Video and audio conferencing solutions company Polycom has signed a distribution deal with Kenyan based company, Mitsumi Distribution, to take its products across Sub Saharan Africa.

Polycom which is a provider of unified communication technology, hopes to bank on the ever growing African economy for its products.

Chris Prowse, who is the regional sales director, says that the company plans to see a rise in customer acquisition as a result of the Mitsumi deal. Currently, Polycom has 50 clients in Kenya.

“This is an area which we recognised by last year that we need to be really pushing our investment and focus. We decided that this will be done in 2014,” Prowse said.

“We consider Africa as a key market and are genuinely happy to partner with Mitsumi Value Distribution, one of the largest players in IT market in Africa.”

Jagat Shah, the chairman and chief executive officer at Mitsumi, told ITWeb Africa, “Kenya is a hub for East Africa, and most companies with their headquarters in Kenya have offices in other countries. Most of the management keep on traveling between their regional offices and we want to minimize that. That is what Polycom is all about.”

Through video conferencing, the cost and time of traveling for meetings is greatly reduced, Shah added.

Chris Prowse said that improving ICT technology in the region means that video conferencing could become more useful.

“The opportunity in education in Africa is huge. Globally we are already having success in education. In remote parts of Africa our products can be used and even in adult education,” he said.

He also added that other sectors such as health could be positively impacted through video conferencing tools, with specialised doctors giving instruction to their counterparts without the need to travel.

Polycom is one of the leading video and audio conferencing providers in the world with over 400,000 companies using their products.