CaTS expands in Tanzania

C.a.T.S to move into bigger offices in Tanzania after IBM’s announcement to open offices there

Computer Assisted Telephony Systems (CaTS), one of a number of active business partners for IBM’s lotus Foundations Start solution – a version of Lotus specifically aimed at the small and medium enterprise business market – is to move into bigger premises in Dar-es-Salam, Tanzania, and has appointed a business development manager, taking the staff count to five people.

This is due to the fact that IBM, seeing the growth in Africa – which is pegged by analysts at around 5% this year – is also opening offices in Tanzania.

Said Johan Grobler, MD of CaTS:” We are an IBM reseller and recently launched IBM’s Lotus Foundations Start solution in Tanzania. The fact that they are moving to Tanzania means we have more punch, more credibility. We need to piggy-back off that so we have moved into larger, better placed offices, and committed more staff and resources.”

Grobler said the company is also due to open offices in Nigeria, adding that he expects IBM to follow suite.

“They have a big drive into Africa planned and a lot of private and institutional investors are looking at emerging markets as good places to invest  due to their growth. Europe, as a whole, is expected to grow at 0.5% during the next year – if they are lucky, and contagion  matters like the possible Greece economic crisis is not making things easier. Africa is growing at 5%. This is enticing investment and African companies will benefit from this.

“This is probably why 80% of our revenue currently comes from African countries. We don’t see this changing. But with IBM being based in Tanzania, as well, our relations with customers can improve considerably. We are fairly bullish for the next 12 months, in terms of sales growth.”

CaTS’ is currently active in countries that include Lesotho, Nigeria,the DRC and Tanzania.

“We also work with IBM from a unified communications point of view – as we are essentially telephony experts. But we found that our expertise fits perfectly with IBM’s Lotus solution, especially the IBM Lotus Foundation Start solution, which is expected to be a big boon to smaller companies.”

The new small business Lotus solution from IBM is a proven platform that will deliver enterprise-class performance and reliability. The IBM Lotus Foundation application is a full-featured solution that is aimed at minimising costs, simplifying the complexity traditionally associated with IT. It is also aimed at protecting existing user investments, while designed to meet the unique needs of smaller businesses.