Dimension Data, in partnership with Centrax Systems, aiming to uplift the SME landscape

The South African SME landscape is already dealing with a contracting economy, and additional COVID-19 shocks have put a strain on day-to-day business operations. Many SMEs' revenues have plummeted as a result of previous lockdown measures, due to the inability to operate their businesses remotely. SMEs are the backbone of the South African economy, according to research, SMEs in South Africa account for more than 98% of all businesses and employ between 50% and 60% of the country's workforce across all sectors.

Dimension Data, in partnership with Centrax Systems, aims to uplift the SME landscape by supporting the sector with trusted technology solutions to help them future-proof their businesses.

Dimension Data has invested in supporting the economic growth of entrepreneurs through upskilling and contributing to their operational requirements in the daily management of their businesses. Over 600 small businesses, including women-owned enterprises, have partnered with Dimension Data and have been able to contribute to the economic growth of South Africa and to create jobs in their communities. Equipping SMEs with entrepreneurial skills and tools to grow their businesses enables the certified SMEs to then be onboarded as Dimension Data suppliers and go-to-market partners, giving them access to a wider range of clients and new markets in the ICT sector.

“Access to technology and the pace of digitalisation has accelerated the urgency for organisations to not only embrace a new way of work but have also had to adopt new technologies at a rapid pace, forcing many to re-evaluate their priorities to stay in operation whatever the prevailing environment,” says Nompumelelo Mokou, Dimension Data Managing Director, Southern Africa.

Dimension Data’s Enterprise Development programme offers participating SMEs much needed office space at no cost, payment of multiple software licences and a variety of IT courses to help drive business value.

Connecting employees to workplaces and customers to organisations has never been more important. As a Dimension Data partner, Centrax Systems has introduced a game-changer to the supplier development programme, bringing Zoho business applications to the supplier development programme.

"Centrax Systems extends these solutions to the SMEs, empowering them to grow beyond the constraints of a global pandemic. Customer experience is on the forefront of our customer success strategy, but more so when we are looking at deploying SaaS solutions for these SMEs, extra attention to detail regarding the requirements gathering and discovery phase is where we truly define the success criteria for these deployments and ultimately lay the foundation for these businesses to scale their digital transformation journey in parallel with their own unique business strategies," says Tamylin Farquhar, Executive Digital Business & Technology at Centrax Systems.

Zoho is a suite of online productivity tools and SaaS applications trusted by over 60 million worldwide, providing sales, marketing, customer service, accounting and inventory management, human resource management and communication and collaboration tools to the participating SMEs.