Spescom DataFusion has been named Cisco's New World Partner of the Year for the Eastern EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa ) region.
This important accolade was given to Spescom at Cisco's Partner Summit 2001, in a prestigious awards ceremony held on 4 April in Las Vegas, USA, as part of Cisco's annual worldwide conference.
Cisco Systems appointed Spescom DataFusion as its first Advanced Technology Partner in South Africa last year. The company's Intelligent Networks division delivers and supports enterprise solutions based on Cisco's Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data technology, including intelligent contact management, virtual call centres and Internet business solutions.
Steve Midgley, channel sales manager for Cisco Systems Southern Africa, says selection criteria for the award were based on identifying the partner that had employed Cisco's end-to-end Internet Protocol Contact Centre (IPCC) solution to business benefit in a real customer contact environment.
"Because this offering entailed a brand new strategy for Cisco Systems, it not only involved the simple plugging in of a product. Partners were expected to introduce the solution into their markets to customer's strategic benefit."
Midgley says as Spescom successfully addressed this aspect, Cisco Systems recognised the company's outstanding achievements in delivering and supporting its IPCC solutions.
Spescom gained not only certified knowledge but also in-depth experiential knowledge in implementing the Cisco offering, and can further draw on Cisco Systems' intellectual property to implement these and other solutions, he adds.
"The award recognises that Spescom is able to use this knowledge to deliver specialised business solutions in the areas of networking infrastructure and IP Telephony, to the extensive benefit of Cisco's customers."
The Cisco Partner Summit brought together 3 000 strategic partners to discuss the issues and trends driving the Internet, and explore new ways in which to answer the challenges posed by today's networked economy.
Tim Pryce, director of Spescom DataFusion and manager of the Intelligent Networks Business Unit, says the award also acknowledges the company's superior technical skills and its commitment to teamwork.
Pryce says as a Cisco strategic partner, Spescom plays a crucial role in delivering the company's products and services to customers across and beyond its regions.
"Becoming partner of the year demonstrates Cisco's commendation of Spescom's total commitment to the partnership and its highly focused support of Cisco's new world product strategy that aims to continuously improve the standard and breadth of Cisco's offering."
Especially, Pryce says, Spescom is recognised as installing the first IP Contact Centre in South Africa and the EMEA region at an Internet banking site in South Africa.
"The award raises Spescom's profile in the marketplace to a degree where the company will be recognised as the leading provider of Cisco New World Technology solutions and support in the region."
It also emphasises that Spescom is fully part of Cisco's drive to implement and manage multi-service communications solutions on an end-to-end basis, Pryce adds.
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Spescom Limited is a communications and information technology company with operations in USA, UK and South Africa.
The group is active in two main areas of the world IT market, namely offering product and solutions to connect to the networked economy, and the provision of software solutions to manage information and knowledge.
The strategic focus is on the convergence of knowledge, document, configuration and voice transaction management technologies.
Spescom holds the controlling interest in USA based, Altris Software Inc., a NASDAQ, OTCBB listed company, and the developers of the award winning eB software.
In South Africa, Spescom, in alliance with world leading companies such as Cisco and Avaya, formerly known as Lucent Technologies, provides a range of customer contact and intelligent network solutions to its blue-chip customer base.
The company is a leading supplier of communications solutions and products to network operators and service providers on the African continent.
Spescom, through a joint venture with Siemens, is a world leading supplier of revenue management solutions with installations in 42 countries, focusing on the prepayment of electricity services.
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