Exclusive Networks Africa is continuing its expansion into Africa, building presence within the sub-Saharan region in recent months, including the opening of a formal office in Lagos, Nigeria. This adds to the existing offices in South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius.
Because Africa is seen as a growth market by the Group, it is widely recognised as an important investment destination, allowing for a strong focus on the company’s vendor partners, both current as well as potential.
This is according to Anton Jacobsz, MD of Exclusive Networks Africa, who says: “Having previously operated in a number of countries across Africa with the support of representatives there, as well as from Head Office in Centurion, Gauteng wherever required, the company was very pleased recently to extend its footprint more formally with increased resources on the ground in Uganda, Madagascar and Nigeria.
“This is in line with our vision to become a pan-African cybersecurity specialist and upgrade our regional presences with formal offices in every country within which we operate.”
As the African entity of a global company that is listed on the Paris stock exchange, Euronext Paris, the Ugandan and Madagascan employees were appointed, and the Nigerian branch established, following extensive due diligence which evaluated current and future business trends in the central African, Indian Ocean Islands and West African areas respectively.
“Our business has been doing extremely well this year, with significant growth and very pleasing recent financial results,” says Jacobsz. “The branch in Lagos, Nigeria will be able to service the growing West African market in a consolidated manner. As part of the growth strategy across the continent, it was decided that opening a dedicated branch in Lagos made business sense due to its geographical location and position in the heart of the thriving West African region.
“Having been operational in Nigeria for some five years already, we were really pleased to be able to register a formal entity and open up Exclusive Networks Nigeria. The office has been set up and the new team members have moved in. This bodes very well for our expansion plans across Africa.”
In its quest to become a significant presence across the key areas in Africa, Jacobsz explains that Exclusive Networks Africa’s approach involves identifying the key growth regions.
“We’ll start by putting feet on the ground to service those regions, with the team developing the channel and servicing the market,” he explains. “Thereafter the goal is to have in-country offices, with the ultimate vision being to open a branch across every country in Africa that we service, across the vast majority of the continent.”
Jacobsz believes that countries across the continent should be willing and enabled to tap into each other’s markets in order to grow businesses and, accordingly, profits, to the greater economic benefit of the entire region.
“Put very simply, we in Africa, across different countries and regions, need to start interacting with each other intra-country and across borders in the same the way that business entities across Europe interact with each other across regions,” he notes.
Jacobsz adds that the strategy includes distinct elements, such as the growth of existing vendors across existing markets; existing vendors into new potential markets; onboarding new vendors, and finally services.
“The Exclusive Networks Africa services business is a very strong enabler for territories where partners are unable to invest heavily in their own resources, and our footprint across the continent can relieve a great deal of business pressure,” he says.
“We offer access to 43 countries on the continent where Exclusive Networks has the footprint, and the ability, to be the partner of choice in taking away the burden of administrative issues such as import functionality, handling of VAT, service operations and so on.
“At Exclusive Networks, we proudly offer market-leading brands across the cybersecurity sphere and differentiate ourselves further with our world class service. We are excited to see our presence in these areas consolidated and look forward to growing our presence in additional targeted countries, in a ‘hub-and-spoke’ relationship, in due course,” Jacobsz concludes.