Small businesses still have big ambitions and increasingly look to technology to power these.

Partnering with Cisco, Westcon-Comstor is providing resellers access to a range of networking, security, collaboration and compute solutions that have been built from the ground up with the small business in mind.

“Today’s small business acknowledge that they can harness the greater powers of technology to get closer to customers and rapidly accelerate their growth. While they are still cost sensitive, they are tech-savvy and are willing to invest in solutions that work to helping them achieve these goals,” states Louise Taute, Comstor Director Southern Africa at Westcon-Comstor.

“The tools exist, but as an industry we need to package the right solutions for the small business customers, and that means creating solutions that take into account that no amount of technology will replace the human touch a smaller business brings to their customer.”

According to Taute, the Cisco Designed for Business, small business solution portfolio is extensive, and unlike other offerings that come with bloated price tags and with a host of irrelevant and unnecessary features, it hones in on delivering technology that specifically centred on the networking, wireless, security, video conferencing and collaboration, mobility and digital transformation goals of these customers.

These include Meraki for cloud-based networking, Umbrella for simple security, Webex Teams for one-stop collaboration, and HyperFlex for a streamlined data centre.

With the Cisco Designed for Business solutions Comstor is unpacking offerings that speak directly to the needs of this market, solutions that are simple, secure, and are scalable, enabling a company to work in the way they choose to.

The Cisco Small Business portfolio at a glance:

  • Switches to help simplify the network, but not compromise on quality
  • Routers that have baked in security and are easy to install
  • Security solutions that extend from the edge to the data centre and into the cloud
  • Collaboration offerings that enable better, faster and easier communication amongst employees and customers
  • Wireless Networking offerings to grant secure and reliable access to the network
  • Data Centre technologies that are secure and affordable

“You will find that we have taken the time to engage with small businesses and identify exactly what they are looking for, and it is not that different to an enterprise customer,” says Ivaniza Correia de Araujo, Comstor Marketing Lead Southern Africa at Westcon-Comstor.

“These customers also want to make use of the cloud, they need collaboration tools, have goals in place to leverage digital transformation, and follow a mobile first strategy while still demanding that all of these are secure. The only difference is that they don’t have the big budgets that go with these demands. If you take a look at the full remit of Cisco Small Business offerings – you will see that they tick all of these boxes,” ends Correia de Araujo.