Kathy Gibson is at Techscape 2022 – Huawei South Africa has reiterated its commitment to growing its presence and headcount in South Africa as it drives digital transformation in key markets.
As a Level 2 B-BBEE company, the organisation has 1 400 employees, creating 70 000 indirect jobs inside the country, says Christo Abrahams, executive industry solutions manager at Huawei South Africa.
Huawei Enterprise has a channel-centric go-to-market model, with 1 100 registered partners in South Africa, including 200 solution partners, 900 certified engineers and more than 50 service partners.
Although Huawei started life as a telecommunications equipment manufacturer it has expanded its offerings to include enterprise systems, cloud solutions and consumer devices.
Abrahams points out that Huawei’s enterprise business is a CNY100-billion business today, and is a digital transformation partner for no fewer than 267 enterprise companies.
The organisation focuses on key industries: smart cities, financial institution, rail, airports, oil and gas companies, and electric power companies.
In South Africa, Huawei has had some significant milestones since its launch in 1998, Abrahams adds.
These include the first LTE-A commercial launch in 2014, the creation of the e-government cloud in partnership with SITA in 2018, the first 5G network with Rain in 2019, using technology to fight epidemics together with government and enterprises in 2020, and the launch of a OpenLab in 2021.
Among its customers, Huawei Enterprise numbers organisations in government, education, finance and mining. “Huawei is committed to supporting industry digitalisation within these organisations – particularly government,” Abrahams says.
To this end, the vendor has established a “one platform” strategy to aggregate services. It has also invested in a joint innovation centre to help drive e-government, cloud and big data transformation.
Other initiatives include a single cloud to support SITA (the State IT Agency) with e-government is under construction; a dedicated team to help with SA Connect; support for PRASA (Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa) and Transnet in building their private networks; and Open Server network and IoT solutions.
“These initiatives are good for the country and for business,” Abrahams says.
Huawei focuses on the platform, AI and ecosystem which, together, help customers to make a successful digital transformation.
“All organisations are lookin to derive more value from data,” Abrahams explains. “Today, this data-driven economy is running side by side with the digital economy. To enable it, we need a platform capability that brings these things together, layering it with new technology that helps to implement the business strategy.”
He explains that customers can use this platform to innovate and create new value for their customers.
For example, the Huawei Digital Platform enables smart government.
“We work with partners to help government customers build smart cities and achieve the overall goals of good governance in order to benefit people and bring them prosperity,” Abrahams says.
“They can streamline the data of government departments and build a smart city foundation to support efficient business decision-making and scientific governance.”
In addition, technologies like cloud and IoT can be used to improve municipal and public services.
“It is our job to help governments users to turn into a government of the future.”
Smart campus is another opportunity for the Huawei Digital Platform, enabling secure, smart and green digital campuses.
In mining, the technology allows data to be shared ubiquitously, from the pit to the boardroom, with sensors connected and centrally controlled.
The recent supply chain issues that the world experienced have highlighted the importance of smart ports to drive economic activity.
“We need to bring relevant digital solutions to this industry to make it highly effective,” Abrahams says.
Underpinning these industry-specific solution, the public cloud provides and underlying foundation that is scalable and secure.
“Cloud is the foundation on which future businesses will be built,” says Abrahams. “It is the most important foundational building block for all technology initiatives.”
With two cloud data centres in South Africa, Huawei’s public cloud is about to guarantee quickest time to service, he adds.
Other value propositions are a zero-risk partnership model that offers resellers free proof of concept for the customers, the best local support, marketing support, and free training and certification.
“For partners, there are many opportunities to create new solutions and services on Huawei’s unified, integrated architecture,” according to Abrahams.
Pinnacle resellers qualify for the exclusive offer of a $500 voucher for Huawei cloud. They will also get a dedicated account manager.
“We are serious about this,” Abrahams concludes. “We know the economy cannot function as it should without the cloud.”
Partnering with Pinnacle
Pinnacle is a Huawei distributor, dealing with enterprise, cloud and consumer product lines.
Together, the two companies offer a broad range of product and services to resellers, along with pre-sales, marketing and technical support, says Fred Saayman, brand director: Huawei at Pinnacle.
Among the new launches now available via Pinnacle are the new OceanProtect backup storage device.
“This sets a new benchmark in the F2F2Z (flash to flash to anything) market, offering rapid backup and recovery, efficient reduction, and high reliability,” according to Saayman.
A wide range of CCTV cameras plus an intelligent video platform are now available, along with a CCTV range aimed at the SMB environment.
Saayman is particularly proud of the Huawei cloud solutions. “Cloud Campus is a solution that allows resellers to build a fully-wireless, intelligent cloud campus network,” he says. “And Huawei and Pinnacle will assist resellers to do this.”
In addition, Pinnacle will soon launch cloud campus as a service.”
Another new product is the Huawei IdeaHub, an all-in-one endpoint that enables a wireless smart office, smart classroom, smart hospital and smart financial institution.
IdeaHub brings videoconferencing hardware, whiteboards, projectors, Pad, PCs, cameras, microphones and speakers into one device, Saayman explains.
The range includes the IdeaHub Board, IdeaHub S and IdeaHub Pro
Resellers will love the Huawei optical light terminal (OLT) products now available from Pinnacle, Saayman says. Not only does the range include the industry’s smallest and densest OLT, Pinnacle resellers will get a 66% discount on OLT products and 22% off ONT devices.
Having recently taken on the Huawei consumer range as well, Pinnacle offers resellers access to the vendor’s smartphones, laptops, desktops, tablets and the soon-to-be-launched printer range.
Pinnacle offers added value to partners on a number of levels, and has now also introduced Pinnacle Finance, and engine whereby it can offer asset financing as a service.
Saayman explains that it is currently available for deals of R10-million or more.
“With this service, the challenge of asset management is taken away from the customer, who benefits from improved cashflow, a cleaner balance sheet and reduced risk. We help the partners to remove the burden of managing the acquisition, maintenance and disposal of fast-depreciating technology assets, with tailor-made solutions that are client-centric.
“For the partner, this makes closing of deals easier and faster as the deployment moves from capex to opex.
“It also helps them to helps to retain customers and business as it gives them more control over refresh and replacement cycles.”