Southern east
Africa stepping
up to boost
customer
experience
Intelsat and Q-KON enable
large-scale broadband
access in Africa
E
nterprises in Southern East Africa and
Mauritius are rapidly stepping up their
efforts to boost customer experience,
according to omnichannel customer
experience specialist Genesys. The firm
says enterprises in key African development
hubs are fast catching up with their
international counterparts in terms of next-
generation omnichannel customer service,
sales and marketing.
“Businesses across major verticals, including
financial services, healthcare, insurance,
hospitality and travel, are moving to modernise
their contact centre infrastructure, customer
experience, customer service, sales and
marketing channels,” said Adriaan van Staden,
Senior Sales Manager – Southern East Africa at
Genesys. “This is driven by customer demand
and growing competition in these sectors.”
In many cases, businesses in the region are
investing in contact centres and customer
experience suites for the first time or are
moving from very limited capabilities and
are leapfrogging directly to cloud-based
all-in-one solutions. Van Staden notes that
there is keen interest in cloud-based and
AI-enabled solutions that allow for in-depth
analysis of customer sentiment and market
trends and that support proactive customer
service. “Depending on local conditions,
companies in the region are looking to either
consider private cloud or a cloud solution
such as our PureCloud offering,” he said. “We
see particularly strong demand for cloud or
hosted solutions into Africa, where there are
skills shortages; rapid time to value is key
and a critical priority. Companies in Africa
are looking for innovative solutions with a
compelling total cost of ownership and a
proven ROI model.”
www.intelligentcio.com
Q
-KON is to introduce a new, multiple
high-speed broadband service,
powered by the IntelsatOne Flex for
Enterprise platform. Combining a cloud-
based management platform with
Intelsat’s global satellite and terrestrial
networks, the IntelsatOne Flex platform
will enable Q-KON to rapidly deploy
high-quality broadband that enables
new services and applications for smaller
businesses throughout Botswana,
Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa,
Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Many private businesses and individuals
at the metro edge remain unconnected.
By pairing the improved throughput
delivered by Intelsat’s globalised network
with smaller, more capable hardware,
network operators can cost-efficiently
and profitably expand their networks
beyond the cities.
Q-KON’s offering will incorporate services
from Intelsat 33e, one of Intelsat’s next
generation high-throughput satellites,
and utilise IntelsatOne Flex for Enterprise,
a managed wholesale service that
removes the complexities and improves
the economics of network expansion.
“Over the past 18 months, we have
evaluated multiple satellite operators
and potential technology providers,
and we are very pleased with the
collaboration with Intelsat,” said Dr
Dawie de Wet CEO of Q-KON.
“Intelsat truly understood the challenges
we were facing in expanding our
network and delivered HTS throughput
via a service that allows us to tailor
our offerings to meet the different
requirements of our users.
“Through this agreement, Q-KON
will leverage the advantages of the
IntelsatOne Flex platform to define and
structure services that solve challenges for
customers across multiple verticals.”
INTELLIGENTCIO
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