Information infrastructure solutions company EMC has a global vision: to grow its market share in the public sector and oil and gas industries.
On a regional level, the company has chosen EMC Southern Africa for its primary public sector investment in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) South territory.
Palesa Mapetla, former head of EMC Southern Africa’s Technology Solutions Group, was recently appointed Public Sector Business Unit manager, with a mandate to develop a new go-to-market strategy that specifically targets government agencies.
“Our parent company has invested heavily in the public sector team in southern Africa, as we have the greatest potential for growth in the EMEA South region,” Mapetla says. “The team has been expanded and staffed with top-notch individuals who have extensive experience and knowledge of the South African public sector.”
Mapetla says the EMC Southern Africa Public Sector Business Unit is working closely with the government to understand the specific requirements and challenges of the various public sector departments. “In line with our local strategy, we are deploying a direct and indirect touch focus in the public sector. Our Public Sector Business Unit has been structured to enable us to touch government agencies at a number of levels,” she says.
Mapetla is concentrating her efforts on forging strategic relationships at senior government level and guiding the direction of the Public Sector Business Unit from a business perspective.
In addition, she will develop additional resources within EMC Southern Africa to facilitate the company’s objective of growing its market share in this arena. Mapetla is assisted by a district manager who reports to her and is accountable for the day-to-day operational running of the team, as well as engaging with EMC Southern Africa’s channel partners. The district manager, in turn, is supported by account managers who specialise in understanding the requirements and challenges of specific government departments.
“In the past, EMC Southern Africa operated a broad go-to-market strategy which spanned all industry sectors, so traditionally there has not been a strong emphasis on building strategic relationships from a political point of view,” she says. “That is no longer the case – we are now driving strategic relationships in government and drilling down into the different departmental areas. We are fully committed to growing EMC’s market share in the South African public sector,” she says.
This approach includes a strong focus on EMC Southern Africa’s broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE). In its most recent rating by the National Empowerment Rating Agency, EMC Southern Africa achieved an 80% procurement recognition level despite its legal standing as an American-owned company. This progress in its transformation toward BBBEE reflects EMC’s capacity building programmes, preferential procurement and socio-economic contributions to the BBBEE rating. The Public Sector team will work closely with EMC Consulting Services to provide government departments with customised solutions that meet their unique needs and deliver tangible business benefits. “We have already identified service delivery as a key area where EMC Southern Africa can add value and help government departments address their challenges,” Mapetla says. “However, our objective is to create solutions to fit the need, rather than the other way around.”
Together with EMC Consulting Services, we will fulfil a thought leadership role, which goes beyond technology to a full evaluation of the business and how our solutions can help to make a difference. “There are a number of areas in which EMC leads the field – document archiving, disaster recovery, cloud computing and virtualisation, to name a few; and we will bring all this intellectual capital to bear as we build our strategic partnerships with government,” she concludes.
