ARC Telecoms and Business Connexion have signed a reseller agreement in a move that will allow the two companies to more effectively deliver enterprise grade IT solutions to South African SMEs. The first product to be rolled out as part of this agreement is an integrated communication and messaging solution called Business Messaging.
The small and medium business sector is a critical one for South Africa. In a 2010 paper on the role of SME job creation in the South African economy, the author Kongolo notes that SMEs provide employment to 76% of the formal economy of the country.
“Anecdotal evidence and researched numbers support the belief that small and medium enterprises have a critical role to play in emerging economies such as South Africa. And yet access to technology, which can radically improve productivity, reduce costs and even increase profitability, is often out of reach. This partnership seeks to redress that by putting robust, enterprise grade solutions in the hands of small businesses, with all the customer service and small business understanding that is required by this sector,” says Steve Briggs, CEO of ARC Telecoms.
“Business Connexion is traditionally an enterprise systems integrator. We have invested a lot of money and time into our infrastructure to ensure it's up to the challenge of servicing massive corporate businesses. We have been looking for the right partner to assist us in taking our solutions into the SME space for some time, and ARC has the business processes and management focus to complement our technology,” says John Jenkins, Chief Executive Services Group, Business Connexion.
Business Messaging, which is a hosted exchange platform, is the first of a range of business solutions for SMEs. “We chose to start with an e-mail-focused offering as e-mail is a business-critical tool for small and medium businesses. When it comes to productivity, always-on e-mail with integrated spam and archiving taps directly into top priority business needs,” says Steve Briggs, CEO of ARC Telecoms.
Additional service offers that the local SME sector can look forward to - from the partnership - include cloud-based infrastructure and software solutions, as well as other productivity enhancing tools.
“We have been looking for a partner in the integrated systems arena that speaks to our SME customer base and Business Connexion's offering is a perfect match,” concludes Briggs.
Notes to editors:
Reference: Kongolo, M 2010. Job creation versus job shedding and the role of SMEs in economic development. African Journal of Business Management.
http://www.academicjournals.org/ajbm/abstracts/abstracts/abstracts2010/4Sept/Kongolo.htm
Media queries:
Miranda Lusiba
Group Manager: Communication, Marketing & Communications at Business Connexion
Tel: 0112909112/0832128624
E-mail: Miranda.Lusiba@bcx.co.za
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