Insights from the channel: Tarsus Distribution

[MattQuirk]

Dedicated to making the world’s leading IT hardware brands available to the Southern African reseller channel, Tarsus Distribution has been a leading distribution partner with HPE for more than 20 years. We recently spoke to enterprise technology officer Chris Larkins to learn more about Tarsus Distribution’s offerings and how it is helping OEMs across the region deliver outstanding solutions for its customers.

Thanks for joining us, Chris! Could you start by giving us a bit of background on Tarsus Distribution’s focus industries and markets?

Sure. We have built our brand recognition over many years through serving our partners across both South Africa and other members of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). These partners serve customers in every industry segment, spanning commercial, corporate, consumer, public sector, and all of the associated verticals. Currently, we’re seeing investments in manufacturing, medical, retail, hospitality and financial services in particular. Our partners also have significant SMB and mid-market customer bases, so we have a very broad reach.

And what are your goals as a distributor on the African continent?

Our goal is to remain the distributor of choice across all the areas in which we do business. We’re not content to just stick to the traditional logistics component that a distributor provides. We invest continually in ways to support our aspirations, building relationships and solution ecosystems that can provide real business value to our collective customers. We are looking for growth in all geographic areas in the coming years.

How can OEMs and software innovators benefit from your expertise as an authorized HPE OEM Distribution Partner?

Distribution needs to move with the times. So, while we will continue to provide excellent logistics and traditional services, we’re building our value proposition through multiple complementary vendor partnerships. This allows us to connect the technology pieces together to create complete customer solutions. We can do this both from a solution component point of view and from a people and partnership perspective. We have a well-established partner community that can add to these opportunities from a coverage, services, and relationship aspect.

How can Tarsus support its OEM partners on a day-to-day as well as long-term basis?

Tarsus Distribution provides wide-ranging skill sets to our partners. They can rely on us to help them with detailed presales skills across the HPE offerings while also providing experienced business development and sales capabilities. On top of that, we offer a deep understanding of the business environment and challenges inherent in doing business with the South and Southern African countries.

Beyond skills and expertise, we also provide logistical support into these countries and significant foreign exchange understanding. We have a solid financial position that creates a more stable environment for doing business.

We like to build partnerships for growth over time. As a result, we invest in these partnerships for mutual success. We can provide complementary components to build solutions from our offerings, and we have as-a-service capabilities to enable choice for our end customers in how they want to consume the solutions they need.

What is Tarsus’ view on the megatrends and opportunities for Africa in 2024 and beyond?

We participate in industry organizations that forecast technology and business trends, and this gives us insight that helps us stay ahead of megatrends as they emerge. Generative AI, edge computing, constant security enhancements, legislative changes, sustainability metrics, and improved connectivity all present opportunities that can be capitalized on.

What we see is that customers are looking to connect with partners and providers that understand these areas—not just from a product perspective, but also with the ability to consult, understand, deploy, and support solutions that answer their business concerns. Oftentimes, it’s difficult for a single partner to meet this requirement, so multiple partners can aggregate their offerings to fulfill these needs. We see big opportunities in our markets for the partners that have these skills or can create these ecosystems and take them to market. Tarsus Distribution is extremely well-positioned to bring all this together.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, Chris. To find out more about Tarsus Distribution’s work and HPE offerings, visit their website.