Toshiba partners with Al Futtaim Technologies in East Africa

The partnership aims to focus on East Africa as an emerging market with huge growth potential.

Al-Futtaim has set up offices in all three countries operating under the name AFTECH for Kenya and Uganda and TAMASCO for Tanzania. Each office will consist of a team of dedicated staff to handle all sales, marketing and service operations. As of August 2006, these offices will be fully functional, trained, certified and equipped to cover each market efficiently and effectively. While Al-Futtaim will be working with various local resellers in sales activities, the company will handle all marketing and service operations in full collaboration with Toshiba Gulf.

"Toshiba was looking for a partner that could cover the East African market and provide complete solutions to customers in each of these countries. Based on our existing association with Al-Futtaim Technologies and their position as one of the fastest-growing technology solutions providers, they were an obvious choice for us," commented Leon Gifford, Regional Sales and Marketing Manager, Toshiba.

Gifford added that the East African market is growing rapidly, with most of the growth occurring in Kenya which has become the hub for East Africa, with major corporations basing their regional headquarters there.

"From a technological standpoint, Kenya is well established and is fast adopting new technologies as well as creating an infrastructure that supports these technologies. For Toshiba, East Africa is an emerging market with huge potential, and this is why we, together with AFTECH, are investing heavily in the region," said Gifford.

"Together with Al-Futtaim, it is our aim to uproot the current grey market by offering a full sales, marketing and service support package in order to ensure that our customers are aware of the advantages of the legal channel, and also Toshiba's product offering."

In order to ensure that the approach to market is steady and efficient, Toshiba has realigned its product offering, route to market, channel strategy and marketing activities with the support of Al-Futtaim Technologies.

"We are committed to providing the best quality pre- and after-sales service to Toshiba's customers in the East African market. We are looking forward to building on our existing relationship with Toshiba and are confident that our extensive experience will enable Toshiba to successfully reach customers in these countries", said Ramesh Belani, Sales & Marketing Manager, Al-Futtaim Technologies.