Spectrami has announced that it is opening a new office in South Africa. The company then plans to get into East and Southern Africa along with the Indian Ocean Islands. The company has long term plans for the entire sub-Saharan Africa to be served from the South Africa office.
Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami, said, “South Africa is among the top four markets in the Middle East and Africa region. Thus, it makes sense for us logically to enter into the market as a part of plans to increase our footprint in the region. We also see the right indicators in terms of market conditions, customer requirements for the technologies we represent, and willingness from our vendors to get into the market.”
The new office will be headed by Hugh Donald Ross Watson, Country Business Representative, South Africa, Spectrami. Watson has worked with brands such as Actifio, IBM, Stortech, I-Fusion, and EMC. “South Africa has undergone economic and industrial development in recent years, and these steps have contributed to an increased uptake of the latest IT solutions and services on the regional market,” Choudha said. “The opening of an office in South Africa reflects Spectrami’s commitment to the African market. The new office will enable us to further improve our client service in South Africa by shortening client response times and by providing us with a more in-depth understanding of local business conditions and key IT requirements.”
Initially, Spectrami will have one full time employee stationed at its South Africa office, who will be supported by the company’s existing technical team in Dubai, UAE. The company plans to induct an additional technical resource in the coming quarter, and hopes to have a team of four employees by the end of the year. “South Africa is a mature market and we see customers pretty much having the same problems as we have seen in other markets we represent in currently. These challenges are related to areas such as security, data protection, data management, storage explosion, and mobility management. Hence, we definitely see opportunities in effectively all the technology stacks that we represent,” said Choudha.
Watson highlighted how last year the government in South Africa enacted the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI). “This is causing lots of customers to actively look at mobility and DLP as a requirement and they are making an active effort to acquire those technologies,” he said. “So we see a very good opportunity for our products from Good Technology and Verdasys in that market. To start with, we will be taking Actifio for copy data storage, Violin Memory for All Flash Array, Good Technology for Mobility, and Logrhythm for SIEM technologies in the South African market.”
