{"id":122931,"date":"2016-05-09T08:23:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T06:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=122931"},"modified":"2016-05-09T08:23:55","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T06:23:55","slug":"seacom-gathers-momentum-in-the-south-african-business-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/122931\/seacom-gathers-momentum-in-the-south-african-business-market\/","title":{"rendered":"SEACOM gathers momentum in the South African business market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pan-African telecoms enabler\u00a0SEACOM<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0has announced that it has grown its South African base of channel partners servicing the business market to more than 65 companies of all sizes, up from 20 in October last year.<\/p>\n

In addition, the telecom operator and its channel partners have been processing orders from business customers at a rate of around 60 a month since it formally launched its full set of business offerings to the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur growth rate is exceeding the aggressive targets we set for ourselves when we soft-launched the\u00a0SEACOM Business<\/em>\u00a0division in January 2015,\u201d says Grant Parker, head of\u00a0SEACOM Business<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve found that there is a great deal of pent-up demand in the business market for high-speed fibre Internet access at an affordable cost. Customers are looking for a killer experience at the end of the line \u2013 the right performance and reliability at the right price,\u201d says Kevin South,\u00a0SEACOM Business<\/em>\u00a0channel manager.<\/p>\n

SEACOM is currently pushing around 50% of its business through channel partners.<\/p>\n

The company plans to retain its focus on developing channel partners as it looks for more growth in South Africa and steps up its business strategy in other parts of the continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain deeply committed to channel partners because they extend the reach for our brand and services, while allowing us to remain lean and focused,\u201d says Parker.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur current focus is on streamlining their experience with us, for example, by introducing powerful self-service tools that empower them to serve their customers faster and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

SEACOM\u2019s key offerings for the business segment include Fibre Internet Access (FIA) with options ranging from 25Mbps up to 1Gbps.<\/p>\n

The company is leveraging its abundant and scalable capacity on its undersea cable system and continent-wide IP-MPLS network as well as the capabilities of its Cloud services such as Security, Back-up, Mail & Archiving, CRM & Virtual Hosting to enable businesses in South Africa and East Africa to smoothly transition to the cloud.<\/p>\n

Says Kevin South: \u201cOur strategy of diversifying our business from bringing low-cost data transmission infrastructure to other service providers in Africa towards offering a full portfolio of services to the business market is paying off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing great adoption of our fibre connectivity as well as of our private and outsourced network solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, SEACOM has fibred up 35 nodes and is looking to work with its connectivity partners to reach more corners of the market.<\/p>\n

Cloud enablement forms an important part of SEACOM\u2019s business strategy, with the company\u2019s network interconnecting directly to various cloud CDN providers & OTT players.<\/p>\n

Connectivity is no longer the inhibitor to cloud, adds South.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are actively building the New Age Telco of tomorrow, with emphasis around automation of systems and process, SDN (Software Defined Network) and NFV (Network Function Virtualization).<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are our building blocks for streamlined acquisition of Internet based products & services for business customers, channel partners and ultimately consumers alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next step for SEACOM will be to ramp up the roll out of\u00a0SEACOM Business<\/em>\u00a0solutions in Kenya, and to start looking at growth opportunities in Uganda, Mozambique, and Tanzania.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese markets are ready for the sort of disruption we can bring,\u201d says Parker. \u201cWe\u2019re excited about the opportunity to bring focused, affordable services to companies on Africa\u2019s east coast.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next step will be to accelerate growth in other parts of Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":122937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[26,39],"class_list":["post-122931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-headline","tag-seacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122939,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122931\/revisions\/122939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}