Pawa IT Solutions Ltd is a leading Cloud Computing Tech Company headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. They focus on Google Cloud Technology and they take pride in innovating and selling Cloud services to customers in Africa. What intrigued us to speak to Pawa IT was their ability to support their customers, particularly Small and Medium Size Businesses (SMBs), sometimes going above and beyond their mandate.
At its most basic form, cloud computing refers to the on-demand “purchase”of computing resources such as servers, networks, storage, apps and services; with the capability to rapidly create and delete resources, with minimal effort! Cloud is used by both businesses and even individuals at large. Think of the next time you are sending that email using your Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo , or the time you share or access a file using Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive! All these are cloud applications.
In Kenya, and Africa at large, adoption of cloud is offering many businesses an equalizing chance to run their communication and enterprise IT operations on infrastructure and technology of global scale, repute and capability. Which means, businesses are able to compete with their global peers without infrastructure letting them down. The upside is, they all have to pay a price and at the same rate! With the global competition for cloud heating up between top providers: Amazon, Microsoft and Google Africa is becoming the market frontier for cloud growth among all these players. It’s not a surprise that we are seeing all of these players increasing their attention for Africa but also investing heavily on the continent; both on infrastructure and channels. Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle have all set up data centers on the African continent in the past 5 years and Google is reported to be building one too in South Africa.
“But the adoption of cloud by businesses is somewhat still slow and cautious”, Oscar Limoke, CEO and Cloud Lead of Pawa IT Solutions tells The Kenyan Wall Street. “Businesses, yes do understand the value and capabilities of cloud, but they also need to balance the adoption of cloud against local laws and other considerations such as existing skills, budget and capacity to deliver successful cloud adoption.” He adds.
And these are the challenges Google Cloud channels partners such as Pawa IT Solutions want to take on. They not only have to demonstrate the value and impact of Google Cloud to business, they also become their go to tech support and cheerleaders. They have to cheer and support and make sure the cloud adoption is a success for the customers they serve. This is a fascinating approach unlike the traditional model of selling licenses or hardwares and leaving the client to find its use or value on their own. It is one that guarantees the success of both organizations.
“We have over 300 business customers and over 100 educational institutions that we support, spread across 22 African countries . Most of these are SMBs and we have to put all our teams to task to go above and beyond to deliver success for them. Success means delivering cost efficiency. Success means delivering wider adoption and usage of cloud in the company. Success means innovating with the clients and for them.” says Oscar. ((See Map))
Using their inhouse Google Cloud engineers and it’s expertise, Pawa IT develops solutions and capabilities on top of Google Cloud targeting the needs for SMBs. And they offer most of these solutions for free to their clients. The logic being, when you solve the challenges of your customers, you make them happy and a happy customer keeps buying. In addition, they provide and sell Google Workspace, Google’s communication and collaboration platform, used by over 5 million businesses worldwide and competes with Microsoft 365 offerings in the same space.
Similarly, Pawa IT also offers Google Cloud solutions, that allow companies to run cloud servers and virtual machines on Google’s worldwide infrastructure. The reliability and security of Google allows for businesses to host their applications and systems on this infrastructure with ease. Earlier on, Google set up a development center in Kenya, where efforts to localize and engineer some of its products for Africa would be done. In addition, Google Equano, its submarine internet cable, which is expected to reduce the costs of internet bandwidth on the continent, was reported to have landed in Cape Town this month.
“As a Google Cloud Partner, Pawa IT does not just work to sell its customers and onboard them on cloud infrastructure, but we take a ride with them on the cloud adventure into success together.” Oscar closes.
READ; Kenyan Firms Spend 38% More on Cloud and ERP Services in Search of Efficiency
