Sun Microsystems will reorganise its operations in Africa, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.
These regions previously fell under the Southern and Eastern EMEA region, which covered geographies roughly from Cape Town to Moscow. Going forward, the five sub-regions under the previous structure have been split into two areas.
The Commonwealth independent states (Russia et al) have now been grouped with the Nordic region and Europe, and the rest (Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, Israel, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East) have been grouped into a territory known as EMMA - the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa.
This, says newly-appointed regional director for the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region Tom Pegrume, will allow Sun to take advantage of the rapid growth being seen in these markets.
The region under which SSA used to fall had seen 100% growth over the past five years, he says, and had become too big to manage as one unit. "We're busy putting strategies and plans in place for these new regions as we do with all other territories."
Pegrume says the company has a strategic equity partner model, launched recently, that it will take into Africa. He notes it will take a while to gain corporate confidence in Africa, where corruption is rife. "Sun is a high integrity company, and we are ruthlessly SOX compliant. From an MEA and EMEA perspective, we will be building transparency and confidence in the organisation."
In the short-term, he says, the company will open offices in those places where it does not have a direct footprint, not just servicing them from SA as it has done to date.
Locally, as announced in late November, the company's previous regional director Vito Bonafede is responsible for ensuring the company becomes compliant with six of the seven pillars of BEE before he leaves the organisation in March.
The seventh pillar, equity, will be excluded for the moment. "Equity is a very big, very complex issue, and we will look at it further down the line," says Pegrume. Sun Microsystems SA will appoint a BEE CEO, who will be operationally responsible for running the business.
In terms of its channel, says Pegrume, a clear framework has been put in place that outlines exactly what Sun and its partners need to do. "I will be driving that," he states, noting that this means "not vacillating on strategy. We've always had a strategy, but we've not always been 100% committed as an organisation," he says. "We are now 100% committed."
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