Business Systems, one of Grintek Telecom's five specialised business units, has won an Excellence Award from international communication and call centre systems developer, Nortel Networks, for outstanding sales performance in the South African market.
The Pretoria-based business communications specialist, which has been rolling-out an average of more than one call centre a month since it started selling Nortel Networks Meridian call centre systems less than 24 months ago, has exceeded Nortel Networks sales target by 65% over the last 12 months.
"The response to our entry into the South African call centre market has been phenomenal," says Martin Siepker, director Business Systems, Grintek Telecom.
"Based on our growth over the last year, I believe we now have a 30 to 40% lion's share of sales in the South African market. I don't know of any other company matching our performance levels. Many of the others have only implemented a few systems over a much longer period in the market."
Siepker bases his market-leading position on the 1998 BMI research into the South African call centre market. The BMI report projected market growth of 40 systems a year. Grintek alone has implemented 18 Meridian call centres systems over the past year to bring its total to 29 systems in 24 months.
"These are not small systems either," he says. "The largest was 500 seats at two sites for one customer. In all, we have nearly 2000 seats installed," Major customers include MWeb, Vodacom and USKO.
Nortel rates Grintek's technical competence in the call centre arena within the top five of its 47 distributors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The company's technical depth is recognised by its appointment as a Nortel Business Affiliate, which means it, can develop value-added products and services to use with Nortel's Meridian product range. Grintek is also participating in several Nortel Networks international events, namely, user forums, product and marketing forums, EuroDac as well as the Call Centre Academy.
"As a group we have always maintained a high ratio of technically qualified people. We have already invested 360 man days on technical training on the Nortel products alone and are planning more this year as well as adding a further 18 call centre technicians to our staff complement," says Siepker.
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