HCL Infosystems Ltd - which focuses on hardware, services and ICT system integration – is looking to open three sales offices in Africa this year, starting with a direct presence in South Africa in the next three months.
“We are yet to decide the other two locations. Till now our strategy was to work with partners all over Africa and we will continue to do so. But a direct presence will allow us to be closer to both customer and partners,” the HCL Infosystems Chairman, Mr Ajai Chowdhry, said.
Although “miniscule” as percentage of its overall revenue, Africa continues to be an attractive market for HCL, given the demand for software solutions and systems integration work. In 2008, HCL Infosystems had bagged a large mandate to implement IT infrastructure in a Pan-Africa project; aimed at connecting 53 African countries into one network and providing electronic and knowledge connectivity to the nations.
According to Mr Chowdhry, Africa is also a lucrative market for its software products, particularly in areas such as e-governance, banking or security solutions. In the case of banking, for instance, the company's solutions are fine-tuned even for smaller banks, with, say, 300-500 branches, Mr Chowdhry pointed out.
“Other banking products in the market that are designed to cater to large banks with 5,000-10,000 branches can end-up being an expensive proposition for some of the smaller banks in Africa,” he said, adding that HCL's banking software was also designed keeping in mind infrastructure challenges faced by smaller branches.
“The idea is that software must run even if the network is down. So we design it in such a manner that it runs even when the main server is down in the central office,” Mr Chowdhry added.