Zimbabwean company, Chips Computing, has won Pastel Accounting Software`s top reseller award for 2003/04 and received R20 000 worth of Kruger Rands as its prize.
Jeff Lewis, MD of Softline Pastel International, told ITWeb yesterday that the sales success of the Zimbabwean company was surprising considering the turmoil that country is experiencing.
"It is ironic that small companies are doing well and working hard to connect themselves with international counterparts despite the climate of adversity in that country," he says.
Lewis says the sales success of Chips Computing is attributable to a persistent and assertive plan that included understanding the nature of the small businesses in Zimbabwe that needed a method to connect to the outside world with an accounting package that had international standards.
Lewis says Chips Computing sold about 1 000 Pastel Accounting licences during the past year, which equates to R2 million spent on the accounting software and generating R10 million worth of sales for the Zimbabwean operations.
The achievement was highlighted at Pastel International`s annual conference for distributors and resellers in Cape Town this week. Some 85 delegates from 45 countries and representing 35 different companies attended.
Topics covered at the conference included an update on US management software group Sage`s purchase of Softline Pastel last year, the roadmap on the research and development of Pastel`s planned new product releases, and helping to plan for expanding business.
Lewis says Pastel is not particularly worried about the threat from free and open source accounting packages.
"Accounting is seen as a mission-critical system for companies. Rather than look at free and open source solutions, they want a system that has progressive updates," Lewis says.
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