Q&A: Frank van Rees, MD HP South Africa
What are you most excited about for the next 12 months?
The opportunities to deliver more value to our customers, speeding up time to market for new services and reducing costs significantly with our HP Cloud solutions.
Where does HP fit into the cloud in SA?
HP has a broad spectrum of offerings that extend across the service models (XaaS) and sourcing options (Build, Consume, Manage), i.e. we offer solutions you can build and scale to your requirements in the private space as well as services an enterprise can consume from one of many enterprise-grade data centres today.
If you have an existing cloud implementation, we also offer solutions to help clients manage and secure that environment as well. If a client has not yet started on that journey and is unsure of the route to follow, we offer a business consulting service to help them start the journey and provide full guidance on the organisational changes required to gain benefit – not only in IT, but across the business landscape as well.
What is your biggest challenge, what keeps you awake at night?
To ensure that we leverage from the full portfolio of HP. HP has the broadest portfolio within the IT industry – we are the largest IT company in the world and it is our challenge to make sure our customers benefit from our end-to-end solutions in the most optimal way.
What is your buzzword for the industry in 2012?
Cloud.
Are we seeing enough innovation in the technology space in SA?
Yes, definitely in the mobile space – and the advent of cloud is driving more consumerisation of IT. Fortunately, HP’s commissioned Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions and services to assist in dealing with the governance and security challenges introduced by BYOC/D (bring your own computer/device) is a great opportunity.
What is your staff count and annual business turnover?
HP worldwide has more than 325,000 employees with an annual turnover of $129 billion – we are the largest IT company in the world.
What challenges do you face under the current economic climate?
The economy in South Africa is still growing at a very low pace, meaning that most CIO’s are still facing huge cost pressures and have to do more with less. It is a challenge and an opportunity at same time.
On the one side, companies are more reluctant to invest – but on the other hand, with HP’s solutions we can really help to reduce their costs base, modernise their IT environment and free-up money so there is more room for innovation.
All thanks to HP’s solutions to consolidate, standardise and virtualise the IT infrastructure, and transform their IT into a converged infrastructure which is cloud-ready.
What sales growth or business growth do you forecast in the midterm?
We always strive for profitable growth.
What do you enjoy when away from the office?
Spending time with family, running, windsurfing.
What is your business passion?
Working with my team as the market leader in the industry, doing great things for our customers and growing the business.
What phone do you currently use?
HP WebOS Palm Pre2 (a collector’s item, with fantastic operating software beating iOS and Android!)
Any favourite apps in your library?
Trapster, BBC news
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