Alcatel-Lucent has appointed Alain Penel as the company's new VP for the Middle East and Africa region.
The international ICT solutions provider says with the merger of Genesys, Penel will play a vital role in the development and drive of the company's new channel strategy. Last month, the company pulled together two of its portfolios, Genesys and Enterprise, which it hopes will extend its “market reach”.
According to Alcatel-Lucent's director of marketing for the region, Roch Muraine, the merger will also bring a new go-to-market strategy, which will include a second tier of resellers, or indirect resellers, to access the next market level.
Essentially, the company will be allowing resellers to on-sell to their own resellers, which in turn grabs a new customer base, previously inaccessible to Alcatel-Lucent. The company's partner base includes some of the larger African telecoms providers, which will give it access to some of the larger corporate clients.
One of the larger customers is Allied Technologies Kenya business Kenya Data Networks (KDN), which has been boosted by the arrival of Seacom on the country's shores. “We are in discussions in SA with several carriers; we are hoping to close a deal before the end of the year,” explains Muraine.
Penel says in his new position he will drive the company's growth on the continent. “We expect great things for 2010. We are bringing in more resources in presales and sales, because we need to be strong in larger accounts.”
He says his focus will be to make the company's African partners into a “real community”, including bringing in more BEE aligned partners in the indirect model. “We are proud of our customer coverage, but we are still expanding,” he concludes.
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