The structure of the newly-merged R2-billion Westcon/Comztek company has been announced and should be largely completed within just six weeks.
By the first week of August has been earmarked as the deadline for the new-look organisation to become operational, while financials will be merged by December.
Westcon Group CEO Paul Conradie, unveiling the new structure this morning, says the two companies have brought together a range of complementary vendor and solution offering.
“The organisations were traditionally competitors, but there was less customer overlap than we expected,” he says.
Westcon traditional focused on enterprise and large corporate customers, Conradie adds, while Comztek addresses the enterprise, SME and consumer market.
While Comztek has a strong African presence, Westcon brings a strong global logistics infrastructure to the merger.
Westcon traditionally went to market with a service-led approach, whereas Comztek offered the market a strong services and spares offering, he adds.
The newly-merged organisation will be structured along business practice lines, in line with Westcon’s global practice. The business practices are focused technology areas, with focused skills, expertise and vendor alliances.
The seven divisions are: Comstor (mostly Cisco); consumer solutions; communication solutions; mobility solutions; software solutions; security solutions – electronics; and security solutions – networking.
The benefits to customers lie in the expanded vendor and solutions offerings that both Westcon and Comztek bring to the new organisation, together with a clear focus and a higher skills base.
The African footprint allows the company to assist customers with their own African expansion, while access to the improved global logistics operation is already offering value to customers.
The merged company has a turnover of about R2-billion; it has nine offices in Africa, fully staffed and with warehousing; and has delivered products into 26 Africa countries over the last 12 months. A staff of 320 people look after 3 750 active customers.
In addition, Conradie points out that the new organisation is part of a much larger global group.
Westcon was founded in 1985 and has a turnover of $4-billion It is active in 58 countries on six continents, with 20 logistics and staging facilities serving 20 000 active customers.
While Conradie is the group’s new CEO, Uwe Brandkamp has been appointed as regional sales manager; Fatima Ghany is the chief financial officer; and Andries Coetzee is the chief operating officer.
Conradie is confident that the merger will be as smooth as possible for staff members.
“We are going through the processes now, but I don’t anticipate any significant changes to the staffing,” he says. “We have come to realise that the opportunities outweigh what we have.”
According to Conradie there will be a period of consolidation in the business as the backend and operational environments are merged, however there will be little to no disruption to customers over this period, as it remains business as usual from a partner viewpoint.
With regards to its black economic-empowerment partner, the Mineworkers Investment Corporation, the reorganisation and merger will see the corporation hold a 40% stake in the combined business; Comztek management owning 9,9% and Datatec, through subsidiary Westcon Emerging Markets Group, 50,1%.
“We have been in consultation with all of our vendor partners who are excited with the new prospects the merger holds for them. It is our intention to provide the reseller partners of our collective businesses the opportunity to expand their offerings to clients by tapping into the expanded product and services portfolio we now offer, which will in turn significantly grow their market share,” Conradie says.