NetApp has awarded Sparc Systems with an award of the Fastest Growing Partner of the Year Award FY18 for NetApp, citing three major reasons including their revenue achievements and skills level on NetApp data management products.
The Malawian firm which is steadily breaking on the continent with branches in Zambia and Rwanda was given the award at Sandton in South Africa recently.
NetApp’s Avinesh Harrielal, who was recently in the country to among others formally present the award to Sparc Systems Managing Director, Wisely Phiri, said NetApp is also impressed because the company [Sparc Systsems] has successful engagement in enterprise accounts in Africa
“Lastly, their growth and expansion of the SPARC group within Africa together with NetApp is encouraging,” he said.
Phiri said an award from NetApp as the fastest growing NetApp partner in Africa shows that the company is doing great job.
“NetApp, Inc. is a data services and data management company headquartered California, USA and is behind the storage management for the hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and Microsoft clouds just to mention a few. As Sparc Systems we are an IT systems integrator and support provider in Africa and NetApp is one of the products that we have globals skills on. We have done a number of implementations for this manufacturer in Malawi and other countries in Africa like Zambia and Rwanda. We were awarded this based on our growth in selling, implementing and supporting NetApp products,” said he.
Phiri said this also indicates that Sparc Systsems as leaders on systems integration solutions not only in Malawi but also Africa.
He added that through this way the company has been recognized as a warranty Center for IBM, Oracle and Lenovo among others.
Phiri also said Sparc Systems has grown fast beyond the borders and currently has 46 permanent employees across the group and over 200 temporary employees working on various projects.
“We currently have five physical offices, that is Blantyre and Lilongwe in Malawi. Also Lusaka and Kitwe in Zambia and also Kigali in Rwanda. These physical offices are supporting our foot print in a number of African countries. We have done implementations in 10 African countries so far flying our engineers from these physical locations. Our customers trust us because our skills are at global level. For most of the projects we have won, we have competed with companies from developed countries such as UK, India, South Africa and Kenya but we have managed to win based on our skills level and reputations. Now we are happy to have manufactures recognizing us as Fastest Growing Partner which is very good,” he said.
Phiri added that they are developing because of strategic decisions.
“When looking at the IT landscape we categorize countries as those in developed world and also those in emerging markets. For example South Africa, Mauritius and Kenya would be put developed markets while Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania will be in emerging markets. What has to be noted is that for all the companies in the emerging markets our problems are mostly the same.
“If you are able to provide solutions to clients in Malawi you should not have issues to provide solutions to clients in Zambia for example if you have skills to do the same. We are here to show Malawians that it is possible to start from Malawi and grow into the African markets provided you work with integrity and dedication. The sky is no longer the limit,” he said.
