News / National
World's leading digital firms keen to invest in Zimbabwe
09 Feb 2018 at 06:12hrs | Views
SOME of the world's top digital companies have shown interest in investing in Zimbabwe's Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector as the country continues to open its doors for business.
A number of global ICT and digital corporates are in Victoria Falls for a three-day first ever Data Centre Africa Expo conference in Zimbabwe which ends today.
Close to 100 delegates from across the globe are attending the conference whose aim is to grow the data centre market and to update players in the ICT sector of developments in the industry.
One of the companies seeking investment partners in Zimbabwe is Siemon.
The 114-year-old telecommunication business specialises in the design and manufacture of high quality and high performance low voltage infrastructure solutions and services for data centre, Local Area Networks (LANS) and intelligence buildings with global sales, technical and logistics expertise spanning over 100 countries.
Siemon Technical Manager Mr Dinesh OP said they were looking at expanding into Zimbabwe.
"We are looking forward that maybe this event will be helpful to grow our business in Zimbabwe.
"We have corporate customers who are here, who use our brand because they know our quality but we are still looking at empowering the local community.
"This is the first time we are visiting Zimbabwe and maybe l will be back in six months time to visit Harare as the commercial town so l can make some contacts since Victoria Falls is mostly a tourism destination," said Mr OP.
He said Siemon's idea is to train local companies to be certified engineers.
The United States-based company's core-business is in telecommunications and Mr OP said lately it's been pioneering data centre solutions and intelligence solution building.
"If you look at this part of the world there is no much of hyper skilled data centres. We are still looking at developing things like sustainability and environmental issues and we hope the Government (Zimbabwe) should look into that and boost the digital transformation."
He said Siemon's presence is visible across the globe where there are manufacturing facilities and technical support in all the continents.
"We are proud of having the highest technical support team and we already have presence in more than 22 countries in Africa although there are some countries we cannot go to because of some security reasons," added Mr OP.
The company has operations in Angola, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa among others.
Also participating at the conference is Schneider Electric, a European multinational corporation that specialises in energy management, automation solution, hardware and software services.
Schneider already has partnership with a local company Tendo Electronics and Power Engineering, a total solutions provider catering for all sectors of the economy, supplying, installing, servicing and maintaining UPS, standby generators, investors, Closed Circuit Television and access control, fire suppression, renewable energy equipment, air conditioning and other power networks.
Schneider's marketing manager Mr Chetan Mistry said the company intends to maintain its presence in the country through partnerships.
"We operate in over 100 countries throughout the world doing automation and power in four environments namely grid, industry, data centre and electrical.
"Our investment is through investment partners as we are a partner oriented organisation and we have partners like Tendo.
"We are hoping to meet all players from throughout Africa.
"We have representation hence we channel focus and business through our partners and we will continue operating that way empowering partners so they continue their digital drive," he said.
Data Centre Africa chairman Dr Dunny Derera data centre market is still small in Southern Africa.
"Market of data centre in Southern Africa is still too small hence we are here to market Zimbabwe as a good destination for data centre," he said.
A number of local companies such as TelOne, Econet, Tendo and Nyaradzo, which have interests in ICT, are participating at the conference.
Data Centre Africa has lined up a number of training workshops in Zimbabwe.
A number of global ICT and digital corporates are in Victoria Falls for a three-day first ever Data Centre Africa Expo conference in Zimbabwe which ends today.
Close to 100 delegates from across the globe are attending the conference whose aim is to grow the data centre market and to update players in the ICT sector of developments in the industry.
One of the companies seeking investment partners in Zimbabwe is Siemon.
The 114-year-old telecommunication business specialises in the design and manufacture of high quality and high performance low voltage infrastructure solutions and services for data centre, Local Area Networks (LANS) and intelligence buildings with global sales, technical and logistics expertise spanning over 100 countries.
Siemon Technical Manager Mr Dinesh OP said they were looking at expanding into Zimbabwe.
"We are looking forward that maybe this event will be helpful to grow our business in Zimbabwe.
"We have corporate customers who are here, who use our brand because they know our quality but we are still looking at empowering the local community.
"This is the first time we are visiting Zimbabwe and maybe l will be back in six months time to visit Harare as the commercial town so l can make some contacts since Victoria Falls is mostly a tourism destination," said Mr OP.
He said Siemon's idea is to train local companies to be certified engineers.
The United States-based company's core-business is in telecommunications and Mr OP said lately it's been pioneering data centre solutions and intelligence solution building.
"If you look at this part of the world there is no much of hyper skilled data centres. We are still looking at developing things like sustainability and environmental issues and we hope the Government (Zimbabwe) should look into that and boost the digital transformation."
He said Siemon's presence is visible across the globe where there are manufacturing facilities and technical support in all the continents.
"We are proud of having the highest technical support team and we already have presence in more than 22 countries in Africa although there are some countries we cannot go to because of some security reasons," added Mr OP.
The company has operations in Angola, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa among others.
Also participating at the conference is Schneider Electric, a European multinational corporation that specialises in energy management, automation solution, hardware and software services.
Schneider already has partnership with a local company Tendo Electronics and Power Engineering, a total solutions provider catering for all sectors of the economy, supplying, installing, servicing and maintaining UPS, standby generators, investors, Closed Circuit Television and access control, fire suppression, renewable energy equipment, air conditioning and other power networks.
Schneider's marketing manager Mr Chetan Mistry said the company intends to maintain its presence in the country through partnerships.
"We operate in over 100 countries throughout the world doing automation and power in four environments namely grid, industry, data centre and electrical.
"Our investment is through investment partners as we are a partner oriented organisation and we have partners like Tendo.
"We are hoping to meet all players from throughout Africa.
"We have representation hence we channel focus and business through our partners and we will continue operating that way empowering partners so they continue their digital drive," he said.
Data Centre Africa chairman Dr Dunny Derera data centre market is still small in Southern Africa.
"Market of data centre in Southern Africa is still too small hence we are here to market Zimbabwe as a good destination for data centre," he said.
A number of local companies such as TelOne, Econet, Tendo and Nyaradzo, which have interests in ICT, are participating at the conference.
Data Centre Africa has lined up a number of training workshops in Zimbabwe.
Source - chronicle
