Lenovo South Africa and Mustek have signed a distribution deal, which will see Mustek spearheading Lenovo’s expansion within the small and medium sized business (SMB) sector.

Henry Ferreira, Lenovo South Africa country manager, said that the company is already growing faster than the market, both locally and internationally. Lenovo however has no intention of taking its foot off the accelerator and is now targeting expansion in specific sectors, of which SMB is one of the most significant for the company.

Ferreira stated that Mustek’s decades-long track record of serving the SMB market will provide Lenovo with a breadth and depth of reach within that market. Achieving the latter without this partnership would have taken the company much longer.

“In addition, Mustek shares our view that the existing distribution channel must not be cannibalised by taking market share from other organisations to boost Lenovo’s slice of the pie,” Ferreira added.

Ivan Barnard, Lenovo product manager at Mustek, said that the combination of Lenovo and Mustek is a powerful growth engine for the distribution and reseller channel. He stated that Mustek’s tight focus on SMBs have provided the company with incredible insight into what creates growth for companies in that sector – and resellers are SMBs.

“We’ll therefore be bringing our expertise to bear not only on acquiring new channel members but also being proactive in helping them grow,” explained Barnard. “The Lenovo business partner channel (Club Lenovo) will add impetus to that process through rebates, training, and other incentives.”

Mustek’s service focus also enables it to offer warranties over and above Lenovo’s own service and product guarantees. According to Barnard Mustek and Lenovo have the capabilities to make an hugely practical positive difference to the channel and to the market at large.

Strong focus on SMB-sized retailers

Mustek will distribute Lenovo’s full range of products on a national basis, with the Think range being aimed at SMBs and the Idea range at retail outlets. Lenovo has also recently upgraded its ThinkPad Edge line of small business notebooks, introducing a number of new features such as Lenovo Enhanced Experience 2.0, while the impressive ThinkPad X1 should also see SA shores soon.

“Again, we’ll have a strong focus on SMB-sized retailers, helping to boost their market credibility by giving them access to Lenovo’s superior products,” Barnard said.

Ferreira added that Lenovo sees Africa as its next big emerging market and has put in place clear objectives for expansion into sub-Saharan Africa.

“Another reason for our partnering with Mustek is that it has an established presence in key markets such as Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe and, with its focus on in-house service and support, can augment our service strategy in areas we could not otherwise reach. For all of which reasons, we see our agreement with Mustek as an important next step in both our short and long term strategy.”

 

Besides this deal with Lenovo, Mustek has also co-signed an agreement with Huawei Enterprise, whereby Huawei grants Mustek the local distribution rights of the Huawei Enterprise product range.