Vodacom Business Africa partners with Crayon Africa to accelerate cloud adoption journey in Africa

Vodacom Business Africa has partnered with Crayon Africa, a global leader in Software Asset Management (SAM), Cloud and Volume licensing and associated consulting services, to deliver seamless and improved cloud solutions to businesses in Africa as they embark on their cloud adoption journey.

According to a study from Vodafone Business, ‘future ready’ businesses (FRBs) can be identified by six unifying characteristics, including adaptability, an openness to technology, and clear transformation goals. It is no surprise that businesses around the globe have been migrating their operations online as digital transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) change the business landscape. The traditional notion of the sub-scale private cloud within a private data centre is now being replaced by the unlimited access to an array of elastic cloud resources, consumed on a pay per use on demand basis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has without doubt accelerated this migration significantly, with businesses optimising their online presence, moving to cloud hosting and employees working remotely.

Cloud computing today offers new information technology potential through faster, more flexible and resilient capabilities. This partnership brings together two companies who have invested extensively in technologies that are capable of digitally transforming African businesses across the continent.

Solutions for business

Vodacom Business Africa’s partnership with Crayon Africa ensures that businesses have the best products and solutions available today, needed to future-proof their business as we continue to navigate new ways of working. By integrating the Microsoft CSP suite of solutions, such as Microsoft 365, Azure, Intune, Dynamics, Enterprise Mobility and providing support through Professional Services, Vodacom Business Africa is able to facilitate a smooth journey into the cloud for businesses.

“Partnerships drive innovation and with our expert partners, we are ready to help businesses transform into digital first organisations, ready to compete with the most advanced companies in their specific industries. Our partnership with Crayon Africa in particular, will help accelerate customers’ digital transformation journeys by offering the latest technology and innovative services, fuelling innovation and helping them address their critical business needs at speed and scale,” says Wale Odeyemi, Executive Head Strategic Marketing at Vodacom Business Africa.

“The strategic partnership between Crayon Africa and Vodacom Business Africa forges the strengths and impact of both companies across the continent, creating unique value for small, medium and enterprise customers,” says Werner Wilders, General Manager at Crayon Africa.

Due to the growing IT complexity and the evolving digital transformation driven by Cloud Technology, African ISPs and Systems Integrators (SIs) are able to leverage and appropriate a deep set of competencies built over years to the benefit of their businesses, without having to make the investments themselves. This will enable them capitalise on a wave of new opportunities in their markets, while participating in the platform economy.

The business landscape is changing, competitive barriers are disappearing, making the speed and agility to market critical components in the digital world. Vodacom Business Africa will be empowering its customers with self-serve digital tools that will allow them order and self-provision services directly from a secure web portal for their clients and users.

Innovative digital solutions take into account best-in-class digital platforms, tools, applications and services as well as our world class Pan Africa network to ensure a successful digital transformation journey for businesses seeking to expressly connect directly into the closest hyper-scale clouds.

This partnership brings competencies beyond just the Microsoft cloud. In the near future, Vodacom Business Africa will be augmenting its capabilities with added marketplace functionality to allow our businesses to attach their local products to create differentiated and unique bundled propositions for their clients.

Implementing new technologies

“The challenge of the CIO is to ensure full value is derived from the adoption and utilization of the cloud solutions they deploy in their organizations” says Odeyemi. Many businesses today still lack adequate knowledge on how best to use these cloud solutions to its full potential. In order to bridge this gap, Vodacom Business Africa has provided access to a rich resource of training modules on the Crayon empower-iQ Learning Management System (LMS) platform.

Whether from broadband Internet to private Software defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN), through the Internet of Things (IoT) all the way to the cloud, Vodacom Business Africa offers a range of products and services that support the digital transformation needs of businesses, who count on us to keep their operations confidently connected across the continent and beyond.

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