BY LUKE MULUNDA
In 1980, two guys working for the same company met for a chat over coffee. Nazir Noordin and Rajoo Patel had seen an opportunity in the market and decided to set up a company to supply photocopying machines, which grew into Copy Cat Group.
“Our friendship thrived during that time and both of us had a desire to own a business,” says Noordin, who later became the company’s managing director.
In 1984 they registered Copy Cat Limited, which started in January the following year. With aggressive marketing and networks, Copy Cat quickly became a household name in the market. “The Copy Cat name even turned into a rhyme amongst school going children and parents,” he says.
The primary business model then was to offer quality equipment with support and service facilities, but the company has grown into a full-fledged regional office automation and ICT solutions provider.
Noordin, now chairman, recently handed over the reins of the company to Vishal Patel, his late partner’s son, who is now tasked with taking it to the next level.
Mr Patel, who has worked with the company since the early 1990’s, says his plan is to maintain growth momentum and expand the Copy Cat’s scope both locally and in the regional markets. “With the team we are building, our competitive edge will remain innovation as the world gets even more connected,” said Mr Patel.
He said growing regional economies present huge opportunities for technology companies, noting that technology spend as a percentage of GDP is growing and will increase into the future.
Besides office automation and security, it’s adopting and deploying smart digital technologies. Copy Cat is undertaking big impact projects centered on connected retail, manufacturing, smart buildings and smart cities. It is involved in creating a smart mall at the Karen HUB in collaboration with Safaricom.
“We are also developing a mobile integrated platform that will serve the Two Rivers development in Nairobi. This solution will provide location analytics, indoor mapping and way-finding, event management, marketing and promotion and features alerts,” he says.
These few projects point to the new direction that the company is taking deep into managed services, leasing and managed print services, cloud-based services, transformative turnkey solutions and information technology consultancy.
Mr Patel, who started out for BMTL Tanzania (Now Copy Cat Tanzania) in 1994, moved back to Kenya 10 years later where he has been understudying the founding CEO.
He said in an interview immediately after he was announced managing director that the company will focus on emerging technologies that have been globally acknowledged by CIOs as the driving force, which include digitization & internet of things, analytics, big data, cloud, managed services and security.
Its customer base in derived from governments, parastatals, cellular and internet service providers, banks and financial service institutions, hospitals, universities, schools and major corporations.
Even as it supplies everything from physical and perimeter security systems to sophisticated cash handling equipment, structured cabling, networks, data centers, network security systems and software, it still retains its heritage: it still supplies latest technology photocopiers and printers.
Copy Cat employs almost 600 people in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda with officers in Nairobi, Eldoret, Kisumu, Mombasa, Entebbe, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Mwanza. “We view East Africa as one of the most exciting places to be on the African continent right now. East Africans embrace new technology,” he said.
At thirty years of age, Copy Cat is now walking among giants –partnering with globally renowned technology leaders like Cisco, Oracle, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Glory, Godrej, Riso and Ricoh.
