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Innovation and cloud: Simplifying and securing data management in Africa


Johannesburg, 21 Oct 2020
Andrew Voges, Africa Sales Director at Quest
Andrew Voges, Africa Sales Director at Quest

The scope of digitisation has evolved almost as fast as digital transformation itself. As Africa embraces some of the leading emerging technology available across the globe, it becomes evident that one of the greatest obstacles to overcome is its complexity. Additionally, as recent large-scale data breaches show, harnessing complex IT systems while maintaining total security is of utmost importance.

According to Andrew Voges, Africa Sales Director at Quest, the key to success in this digital journey is employing simple tools that do everyday, complex tasks easily, seamlessly and securely. With this approach, businesses are empowered to realise the full benefits of new technology, modernising and securing the enterprise’s on-premises infrastructure, while promoting cloud adoption.

To drive this strategy across the African continent, Quest has recently opened offices in Nigeria. This presence complements its existing offices in South Africa, with a view to expanding to East and Central Africa in the near future. “We see big potential in Africa. Prior to setting up a local presence, Quest tools were already used by many African customers. By ensuring consistent local support, our customers will benefit from our investment in the region, bolstered by investments from other vendors in the cloud space,” confirms Voges.

According to Voges, Africa has a wide spectrum of users with a varying degree of maturity. “If we consider the finance sector in South Africa, for example, you’ll find banks and financial institutions at the cutting edge of technology. However, in other regions in Africa, those institutions are lagging way behind. With more than three decades of experience, Quest has the technology and capability to help those customers move from dated technology and platforms to the latest and best in technology. For those who are at the cutting edge, we’ll help them further optimise and modernise.”

As Quest seeks to propel innovation and digitisation in the region, its key focus is cloud adoption. The company seeks to achieve this through three pillars. The first is secure, employing the One Identity brand to ensure data and infrastructure are secured for cyber security resilience. The second is modernise, transforming IT by adopting cloud, utilising cloud technology, and facilitating secure, streamlined cloud migrations with no disruption to businesses. This is essential. At today’s pace of operations, no business can afford being offline for days, or even hours, as they migrate to the cloud. The final pillar is manage, helping customers to manage data assets and endpoints.

“The crux is the provision of simple tools that do complex tasks easily and efficiently. Our African digitisation campaign is spearheaded by the second pillar: modernise. The focus is to help customers embrace the new public cloud data centres, recently launched in South Africa. We are experiencing huge demand in this space, helping some of the biggest names in Africa to get onto the cloud – essentially, we’re helping them to achieve the next, now,” adds Voges.

Particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resultant work-from-home requirements, many African businesses have given privileged users access to vital, sensitive data. From core banking or billing systems to data used in the military and security space, these employees have access to confidential information and databases. “Part of our offering, to be extended to Africa, is providing the technology needed to enable those private users to access that private data in a very secure fashion.”

This is achieved through One Identity, developed to ensure data is protected against threats with identity-centred cyber resilience. In addition to secure management of users and their identities, the solution further helps customers ensure governance and compliance with both internal and regional policies (whether on-premises, in data centres, or on the local or public cloud). With One Identity, the need for native tools that come with new applications or systems is negated. It provides a central tool that centralises the management of security needs.

“Our tools have helped thousands of customers move millions of users and hundreds of terabytes into the cloud. This is the right time for us to come into Africa and help customers successfully ride the wave into the cloud,” concludes Voges. “The decision for Quest and One Identity to invest in Africa is a decision that has already paid good dividends. We will continue to increase our investment in the region and get closer to our customers across the continent.” 

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In IT, next is always around the corner – the next need, the next threat, the next technology. As a result, your challenges never stop. Neither do we. From platform migrations to cloud deployments to security and governance, Quest work with customers to help them solve their toughest IT challenges.

Since 1987, Quest has provided software solutions for the fast-paced world of enterprise IT. It has the experience to help customers manage and monitor their databases, take control of their hybrid environments, and secure it all with security solutions that ensure they are ready for the next threat.

Quest – Where next meets now: www.quest.com