Neckarsulm, 16 March 2015 – Bechtle AG has extended its Global IT Alliance to include a fifth partner, a full year after the partnership’s initiation and thus gains access to the South African market. Headquartered in Midrand, Datacentrix Holdings Limited maintains a region-wide service network and regional offices in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London. The publicly owned company employs roughly 1,100 workers, and achieved annual revenues amounting to 173 million euros in 2014 (approx. 2.3 billion South African rands). An IT systems integrator, Datacentrix has offered IT infrastructure, IT solutions, and managed services to public and enterprise customers in South Africa for over 17 years. Its strategic partners include HP, Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, OpenText, Riverbed, and Symantec.
Entrenched in the market for nearly two decades, Datacentrix is one of the largest IT service providers in South Africa. The company has successfully evolved from a sheer IT infrastructure provider to a solutions specialist and system integrator within the last five years. In the last fiscal year, managed services had a 49% share of com-pany proceeds. Datacentrix has a region-wide network of service units, a central logistics hub and five sales offices. The company has been listed on the main index of the JSE since 1998.
Continual expansion on five continents.
Since the beginning of 2014, Bechtle has been successively increasing its international network of partner companies in countries where the IT service and e-commerce provider does not maintain its own branch offices. This network was initiated in the first quarter of 2014 by a partnership with PC Connection (USA). Atea (Scandinavian and Baltic countries) followed in the second quarter, Lexel (New Zealand and Australia) at the end of 2014, and JBS (Japan) in January 2015. The Global IT Alliance (GITA) was spurred by the increasing demand for comprehensive and international services with the same high quality standards in all countries.
Superior cross-border service.
“A year into its existence, the Global IT Alliance has gathered significant momentum. At the same time, our high quality standards and service levels are still key to becoming a member of this network. We are proud to have succeeded in bringing partners from five different continents under one roof. In the coming months, we expect to add one or two additional partners to our network”, states Jürgen Schäfer, Bechtle AG executive in charge of IT e-commerce.
Partner network has been growing for a year.
The primary goal of the Global IT Alliance is to help international companies find IT suppliers who can offer the same high quality standards in their respective markets. “Before we allow a new partner into the alliance, we enter into an intensive dialogue with the candidate, and also work together on some pilot projects. This approach is crucial so we can experience the service quality first hand and gain an in-depth in-sight into the processes”, explains James Napp, managing director of Bechtle direct UK and in charge of GITA. Constructed over the past year, the network expands Bechtle’s international presence and complements the group’s own geographic strategy. Bechtle is currently represented by 65 IT system houses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as e-commerce subsidiaries in 14 European countries. The IT group plans to grow its capabilities in the future through additional international subsidiaries as well as new global cooperation agreements.