The agreement represents an important milestone in Cisco’s Africa investment strategy and goal to deliver advanced communication and collaboration services throughout the sub-Saharan African region. The Wananchi Group is one of the first companies in the region to utilize the additional innovative resources that Cisco has to offer beyond its products and standard maintenance services. Additionally, the agreement demonstrates Cisco’s ability to adapt to change and align with any organization’s business and financial requirements.
Paul Mountford, President for Cisco’s Emerging Markets said, “This agreement with Wananchi is significant for Cisco’s business in Africa because it demonstrates our strong business partnership and consultancy capabilities beyond just being an end-to end network solutions technology provider. This is becoming increasingly important for our customers in Africa where we are witnessing major developments in the information, communications and technology (ICT) landscape.”
Wananchi Group, currently the only triple-play operator in East Africa, will roll-out its new services in nine countries in the eastern African region – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Ethiopia, Sudan and Zambia. The contract will also enable the Wananchi Group to deploy Cisco’s integrated end-to-end network technology solutions, encompassing Cisco’s Borderless Networks, Collaboration as well as Data Centre Virtualisation solutions, as their customer base expands and technology advances.
Mark Schneider, group chairman, the Wananchi Group said, “The entertainment market for both home and corporate customers in Africa, as a whole, continues to be reshaped in light of technological advancements and new industry partnerships. The Wananchi Group’s key objective is to expand our portfolio, enhance our commercial proposition, revenues and reputation. Cisco will help us to continuously deliver the necessary technology enhancements to our infrastructure to service our ever growing customer needs and remain at the forefront of delivering new and innovative services to our customers.”
Under this agreement, Cisco and Wananchi Group will provide a number of innovative and competitive managed and hosted communications and collaboration services for residential, corporate and government sectors.
