At its recent partner awards held at SAS Forum International in Geneva Switzerland, SAS Institute honoured local business partner UNICUS with the global partner of the year award.
Having joined the SAS partner programme as a silver partner in June 2004, UNICUS is a leading black-owned South African ICT company which specialises in the delivery of technology-based services to companies in the public and private sectors.
UNICUS has solutions which span the enterprise document management solutions (EDMS), software asset management (SAM), business continuity management (BCM), and infrastructure management arenas. According to CEO Jabu Sibanda, it was a logical step for the company to include business intelligence (BI) in its portfolio offerings and it was with this that it turned to SAS.
Says Bill Hoggarth, managing director of SAS South Africa: "It is a great feather in the cap of SAS South Africa that a local partner was awarded such a prestigious global award. At SAS we have invested a lot of effort in ensuring that we focus on our BEE partners, and UNICUS's achievement means that we are investing our energies in the right areas. All of our customers who are UNICUS customers are happy clients."
The partner awards are based on stringent criteria, which includes among others: revenue sales, quality of installation, client satisfaction and key accounts. Against all odds UNICUS has managed to assist SAS to broaden its footprint in the South African public sector with major wins at both the Department of Public Works as well as the Department of Home Affairs.
Says Sibanda: "Over the last almost three years we have grown our company from a vision between a handful of people into an organisation which is gaining momentum among a number of the bigger key accounts. Our vision to ensure client satisfaction and professionalism at all times has paid off as we are a company which is now experiencing year on year growth.
"SAS has been a key partner to us, as it completes our business offerings and provides our company with the sustainability it needs in a competitive South African landscape," adds Sibanda. "While UNICUS as a fledgling company went through its own teething problems, the global silver partner award shows that our efforts have paid off as we are now poised for explosive growth."
SAS SA embraces BEE transformation and the awarding of this global award to UNICUS is a demonstration to the local and global ICT community that investment through partnerships really does work.
Share
SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40 000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and traditional business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know. www.sas.com
UNICUS
UNICUS Business Solutions (Pty) Ltd is a black owned South African information and communications technology (ICT) company that provides services and solutions to clients in both government and the private sector. UNICUS's business focus is based on the premise that today more than ever businesses need integrated management solutions that enables them to manage all elements of the complex ICT infrastructure. Our solutions cover the availability, reliability and performance of every component of the complex communication infrastructure, including servers, network elements, applications, storage devices and databases across the depth and breadth of the enterprise.
Editorial contacts