With its joint initiative in Saudi Arabia starting to yield results, Cisco System is in talks with other regional telcos to tap the small and medium business (SMB) market for its solutions.
It was with the Saudi Telecommunications Co. (STC) that Cisco launched the SMB strategy in the Middle East.
As part of the programme, the partners will offer a full portfolio of "tailored value added applications, and not just communication solutions, for SMBs", according to a top Cisco official.
"Talks are on with Etisalat and other telcos to repeat the programme in the other regional markets. There is benefit in this for everyone involved," said Gazi Attalah, director of operations, Cisco Systems Middle East and North Africa.
"Cisco has similar initiatives with the telecom operators running in most of the other major markets we are in. The extension of it to these markets represents our identification of the region as a highly strategic area for us."
All leading IT vendors have identified the SMB category as the growth market to be in the Middle East. Independent estimates suggest growth in spending by regional SMBs will easily top double-digit growth for the next three years.
For Cisco, which provides the networking infrastructure to organisations, the SMB category already makes up a third of its regional revenues.
The telecom sector contributes another one-third, and has been boosted with recent wins from Q-tel in Qatar and MTC-Vodafone, while projects for the many public sector entities represent the rest.
The e-government sector is another area where Cisco has made some significant gains in the recent past. It is already involved with the Dubai e-government programme, while in Saudi Arabia it has completed projects for the ministries of the interior, finance and the Hajj.
On the public sector projects, Cisco provides consultancy and advisory services. But this is not a revenue stream for the company, the official added.
Qatar is another market where it seeks a greater role, which will now be overseen by a new office opening shortly.
"Over the last few years, our average growth in the region has been between 40 to 50 per cent," said Attalah. "This growth has seen us take market share away from our competition as well.
"On the whole, the networking business is poised to repeat the growth patterns as organisations realise it represents the heart beat of their operations. Networking infrastructure is now seen as a strategic asset."
Cisco recently completed an investment in Estarta, a Jordanian IT company. The latter will be developing new applications that can be deployed over Cisco IP telephony, plus act as a technical support partner for the region.
"This investment in Estarta is certainly not a one-off. All of this represents our strategy of taking our operations in the region to the next level," said Attalah.
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