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DIMENSION DATA'S NORTH AMERICAN ARM, LED BY FORMER PROXICOM CEO RAUL FERNANDEZ, IS GEARING UP TO CHALLENGE IBM GLOBAL SERVICES IN THE &SOLUTIONS SPACE
Fresh off its $422 million acquisition of Proxicom, Dimension Data aims to plant itself firmly on U.S. e-business soil.
Leading the charge is former Proxicom CEO Raul Fernandez, now CEO of Dimension Data North America, the South African network consulting firm's new U.S. arm. His mission: To take on $33 billion giant IBM Global Services in the e-solutions space.
Dimension Data's strategy is linear. The company aims to extend its $600 million U.S. network integration business into broader solutions that offer "multichannel connectivity and integration, from infrastructure and network engineering to the development of e-business strategy," Fernandez said. To that end, Dimension Data plans to leverage Proxicom's e-services expertise to help enterprises marshal the e-commerce potential of disparate B2B, B2C and other applications within their networks.
"Many successful silos of solutions have been deployed within major corporations, but the full value of those silos has not been realized and won't be until they are fully connected," Fernandez said, noting that it took IBM Global Services several years to extend its systems integration capabilities into e-business services. "We're trying to do a similar type of conversion," he said.
For now, however, Dimension Data's main concern is digesting the Proxicom acquisition, which was completed June 20. Plans call for the consolidation of Proxicom's Boston and Washington offices, with its Reston, Va., headquarters serving as the home base of Dimension Data North America, Fernandez said.
In addition, some of Proxicom's 1,500 employees will be laid off as operations such as accounting and human resources are consolidated, and the Proxicom name will be phased out so Dimension Data can present a single face to the market, he said.
Industry analysts say the Proxicom acquisition is key for Dimension Data because it provides an e-business brand recognition and client base squarely where its sights are focused: North America. Though Dimension Data's existing U.S. footprint runs primarily along the East Coast, Proxicom brings the company into core Midwest and West Coast markets such as Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
"They do know how to do this geography growth model," said Stephen Lane, an analyst...