Cisco Systems Southern Africa today announced the appointment of Telkom as a Cisco Systems Gold Certified Partner. The accreditation is the highest level of Cisco certification achievable on a networking infrastructure level and will enable the organisation to strengthen customer support services and enhance the delivery of value-added solutions to market.
"Telkom has been awarded this status as they have met the stringent prescribed criteria, which are set on a global level," explains Steve Midgley, channel sales manager at Cisco Systems Southern Africa. "Gold certified partners are expected to provide the highest level of product knowledge, technical expertise and service capabilities, together with leading networking products and solutions. Their teams of experts also include the largest numbers of Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts (CCIEs) in any of the Cisco certification programmes."
Midgley goes on to say that Telkom`s move to Gold accreditation is in line with worldwide service provider trends. Gold accreditation will assist members, such as Telkom, to increase their breadth and penetration of provisioned services.
The appointment will see Telkom offer a broader suite of services targeted particularly at the large corporate market. "Our Gold Partner status will allow us to provide a comprehensive service offering to our customers, including complex network design and implementation, product testing facilities, remote diagnostics and on-site troubleshooting," says Randall Seidl, managing executive, corporate and global markets for Telkom. "We now also have access to high-level direct support from Cisco`s development engineers, ensuring quick response rates and efficient solutions to any of our customer`s technical problems, should they arise."
During the process of fulfilling the Gold Partner Certification requirements, Telkom invested extensively in its people. "Providing high technology products alone is not sufficient," explains Seidl. "Being able to offer superior support and consulting services allows us to add value to our customers by helping them improve their business efficiencies."
Other certified gold partners, in country, currently include: Dimension Data, PQ Networks and Getronics, whilst IBM, HP and Unysis occupy global gold integrator status.
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Cisco Systems is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. The South African office was started in late 1994, with a single office in Johannesburg and two members of staff. Growing significantly year-on-year, Cisco is now represented in all major South African centres by local offices and/or partner organisations.
The South African team offers support in sales, pre-sales, marketing and promotions as well as a pre-sales helpdesk. By breaking the team into these segments, it allows Cisco to focus on the unique requirements of each target market, so that it can ensure that it is providing its individual customers with products and services that meet their needs.
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