Acronis has reached another milestone as part of its expansion strategy: it has shown outstanding results after a year of working together with market research agency CG Consulting on its African reseller recruitment drive.
The global leader in cyber protection considers Africa as a priority and has been pursuing several strategic investments globally to further its vision of advancing holistic cyber protection.
As a channel-centric organisation, the company provides its partners with best-of-breed cyber protection solutions to grow their businesses and in turn, provide their customers with leading cyber protection solutions.
According to Rebecca Domingo, Acronis Regional & Distributor Marketing Manager for Africa, the campaign was aimed at expanding into the African reseller market place. “We needed to gain an understanding of the African market conditions and identify the key stakeholders in various countries as we seek to grow our service provider-base on the continent.”
“In the beginning it was a little daunting, not really knowing where to start – so we started at the bottom and have worked our way up the African continent. Languages, cultures and time zones were a little tricky to start with but we worked around that,” Robinson explains.
CG Consulting has 20 years’ experience and regional knowledge of Africa, including an extensive network of people on the ground throughout the continent. Its industry knowledge, insights and expertise are a key element in assisting Acronis in both the planning and execution phases of their campaigns.
Domingo says CG Consulting has people who speak the dialects of the different regions and provide Acronis with invaluable insights into country-specific challenges. “More importantly, it offers a hands-on, collaborative approach. They get stuck in and do what it takes to ensure the job gets done. Their data is high quality, they are responsive and they embody teamwork in a way that can benefit a marketing team of any size.”
Louise Robinson, CG Consulting CEO, says Acronis believes in a direct approach when connecting with new resellers which is very refreshing. “People talk to people. We have taken the time to call people which is more personal, and the results show its working.”
“We have called, verified, built and connected with thousands of resellers, ISPs, hosting and traditional IT resellers to make this campaign a success. We have tackled 75% of the continent and are growing the base at a tremendous pace. It’s a huge project with five callers and long lists of data to get through,” she adds.
Robinson highlights the challenge of databases and resellers being the most important part of the campaign, as it is sometimes hard to find them in certain region where they don’t traditionally use the internet or social platforms like LinkedIn.
“MSPs, hosting companies and IT companies have tripled in Africa over the last two years, which is astounding. Everyone has a phone and is connecting to the internet somehow; still it is hard to believe how many MSP’s and vendors are still out there that to be approached. CG have built these amazing databases to be tapped into,” she concludes.
