Major South African investment in Wallonia !25/08/2016

€ 7 million (R105 million) and 100 jobs in the pipeline by 2017, this is the extent of the Dimension Data investment in Wallonia, in collaboration with the Belgian company Win. This investment originates from an initial contact made with Dimension Data in February 2015 on the occasion of a workshop organised by the Awex office in Johannesburg to present the assets of Wallonia to foreign investors.

The « Win cloud one », a brand new solution that is fast, flexible and adaptable in real time in function of the clients’ needs will be developed on the premises of the Wallonia Data Centre, located in Villers-le-Bouillet, near Liège. “Thanks to this new technology, our clients won’t have to buy servers to save their data. It allows them to drastically decrease their infrastructure costs and they only pay for what they use”, explained Philippe Naelten, CEO of WIN to the journalists at a recent press conference.

Another advantage of locating the datacentre in Wallonia is that the data will not be subject to foreign legislation.

The Belgian subsidiary of Dimension Data employs 700 staff and generated a profit of €250 million in 2015. This new project involves hiring 92 employees by 30 September and another 84 by 2017. The commercialization will start in September 2016, with a total budget of €7 million, spread 50-50 between Win and Dimension Data. Depending on the commercial success (they hope to attract +/- 100 clients in the first months), further investments might be considered.

On a side note, it is worth mentioning that Dimension Data is the main sponsor of the cycling team of Mark Cavendish and of the Belgian cyclist, Serge Pauwels (picture above), who finished 2nd Belgian during the last Tour de France.