HCLSoftware is looking to expand its African service offerings by leveraging its existing partner-focused strategy.
The software division of IT consulting company, HCLTech, headquartered in India, believes alliances will be key for it when competing in the continent’s diverse and complex markets.
With a current focus on government technology, cybersecurity, data, and AI-powered automation, the organisation is planning to invest in various solutions, including sovereign cloud deployment, artificial intelligence (AI) and enhancing digital experience.
Rajiv Shesh, chief revenue officer for the firm, shared the regional expansion strategy in an interview with ITWeb Africa on the sidelines of the company’s inaugural South African Executive Summit, held in Johannesburg last week.
Shesh noted that the partnerships will be with smaller, regional partners as they are culturally connected and have a deeper understanding of customer needs, and local market dynamics and requirements.
He said: “Africa is about relationships. Smaller, regional partners have close relationships with the clients. We [tech companies] are headquartered in the United States or India, so we can only achieve limited partnerships.”
The HCLSoftware executive went on to emphasise that partner organisations are focused on customer experience, as such, clients attain reassurance in having business relationships with the organisations to get extended support.
Shesh further clarified that unlike mainly operating from countries of origin, Africa presents an unlimited scope of connections.
“We want to leverage the relationships that our partners have with the end customer and provide technology to our partners so that they can be successful. The way we measure the success of our partner organisation is to see how profitable our partner's business is,” he added.
Shesh also underlined that the diaspora boasts a tech ecosystem that has an immense talent pool, which, according to him, is a crucial point of interest for the business in the region. However, he believes there is room to advance upskilling, as the youth has vast ambitions, and potential for entrepreneurship and growth.
“The most attractive point for us is the availability of the talent pool here, because when I look at Africa, we need to look at it as a block of around 54 countries with very young people with a lot of aspirations and the significant opportunity for entrepreneurship and growth. When I look at Africa, it is an opportunity to create a phenomenal talent pool.
“The young, energetic, ambitious workforce is what I see as a tremendous opportunity for HCLSoftware, because any software company needs an environment where people are committing their careers to that technology, and we find that as a significant opportunity in Africa,” he concluded.
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