Microsoft SA extends Consulting Services into Africa

Microsoft South Africa recently announced the creation of a new services division to drive Microsoft consulting business across the sub-Saharan continent.

Microsoft Services & Solutions Group Africa (MSSG) will consist of highly experienced Microsoft specialists based in regional offices in Mauritius, Nairobi and Windhoek. Consulting requirements from surrounding countries, including Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia will be handled by these respective offices.

Over the past decade, Microsoft has built a successful consulting business worldwide to address the full range of customer and partner needs and provide value-added consulting to their businesses. MSSG focuses on driving business value through technology innovation while transferring knowledge and collaborating with business partners. MSSG Africa will initially undertake consulting engagements with specialists advising business partners on how to maximise the power and richness of Microsoft technology and deploy it according the customer`s requirements.

"As we successfully engage with our business partners and deliver infrastructure and mission-critical services and solutions to our enterprise customers across the region, we foresee that we will grow our operation across the continent at an annual growth rate of approximately 50% per year for the next three years," says Lauro Bath, managing consultant for MSSG for the Southeast Africa and Indian Ocean Islands region.

Bath, who will be heading up this initiative, has been with the company for five years and played a key role in the opening of the Microsoft offices in Kenya (1996), Mauritius (1998) and Namibia (2001).

There are many challenges faced by South African companies seeking new opportunities and markets on the African continent. These include the demand for reliable IT infrastructures to serve the needs of the growing telecommunications environment, in addition to the challenge of sourcing the right people to be trained as consultants, whether local or not.

A major issue is also finding the correct partners and the most effective distribution channels to service customers. MSSG Africa is in the process of engaging with local partners in their tier one countries. MSSG works with business partners to build and maintain skills appropriate to delivering the platforms and solutions that customers are looking for. These skill sets include not only technical capacity, but also consulting discipline and extensive risk management capability.

"We will work with our local partners to provide best-of-breed technology and experienced people that enable solutions to be rapidly developed, deployed and managed to optimise business processes. Together, we will be able to provide the specific resources needed for infrastructure and solution-based projects," says Bath.