Aptronics has merged with Cape Town-based reseller In Touch, acquiring 51% of the company to extend its customer reach in the Cape market. Aptronics will provide its clients with the well-established branding and service levels that its Gauteng clients enjoy.
Says Nick Dahya, operations manager at Aptronics: "We have had a strong working partnership with In Touch for the past four years. The relationship was born out of the requirement to service our customers with multi-site environments. In Touch provided the skills, service and support for our clients with sites in the Cape Province. The relationship was reciprocal as Aptronics would service and support In Touch`s customers with sites in Gauteng."
The merger is a win-win situation as it provides branding and expansion of Aptronics into another region and allows In Touch to leverage many benefits associated with Aptronics` resources. In Touch will be renamed Aptronics Cape.
Dahya says: "We plan to develop Aptronics Cape`s resources and skill sets and provide them with the opportunity to tap into the resource of skills in Gauteng, expand their exposure to new technologies and through this, offer a broader range of solutions with extended support to its clients."
Aptronics has built up strong vendor and distributor relations that the Cape office can leverage through credit lines and technical information. This move has elevated In Touch to a new level as new markets can be approached.
In Touch was traditionally a reseller that focused on the small and medium enterprise (SME) environment but can now expand its business opportunities to the corporate market with the support, knowledge base and established relationships from Aptronics. The SME market will still be part of its core focus and it too will benefit from the additional resources, skills and support.
Says Nathan Dean-Brown, MD of In Touch: "The merger is an extension of our existing relationship with Aptronics. Our customers are assured of their continued levels of support along with the added benefits of dealing with a larger, well established, consolidated organisation. Future and existing inter-provincial customers now have single points of contact enabling seamless change management across the regions. We are a focused services company deploying our strong brand of IT solutions known as Aptronics into the market."
Dean-Brown will be managing director of Aptronics Cape. The staff complement will remain the same.
Says Anil Pema, managing director of Aptronics: "An important consideration with the merge was that In Touch`s core values are closely aligned to Aptronics` values. Service to customers is paramount to both organisations which made the decision an easy one and the transition of company culture irrelevant. In Touch is also a black empowered (BE) business which is an additional advantage to Aptronics, already a BE organisation."
The immediate plans for Aptronics Cape will be to further skill up the branch through additional technical and sales vendor certification and to strategically expand the business and grow the Aptronics brand of IT support services.
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