Johannesburg, 06 Jun 2013
Leading storage vendor NetApp announced today that it had selected the Westcon Group of companies to be its sole long-term distribution partner in Africa. The company said the decision to move to a consolidated distribution strategy in Africa was based on the need to take advantage of growth opportunities and to continue to maximise value for its partner community business well into the future.
"We believe that this strategy will enable NetApp to deliver greater distribution efficiency and scale, and will lead to enhanced service and value for our reseller community," says Konstantin Ebert, Director Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa for NetApp.
Westcon becomes the sole NetApp distributor from 15 August.
Africa is an area of high focus in NetApp's growth strategy and in order to further develop the business NetApp invests in Africa. A focused distribution strategy is one element to ensure the African business has the support required to continue to build on the success in the region.
According to Ebert, NetApp will extend and expand its investment in the region to support its business partners. "With this new approach, we have a stronger capability to drive our product portfolio across the African continent in a more effective and aligned way, especially our flagship solutions such as clustered ONTAP, flash and the E-series products," he says.
NetApp's strategy to build a strong, Africa-wide go-to-market model based on the pillars of its distribution strategy, big global OEM and sales partnerships such as IBM or Fujitsu, and alliances like Cisco and VMware, as well as strong alignment with resellers, will add to their success in the region.
"We are looking forward to the new, and much expanded, partnership with Westcon Group, and the benefits that this relationship brings to our reseller community, and ultimately, our collective customers," says Ebert.
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