’ ability to respond to client demands – especially credit card services.
• Millennium dominates the Canadian BPO market in the Financial Services/Credit Card market, with its bespoke end to end service offering. These solutions are highly transferrable to the US and other geographies.
• Millennium offers multi-lingual capabilities (English, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish) across voice, email, and other digital platforms, as well as IVR services for clients.
• The acquisition provides Merchants with a multi-geography presence (five of the six top competitors in South Africa have significant multi-national presence).
• Millennium has a strong and highly knowledgeable executive management team with broad mix of experience in captive and BPO environments.
• There’s a good cultural fit between Dimension Data, Merchants, and Millennium.
• Millennium has long-standing client relationships: the average age tenure of its top five clients in its Contact Centre and Credit Card Processing divisions is eight years; and six years for Back Office.
• The acquisition gives Merchants access to higher revenue-generating markets; to scale to enable investment; and to accelerate the digital imperative.
• Extends Dimension Data/Merchants value proposition and provides access to Millennium’s North American clients.
• Increases valuable skills which are difficult to find.

The details of the transaction are confidential.

The two companies have a mid-to long term plan in place to transition the two business. We will not rush this process, as we need to ensure our employees are communicated to about any changes. The transition process will take time. For the next few months, it’s business as usual. Any changes will be communicated clearly and timely with all employees prior to being rolled out.

This is a positive move for both Millennium and Merchants employees.

• Employees have access to the skills, experience, and solutions and services offerings of both Merchants and Millennium. This will also greatly benefit our clients.
• Employees of both companies have new colleagues to engage with, and are able to develop new skills in technologies, markets and verticals.
• The mission of the Dimension Data Group (globally) is to offer our employees tremendous career development opportunities.

Training will be provided to employees. In the first 100 days, Merchants’ HR workgroup, together with
Millennium will identify the near-term training opportunities. For employees wanting a high level overview of all companies, please visit www.dimensiondata.com / www.merchants.co.za; and www.millennium1solutions.com.

Both companies will continue to offer their existing services and solutions, and continue to deliver to client’s requirements. The attention of the employees of both organisations remains firmly on our clients and the market, and the management of both companies are committed to communicating any changes which may occur with all our clients.

No changes are planned in the solutions and services portfolio in the short term. In the medium- to long term, we plan to leverage the strengths of Dimension Data, Merchants, and Millennium to ensure we provide our clients with new and complementary services and solutions offerings.

Our companies already have the ability to negotiate favourable terms on behalf of their clients. We’re always exploring and negotiating better terms for our clients. This is an on-going commitment. We will continue to provide market-competitive pricing that enables our clients to benefit from economies of scale. Our aim is to always provide our clients with compelling solutions with the associated business value.

No. All contracts will remain in place.

No. All contracts will remain in place.