IP telephony enhances market penetration for leading BEE company

Sourcecom Technology Solutions, a subsidiary of the leading BEE group, Lithalelanga Technologies, has extended its technology offerings with the achievement of Cisco Systems IP Telephony, Revised Specialisation.

This is significant for the company as it is currently the only other tier-2 Cisco partner and one of only five partners in South Africa with this certification. This takes the company a step closer to achieving its strategic goal of becoming the leading BEE ICT integrator in the region.

According to Sourcecom's Managing Executive for Engineering & Services, Tim Pryce, this achievement will enable the company to capitalise on its investment in technology and expertise transferred from multi-national, Spescom, approximately a year ago. Under the terms of this agreement Spescom's Cisco corporate network division, with its customer base, plus existing Service Level Agreements (SLA's) were transferred to Sourcecom.

Pryce says that IP Telephony has been relatively slow to take-off in South Africa most notably due to the recent industry downturn. However the situation is changing fast.

"The benefits of IP telephony with regards to business productivity, user mobility, and significant cost advantages are now being appreciated. Cost savings include less-expensive moves, adds and changes, lower bandwidth costs, and reduced personnel from an operational and support perspective. Productivity benefits of users interacting with enterprise MIS or ERP systems via the intelligent IP phones are not easily quantifiable, but nevertheless significant. Moreover, it is anticipated that the technology will inevitably replace legacy TDM-based architectures, particularly as the acquisition cost of the solution reduces over time," says Pryce.

Pryce says that Sourcecom is already active in providing Cisco-based, large-scale network solutions, with advanced traffic management and content delivery networking. With its Cisco Wireless LAN specialisation, as well as its IP Telephony solutions, Sourcecom can offer unique solutions to enhance the mobility of users in a wireless LAN environment. This provides advantages for mobile office workers in a large enterprise that need constant communication, via voice and data, with corporate services.

"The addition of Cisco IP Telephony to the company's current portfolio of security, wireless LAN's and converged voice and data network solutions, broadens target market sectors for Sourcecom and as a BEE company provides us with a powerful competitive edge," adds Pryce.

Sourcecom possesses one of the strongest BEE profiles in the country with 100% BEE equity, 62% of the company's technical skills base, and all of its executive directors, being drawn from this sector.

Meryl Lautenbach, Channel Account Manager for Cisco South Africa says: "Sourcecom is one of the few partners that have met the increased resource and technical requirements for the Revised IP Telephony Specialisation. They have demonstrated that they are qualified to support customers with this technology in South Africa. Cisco values the commitment and expertise that Sourcecom has demonstrated over many years and looks forward to working together in penetrating the market further with this technology".