Cisco, Comztek Unite to Deliver in Mauritius

Built off of the back of a historically solid and mutually beneficial business partnership across the African continent, the relationship between Comztek in Mauritius and its vendor partner Cisco is also set to ramp up significantly in 2014, as the two have several plans in place to better service customers.

“African companies face numerous challenges that include the ability to service their customers, reduce time for deliveries, and then the ever present skills dearth that continues to plague our continent,” says Vrigesh Futta, account manager, Africa at Comztek Africa.

“Within our own business we have managed to overcome many of these challenges as a result of the fact that we are a member of a global company, namely our parent company Westcon, and subsequently tap into a network of vendor relationships, skills and expertise that extend far beyond our own borders.”

According to Futta, the benefits of being part of a global distribution house has also enabled Comztek Mauritius to ensure that its reseller customers can tap into superior technical skills and on the ground assistance to support projects. This aligns closely with the company’s vision of being a value-added distributor in all of the regions it has a presence.

Another differentiator that sets Comztek apart from its competitors is that it is able to meet the stock requirements of customers due to its extensive network of warehouses, relationships with vendors and its proven understanding of logistics as well as its in country relationships and understanding of each region’s clearance requirements.

“Looking ahead we intend to leverage all of the aforementioned business differentiators, with particular reference to our delivery of Cisco products, and work with our local resellers to ensure that they can aggressively drive these solutions to market. To this end we have hosted Cisco Boot Camps, with more to follow, that provide local businesses with the necessary skills and information they need to better deliver Cisco solutions,” adds Futta.

Comztek Mauritius, working with Cisco, is also planning an official launch event that will provide its reseller customers with a full overview of the vendor’s product portfolio and highlight synergies and potential opportunities they may deem relevant for their customers.

With a team of experienced Cisco personnel from across the globe the Comztek team also intends to help customers with business, skills and even marketing and sales services where these may not exist in their own companies.

“At Comztek we aim to closely align ourselves with our resellers in order to provide them with the support they need to grow their Cisco business. We hope to achieve this by acting as an extension of their teams and providing support where the skills may be lacking within their own business,” mentions Futta.

This model has to date acted as a major differentiator as the growing need for Cisco products in the region is currently fuelling the demand for on the ground skills to assist in designing, implementing and supporting the Cisco solution portfolios.

“Interest in Cisco is definitely growing, specifically around the fact that the company has announced its intention to be a 100% cloud based business via the new Cisco Meraki cloud range. Unification of business processes, video, VoIP, Webex services, and free Jabber, by way of its Cisco BE6k virtualised offering is also setting the standard in convergence and leading the way in next generation networking,” adds Futta.

This is with particular reference to the growing need for virtualisation and datacentre technologies, mobile BYOD strategies and support, and the associated improvements in networking required as a result of the growth of the new Internet-enabled era we are moving to, and that which African countries are fast embracing.

Vendor brands supported by the Comztek Mauritius office include: Cisco, Avaya, Kaspersky, Fujitsu and Gateprotect.