CA Southern Africa has officially been launched at an event in Johannesburg. It is now a local company, which forms part of the EOH group of companies (JSE: EOH). ICT is essential for most businesses to function and if used effectively, it can be a competitive differentiator, especially as there is a growing shift towards value added services and solutions.
Gary Lawrence, managing director for CA Southern Africa (“CASA”), says the new company is now perfectly positioned to answer the call from the market to sweat IT assets, automate where possible and leverage IT for competitive advantage.
“We are refocusing the company to ensure that we are viewed as 'the IT management experts',” he says. “We have made significant investments in a local support centre and we are investing in our services business to ensure that we deliver against the IT management experts tag.”
According to Lawrence, CASA is committed to improving the way its customers use IT so that they can clearly see the value that IT delivers to the business.
“Everything we do will be focused around the IT management domain. We will recruit the best people the industry has to offer and we will have the largest team of people dedicated to IT management in the country,” he says boldly.
As part of their new approach to market, CASA will be developing and announcing a range of new offerings in the next six to 12 months, which will include managed services offerings, where CASA will be leveraging the EOH managed services business and data centres.
“Customers want the flexibility and benefits that we will now be in a position to provide in terms of access to specialised or additional skills, on demand SaaS models etc,” says Lawrence. “In many instances, customers want the ability to focus on the strategic value of IT as opposed to running the technology/applications. Some of the solutions will be software-based and others will be services-based, with the objective being to offer customers services that suit their requirements at all levels,” he explains. “We are already in discussions with some of our customers and are building offerings specifically to meet their requirements.”
In February 2009, CA entered into a long-term partnership with EOH, whereby CA transferred all of its employees and infrastructure to EOH. Partnership with EOH, a BEE compliant company, is enabling CA Southern Africa to open new doors for CA products and solutions in the region. “Partnership with EOH has created a fantastic opportunity for CA Southern Africa to expand its solutions in the sub-Saharan market,” says Gilbert Lacroix, Senior Vice-President, CA. “CA has worked closely with CASA to build this model which has placed CASA in a unique position,” he says. “Effectively, CA in sub-Saharan Africa can offer all the value that CA offers in terms of software solutions, best business practices and global expertise coupled with the ability to develop local services offerings and solutions to meet the needs of the local market.”
The EOH group of companies has an exceptional track record of proven financial performance based on its ability to continually add value to a 2 500 strong customer base. In addition, EOH has an unrivalled track record of developing longstanding mutually beneficial partnerships with technology vendors.
“This is a true partnership, and customers and partners will continue to benefit from CA's global expertise, best of breed technology and intellectual property,” says Lawrence. “Our aim is to ensure that our customers get more value from their IT environment,” says Lawrence. “This is something we know how to do. We are focused 100% on IT management and this is why we are the IT management experts,” he concludes.
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