Africa as a region has been attracting attention and focus in the IT sector over the past two years due to the vast growth opportunities. Seagate has placed a three year strategy to grow their presence and investments in Africa, with their key focus being Kenya, Nigeria and Algeria since 2013. Seagate started investing in people and channel programs to extend their market presence across the continent. South Africa is another significant market for the company due to its market share and leadership in the country.
“As Seagate, we see huge potential for various countries within the African continent. For our business we see Kenya, Nigeria and Algeria among the top countries driving big strides in ICT implementation” says Christian Assaf, Senior Sales Manager Seagate, MEA.
At the start of 2013 Seagate had initiated a three-year plan to extend their presence in the African continent. They invested in headcounts hiring three new Channel Relation Managers in these countries to help optimize their strategy and channel programs. This has enabled driving opportunities related to growth of cloud and the increase of storage demand.
The demand for enterprise storage systems continues to grow rapidly and is fueled by long-term demands for scalable storage; especially with the increasing popularity of cloud. “In addition, we see a huge growth in segments like business NAS and surveillance, as well the huge demand for more advanced consumer storage devices,” Assaf added.
As part of Seagate’s go-to-market strategy in Africa, the main focus of their local Channel Relation Managers is to drive the expansion of their Seagate Partner Program (SPP), which helps in offering cash rewards for customers, training on the latest drive technologies, as well as keeping customers updated with the latest news about the IT industry.
Seagate believes that investing in people within Africa is the key that can drive future expansion. In Seagate’s case, local Channel Relation Managers can for example, identify the right channel partners for which Seagate creates a tailor-made development program, helping them to grow and scale their business in line with the market’s needs.