Numerous surveys reveal a proactive yet prudent market, operating in a variety of different conditions. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic struck, local companies could switch to more effective digital systems.
It's also a very tough and competitive market for vendors and other technology suppliers, which makes the partnership between Huawei and Mustek all the more impressive. Since these two companies joined forces a decade ago, they blazed trails throughout the region and established a new choice for enterprises in South Africa and beyond. It's a success worth celebrating, not just for Huawei and Mustek, but as a demonstration of the local market's reach and potential.
"Huawei was best known locally for its telecommunications technologies," says David Kan, CEO of Mustek. "But in the late 2000s, it created the enterprise division and met with Mustek to see how we can work together. I'd say it worked out really well!"
Really well indeed: Huawei is the dominant network provider in Africa and has been instrumental in deploying 4G and 5G across the continent. It's also the global leader among data centre interconnect vendors, excluding North America. Many of these successes helped pave the way for its enterprise division. Other than counting numerous major South African enterprises as its clients, Huawei also launched a local presence of Huawei Cloud, a hyper-scale platform rivalling those of Azure and AWS.
Yet this didn't happen only through the successes of its telecommunications and consumer device businesses. Huawei needed a partner that could show the South African market it's an enterprise brand worth supporting – and that partner is Mustek.
"Huawei has been playing an increasingly important role in SA's journey of digital transformation," says Bai Yudong, Huawei Enterprise's director of Channel Sales, South Africa. "Mustek, Huawei's strategic distributor and partner in South Africa, has always been part of that role. With Mustek's influence in the industry and its continuous investment in Huawei's business, we can better deliver our advanced technologies and products to South Africa, to speed up digital transformation."
The partnership is also the vehicle for Mustek to expand its presence among enterprise customers, and Kan says it was a different experience than launching consumer brands.
"In the consumer space, if you have a good product at a good price – and you can market that brand enough – you can convince customers that it's a good investment. But in enterprise, it takes a year or two just to get close to a customer and convince them to try your equipment and services. It's a very different level of trust. Huawei showed a great deal of patience with us to learn how to approach the enterprise market."
That this partnership now celebrates 10 successful years speaks volumes of that approach and the Huawei/Mustek value proposition. Enterprise solutions are not just about the best price point or superior equipment. It requires knowledge and appreciation for the customer's vision and meeting those expectations with flexibility, understanding and professionalism. Over the past 10 years, these values are exactly what the partnership delivered, Yudong adds. "As a logistics platform, Mustek’s professionalism helps Huawei better deliver products and solutions to customers on time, ensuring the SLAs of our services. The distribution will also expand with Huawei Devices, Huawei Enterprise and Huawei Public Cloud, to all sectors in the ICT industry. We will keep focusing on the strategic partnership, keep improving our channel policy to benefit more of our partners, and build our ecosystem.
“But this is not just the story of a successful partnership. If the market wasn't ready and able to accept a new enterprise player, this 10-year milestone would never have been reached. Huawei and Mustek's success is a reflection on South Africa and its progressive organisations, keen to adopt digital modernisation and build the future. When we celebrate Huawei and Mustek's 10-year partnership, we also celebrate and thank the market that made this journey possible – and look forward to the next 10 years!”
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