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Bidco Africa to use IBM’s infrastructure service to drive Africa expansion

VIMAL-SHAHBidco Africa has picked IBM to run its IT systems as a service to help the Thika-based manufacturer focus on its core business and expansion across Africa.

According to Bidco Africa CEO, Vimal Shah, the overall goal of the IT infrastructure and managed services deal with IBM will allow Bidco to improve its business performance by 40 percent, lower capital expenditure and improve return on investment by 20 percent.

The first phase, scheduled for April 2015, will involve the migration from existing infrastructure and project management during the transition. IBM will then oversee maintenance and overall delivery of hardware provided as a service, all managed remotely via IBM Global Delivery Centers.

IBM will upgrade Bidco’s current power systems, servers and storage systems and applications. The systems will be located in Bidco’s data center, but owned and operated by IBM, which will provide the technology as a service to the client.

“For the last five years, IBM has been a critical technology partner, providing seamless IT services supporting our business operations, including sales and operations,” said Vimal Shah, CEO of Bidco Africa Ltd.

“Based on that experience and faced with the need to upgrade our infrastructure, we chose an IBM infrastructure-as-a-service solution to support our rapid business growth in Africa.”

Bidco’s consumer goods serve customers across 15 African countries touching over 100 million people daily. The cost savings from shifting its IT infrastructure management to IBM will free up capital for expansion into more countries as part of Bidco Africa’s 2015 growth plan.

“Technology is growing so fast and we need to keep up with the latest and this solution with IBM means they will manage the service so we know we will always have quality systems. I don’t have to worry about when to change our systems or staff, they will handle all that,” said Shah.

The end-to-end managed services will offer proactive 24-hour monitoring of the infrastructure to improve services, help eliminate unexpected IT-related expenses by providing a predictable billing stream, improve customer experience through enhanced computing capacity and drive seamless performance to all of Bidco’s business users.

According to IDC, Infrastructure as a service – where companies outsource their IT operations to third-parties – is expected to grow by 36 percent in 2015 according to IDC.

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“Kenya’s economy is at an inflection point, and we are seeing many local companies choosing innovative technology services to drive local and cross-border expansion for their products and services,” said IBM General Manager for East Africa Nicholas Nesbitt.

“Our engagement with Bidco is a perfect example of the innovative technology services IBM can deliver and the value we can provide in helping clients benefit from the many growth opportunities emerging in Africa.”

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