Unisys Africa is set to attack the South African market for managed and outsourcing services more aggressively in line with the strategy for the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA) region.
Jos Schoemaker, recently appointed vice-president and general manager for Unisys Global Infrastructure Services in the EMEIA, says the company believes there is strong potential to grow its stature as a managed services and outsourcing player in the South African market. Unisys Africa will be looking for revenue growth that outstrips the projected 7% growth in South African IT spending for 2004.
Unisys Africa has already won a number of key outsourcing deals in the South African financial services, tourism and retail industries. These multi-year deals provide the company with a solid base of annuity incomes.
Among the services it provides are full lifecycle desktop management with a strong focus on distributed infrastructures, outsourced call centres and help-desks, remote network monitoring and security services.
Schoemaker visited SA in October to assess the local market and to devise a strategy for the African business going forward. His brief is to drive the creation, sales and delivery of outsourcing, consulting, management and support services for clients` IT infrastructure in the EMEIA region.
He will focus especially on services for the distributed IT infrastructure -- the desktops, mobile systems, servers and networks that are increasingly the point of service delivery and revenue generation between organisations and their clients.
"Over the coming months, we will be investing heavily in marketing our managed services capabilities to the South African market. We have an enviable range of skills, a powerful set of proprietary tools and methodologies and a massive geographical footprint in the country -- we need to articulate those strengths more clearly to the market.
"Initially, we will focus heavily on deals centred around the outsourcing of distributed infrastructure with customers that operate across borders. However, over time, I believe that there will be opportunities for Unisys Africa to follow the example of some of our European subsidiaries and become involved in the business process outsourcing market," says Schoemaker.
Schoemaker served as managing director for Europe at American Management Systems (AMS), responsible for all of AMS` business in the European theatre. Before that, he spent 13 years with EDS, serving in numerous positions around the world, including regional director, managing director and vice-president.
Says Schoemaker: "I bring a bit of management experience, a bit of sales and marketing experience and some turnaround experience to my new role at Unisys. All of this experience is applicable to Unisys as it continues its transformation into a provider of outsourced and managed services in the territories where it operates."
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