EMC plans to identify new target markets following the recent appointment of Inana Nkanza as its country manager in southern Africa.
According to Nkanza, his primary role will be to speed up the development of EMC business in the mid-market and reinforce the company's presence in large customer accounts. He will also focus on driving EMC's cloud computing strategy to the market.
”My strategy for this year is to clearly define new target markets and create specific solutions to address these industries' needs,” explains Nkanza. “We will also reorganise and supplement our staff complement to address these growth initiatives,” he adds. “We have aggressive growth targets and will be skilling-up to be able to deal with this growth in 2011.”
Nkanza points out that EMC is improving its storage infrastructure and management solutions through research and development and boosting its cloud computing strategy.
Earlier this year, EMC signed a partnership agreement with VMware and Cisco to form a coalition called the Virtual Computing Environment. The coalition aims to drive cloud computing by virtualising and consolidating servers, storage and networking in a single unit.
“South Africa, and Africa in general, is ideally positioned for incredible technological and business leaps forward in the next couple of years. My plan is for EMC to be at the head of this growth.
“There is a culture change we need to go through within the organisation,” adds Nkanza. “One of my challenges will be to identify and nurture leaders of the future and ensure the continuity of a culture of excellence.
“Also, the market needs to better understand the breadth of the EMC value proposition. We have not been great at market awareness campaigns. This will change.”
Nkanza previously held the position of MD of Sun Microsystems SA. He brings two decades of IT industry experience with several multinational corporations, including Computer Associates and BMC.
Nkanza takes over the reigns from previous EMC country manager, Gerhard van der Merwe, who retired after 17 years of service. Van der Merwe's tenure ended on 23 January.
Frederic Dussart, senior vice-president and regional country manager for southern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, says: “We are confident that under his (Nkanza's) leadership and with the support of the local management team, EMC will continue to build on the significant successes achieved in the market to date.”
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