Ingram Micro is changing its operating model to better serve the South African market.

The company says the relatively small size of its operations and the limited number of product lines available have impacted the company’s ability to expand its offerings within the country, limiting the solutions it is able to provide its customers and affecting the company’s success in South Africa.

Ingram Micro has started consultations under section 189 of the Labour Relations Act 66 Of 1995 with its employees to effect a proposed winding down of its operations in South Africa by consensus.

Assuming all regulatory and legal clearances are received, the company expects to wind down its South Africa offices by 1 December 2019, and is working with regulatory authorities to help ensure a smooth transition for impacted associates.

The company is providing career counseling, severance and other customary benefits to the associates.

Ingram Micro plans to continue to serve South Africa from Europe, which will enable it to leverage broader vendor relationships – particularly for the DC POS and Cloud products – to provide a more robust suite of offerings into the South Africa market.

Some other parts of the business will be served from the United Arab Emirates.

“These are always difficult decisions to take, however, we believe we will be able to better serve the IT needs of our customer and vendor partners in South Africa from our European and UAE operations,” says Ali Baghdadi, senior vice-president and chief executive: META region at Ingram Micro. “With this move, we will be able to leverage established best-practices and current vendor relationships, particularly in the fast-growing DC POS and Cloud markets, to offer an expanded suite of products and solutions to our South African customers.”