SA remains a strong focus point and investment area for Fujitsu, which is bedding down its merger with Fujitsu Services in the country.
Senior VP of the Middle East, Africa and India region Mark Wilson says the maturity of the South African IT sector, including its well-developed outsourcing industry, and its position as a gateway to the rest of the continent, ensures the country is of great importance to many multinational companies.
Wilson was speaking to ITWeb during an interview on the sidelines of the VISIT 2009 conference, in Munich, Germany.
The merger between Fujitsu, traditionally a hardware-focused business, and Fujitsu Services was concluded in April, at the time when Fujitsu bought out its stake in the long-standing Fujitsu Siemens joint venture.
“Siemens decided that true IT was not their focus, which unfortunately brought the joint venture to an end,” says Wilson.
However, the resultant merger with Fujitsu Services, which has been operating in SA for a number of decades, has opened up new opportunities for the company.
The organisations had complementary skills in SA, and Wilson points out there was no point operating as two separate entities in the country. The merged company, which employs about 400 people in SA, is developing a new channel and go-to-market strategy.
data and call centre capabilities.
Fujitsu Services has also been supplying support services to the Fujitsu group in the UK and Nordic regions. The combined group will continue to offer data centre, call centre and remote infrastructure management services from its South African base.
Fujitsu has a strong and loyal customer base in SA, says Wilson, and is now able to offer them more as a combined organisation.
“We have also identified new markets in SA, one of them being national government. We are on a big drive to secure this market and, having strong BEE credentials, we should be in a good position to succeed,” Wilson explains.
He adds that the company has solutions that can offer government more flexibility and meet its requirements, including in the open source space.
The company is also making a play for other vertical segments, such as the banking and telecoms markets, but Wilson declined to elaborate at this stage.
Due to the global economic crisis, the company has seen many projects delayed or even cancelled, which has had a knock-on effect on its profitability and shareholder expectations. Like many other firms around the world, Wilson says Fujitsu took steps to offset the negative economic effects, including freezing non-discretionary spend, optimising its cost structure and restricting travel for its employees.
However, Wilson does not expect the local economy to recover in the short-term.
Meanwhile, the gold price and strong local currency have brought stability to the local business sector, and he anticipates many delayed projects could come back on stream shortly, which would help Fujitsu meet some of its targets.
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