KSS wins Cisco Emerging Partner of the Year award

KSS Technologies, a black economic empowerment (BEE) converged network integrator, recently walked away with the Emerging Partner of the Year award at Cisco`s 2005 Partner Summit held outside Pretoria. The award demonstrates KSS`s commitment to Cisco`s product offering and its competence as a partner.

The company was rated on its consistent dedication to meeting sales targets and the wealth of expertise gained over the years, including consulting. It achieved Cisco`s Internet Protocol Communications (IPC) specialisation certification this year, one of the most complex and difficult in Cisco`s portfolio of accreditations.

Says Prabashni Pillay, recently appointed channel manager for Cisco South Africa, "KSS is a valued partner and has not only met our certification criteria but exceeded them. This was especially apparent with the IPC specialisation certification. Rather than opting for the minimum of four passing the necessary certification, KSS volunteered seven staff to complete the training. All seven staff exceeded the mandated pass rate of 82.5% set by Cisco."

Says Dennis Naidoo, sales director at KSS: "We have consistently attained awards for our dedication and focus on Cisco`s converged network solutions. It began in 2000 when we achieved the necessary criteria to become Silver Partners, obtaining the obligatory sales and technical certification as well as the capacity to design, install, test and maintain Cisco`s solutions. We also invested in a Network Operations Centre, another key criteria to qualify that also greatly assists our national operation. In addition, we completed the Wireless and Virtual Private Network/Security specialisation in 2001. In 2002 and 2003 we came first and second respectively for South Africa in Cisco`s annual customer satisfaction survey. In 2004, KSS was awarded the Silver Partner of the Year award."

When KSS moved to new premises in 2004, the company took the opportunity to implement an end-to-end converged network infrastructure in a Greenfields environment. In addition to the traditional laboratory, KSS collapsed all of its voice, video and data requirements onto the robust intelligent information network that was deployed.

Naidoo continues: "Having reached the conclusion to equip KSS with the necessary skills to deliver converged networks to the local market, we made a strategic decision to partner with a vendor that is a technology leader. Cisco is the only vendor to deliver an end-to-end intelligent converged network infrastructure with quality of service (QOS) that caters for all types of data, including voice and video. In addition, in the last year Cisco has invested more money into research and development than its nearest competitor`s revenue, further driving technology advancements."

KSS recognises the business value that converged networks deliver and actively promotes this technology to simplify traditional networks and offer an impressive return on investment. The total cost of ownership is far lower that that of dedicated data, voice and video networks, allowing businesses to capitalise on technology that reduces ongoing spend.

Amit Ramkissoon, technical manager at KSS believes the converged approach will become de facto and that the road map forward for many telecommunications vendors includes phasing out of traditional analogue private analogue branch exchanges (PABX), which will further propel the uptake of converged networks, particularly for voice.

KSS has also recognised the need for converged networks within the small medium enterprise (SME) market with particular emphasis on mid-sized businesses. Naidoo explains: "Convergence is no longer bleeding-edge technology. We have seen more general acceptance from the corporate market and this has driven down pricing making it more affordable to mid-sized companies."

Cisco has recognised this need and is now delivering solutions that are geared towards the requirements of the SME market.

Naidoo says: "Cisco`s strategy to deliver converged solutions to the SME market further complements our focus and will provide us with the well-established brand for this market segment. This addition to our focus will stand us in good stead and hopefully we will be in line to receive more awards and accolades from Cisco."