Kathy Gibson reports – Drone manufacturer DJI Enterprise is strengthening its South African presence and focus, having set up a local presence, appointed a master distributor and named its first official resellers.
Mona Lin and Spencer Chen
Lethu Buthelezi will head up DJI Enterprise’s South African office, working with Rectron, the newly-appointed master distributor for SADC.
The partners that have been onboarded as official resellers are Africa Drone Kings, Hennie’s Drone Repair and Training, Optron, Teleeye and Agrihawk.
Mona Lin, DJI Enterprise MEA channel management, tells delegates to the DJI and Rectron partner reception that South Africa is a diverse market and requires closer attention.
“After several months deliberation, we have decided to change our channel model. Previously, we didn’t have a local face and local platform in South Africa.
“We want to invest in this market, and needed a local platform that knows the market very well, and can speak to customers and partners to carry the brand and our standards forward.
“This is why we have appointed Rectron as our master distributor, and launched the first official dealers in South Africa.”
Buthelezi, newly appointed as the DJI Enterprise business development manager SACU, explains that DJI offers a broad spectrum of solutions.
It operates in a number of vertical markets, including public safety, geospatial, utilities, renewable energy, oil and gas, forestry, water conservancy, mining and environmental protection.
Partnering is important in addressing this market, he adds: “We aim to work with partners to co-create solutions for the diverse South African landscape.”
DJI Enterprise offers an end-to-end solution that encompasses payloads, software and third-party integration.
“We work together to create integrated drone solutions that add value,” Buthelezi says. “There is no problem too small or too big that we can’t solve with our technology.”
The company is focusing new solutions on its dock technology that will enable the creation of new integrated and automated solutions, and today launched its Dock 3 solution into the local market.
DJI Enterprise’s global partner ecosystem includes more than 200 payload partners with different solutions and use cases, 100 000 MSDK and cloud API developers, and about 1 000 software platforms that can be integrated into its products.
After-sales service include 16 official repair centres, 120 authorised service partner and a convenient self-service repair system. With value-added services include DJI Care and DJI Drone Maintenance Service, the company logs a 90% user satisfaction rate.