Rob Godlonton, CEO of the ICT division of EOH, looks after "everything IT related, including networks and unified communication". In conversation with ITWeb about the Gold Partner level EOH holds with Cisco, he says the collaboration is the result of one of EOH's key business philosophies: partnerships for life. (The other four are "best people", "lead and grow", "sustainable transformation" and "right first time".)
"We're never in partnerships for the short term. We don't sell technology and then disappear, and we ultimately want to be the number one in domain expertise for our technology partners. Our partnership with Cisco is customer-led, in both the private and public sectors. We invested to become Cisco Gold status partners two years ago."
Godlonton says the partnership "has opened doors for EOH", and the company has since landed Johannesburg City Power, as well as many other key customers.
"Cisco has excellent technology, and is making huge investments into its technology. Our customers have made and continue to make investments in Cisco products. This means we can be the leader in delivering end-to-end solutions to our customers, which means we continue to invest in Cisco as one of the leading technologies," says Godlonton.
In the process, EOH has become acutely aware of how challenging it can be to retain highly skilled staff. "One of the challenges with Cisco certification is that it gives people the ability to go overseas, but on the flipside, we have a big focus on our job creation programme, developing skills and bringing people through the ranks. Cisco is also committed to the programme - they have very defined certifications and training programmes. This allows us to take people through a structured programme and makes the career and training path a lot easier."
Godlonton says the partnership has accelerated EOH's business by opening up opportunities in the enterprise space. "Another area we're looking at is how to run SAP solutions on a Cisco platform, on the back of the partnership between Cisco and Microsoft, in the Azure space, bringing the international cloud to a local platform," he says.
"There are not many Cisco gold partners in SA, so it's critical for us to make the Cisco partnership work for us. We have over 70 people in our Cisco businesses. Some of our EOH Cloud Services are built using the Cisco technology, and there is an opportunity for the Cisco sales people to partner and sell with EOH on EOH Cloud products powered by Cisco."
Cathy Smith, MD: South Africa for Cisco, says: "Cisco has long understood that in order for the Internet of things (IOT) to be a success, innovation, technology and providing solutions to our customers' challenges will require the efforts of a range of players collaborating in order to effect real change. Therefore, in addition to our people, our partners have always been a strategic and competitive edge for Cisco.
"If we use our partnership with EOH as a case in point, it leverages our strengths in order to provide value-add prepositions. EOH has many diverse, non-IT portfolios in industries such as oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing. In the world of IOT solutions, these portfolios together with Cisco solutions provide effective digital solutions to clients.
"For IOT to be effective people, systems, technology and IT players need to collaborate, adapt, and continuously evolve. The partnership between EOH and Cisco is a good example in this regard. As a critical part of our ecosystem, our partnership ultimately enables us to win together."
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