Alexander Jenewein, a former sales director at Oracle, has been named general manager and managing director of Hitachi Vantara Sub-Saharan Africa.
His appointment follows the Hitachi Group merging its subsidiaries Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group and Pentaho into one integrated company, Hitachi Vantara. The business specialises in data storage systems, software and services.
According to Jenewein, he will facilitate integration within the newly-formed company. "A key part of my role will be to help unify those teams, coaching them to work together as a unit to be highly effective in their delivery of solutions to the customer. My role is much like that of a conductor, helping to create harmony between different instruments."
Jenewein, who first joined Hitachi in 2015 as a business development director for emerging markets, adds the company will soon introduce an adjusted business model to its Sub-Saharan Africa clientele.
"The mid-term plan is to roll out a new business model to our customers which will transform the way they consume our solutions. In the past, typically, our clients would have bought a product, and we would have then helped them integrate that product into their existing environment. Now customers will be able to select solutions from our portfolio and choose how they will consume them - whether they are going to purchase them as a capex investment, or whether they are going to run them as an opex solution, enabling them to pay as they consume."
Prior to joining Hitachi, Jenewein headed up the engineered systems sales team for Oracle in East and West Africa. He joined Oracle via the acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010, where he had been responsible for various sales and product teams across Eastern and Central Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Commenting on challenges facing the region, Jenewein says customers know very little when embarking on a digital transformation journey. "Naturally, the challenges vary from country to country. However, a common challenge across the areas is that many of our customers out there want to embark on digital transformation, but they don't know how to go about it. Our challenge is to identify those people and work with them to move forward in helping to digitally transform Sub-Saharan Africa."
He adds that despite these challenges, the company has earmarked Kenya and Nigeria as markets for possible expansion.
"We've just recently appointed a new sales director for East Africa and we are restructuring the teams in those markets in line with our new portfolio. Both Kenya and Nigeria are major commercial hubs and we've seen a lot of appetite in these markets to embrace new solutions and drive new approaches to business. Both markets are considered to be centres of innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa and where they go, other countries in the region will generally follow suit."
Tom Pegrume, VP for EMEA emerging markets at Hitachi Vantara, says the addition of Jenewein to the team can only prove to be beneficial. "He brings a wealth of experience in business growth and development to the new role, and we trust that through his leadership, the region will continue to go from strength to strength as the company plays an increasingly important role in assisting clients to navigate the new digital era."
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