Angola Cables sales training

Project Client Care

Know your Customer – Session 2

Buyer Profile Case

Happynix, Inc.

Happynix, Inc., your buyer, is an American multinational company headquartered in Redbush City,
Ohio, that specializes in data centers. The company aims at becoming a leader in global data center
market share, and currently operates 150 data centers in 17 countries on 4 continents.
Happynix is now aiming at developing the African market.

It’s customers are digital companies that use their Datacenters to leverage on economies of scale,
know-how and obtain better technical features such as flexible bandwidth and low latency (that is,
a low transmission time for data).

As part of its strategy to become a world leader in datacenters, Happynix has identifieded its
Competitive Advantage aligned with its Value Proposition to its customers. Happynix has identified
that part of its Competitive Advantage, is that all of its Datacenters are interconnected by its own
transmission circuits allowing flexible and competitive bandwidth provision and offering the lowest
latency solution available on the market.

Angola Cables, your company, is an Angolan telecommunications multinational operating in the

wholesale market. Its main business is the sale of international transmission capacity through
submarine fiber optic cables (WACS, Monet & SACS) and IP Transit. Angola Cables is the sole owner
of SACS (South Atlantic Cable System) which is a submarine communications cable crossing the
South Atlantic Ocean linking Luanda (Angola) to Fortaleza (Brazil) with service extensions to other
geographies such as South Africa. Angola Cables has partial ownership of WACS (West Africa Cable
System) which is a submarine cable system connecting 15 countries, starting from South Africa,
ending in London and including a landing in Angola. Angola Cables also has partial ownership in
Monet submarine cable system which connects Miami (USA) to Fortaleza and São Paulo (Brazil).
The combination of these 3 systems allows to reduce drastically the cost and the latency (delay) for
the transmission of data between the regions covered and in particular between Africa and South
America.

You are the sales executive of Angola Cables that is negotiating directly with Happynix team, the
sale of 5x10Gbps Ethernet circuits between São Paulo and the Johannesburg Datacenter that was
recently expanded. Today, your proposal is worth 180.000 USD/year and you aim at closing it in the
next 4 weeks.

Your initial proposal was first presented 3 months ago and it was already revised once at the request
of the engineering team of the customer. Your competition is the current provider Telnom SA, AB&B
and Brasilcom. If you win, Happynix will be a new customer of great relevance to Angola Cables.

You have identified the following people from Happynix who take part in this decision:

Mary Growing, VP EMEA, 46 years old and based in Redbush

Mary is an ambitious executive that was in the initial founding team of Happynix. She is in charge
for EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa). She in line with the strategic objective of Happynix
to become a world leader for which growth in EMEA region is crucial and mandatory – she proposed

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and committed to grow the business in her region accordingly. She favors teamwork, trusts her team
but requires a consensual decision on this buying process.

Since this a strategic initiative, Mary will have a final and definitive word in the decision.

John Capex, Head of Engineering, 57 years old and based in Redbush

John was a contributor to defining the strategy and competitive advantage of Happynix. Accordingly
his target KPIs include interconnecting Happynix Datacenters wit flexible bandwidth and lower
latency own transmission circuits. Not meeting these KPIs will be a significant failure.

In the last 2 years, you have been involving John in the deployment of your company service offer.
Both of know that your company service will provide the required lower latency between Africa and
South America, using the South Atlantic submarine cable route (SACS) when compared to other
providers that use North Atlantic submarine cable routes. John owns the budget for this initiative.

Paul Opex, Head of Operations, 36 years old and based in Redbush

Paul was recently recruited by Happynix to be Head of Operations. It is the first time he has such
responsibility and he will be heading a team of older and very experienced professionals with well-
established operating routines. The team is very much used to the current provider (Telnom SA) and
Paul does not want to risk going against his new team preferences, as he wants to be quickly
recognized as a leader by his team.

You met with the previous responsible person for the job, but you have not had the chance to meet
with Paul Opex yet and he has not accepted your attempts to meet. You want to demonstrate him
that your O&M procedures will benefit him and his team.

Maria Sales, Head of Sales South Africa, 41 years old and based in Johannesburg

Maria is a seasoned sales executive with a deep knowledge of the South African market and the
African market in general. She was recruited by Mary Growing in the 2nd year of Happynix, so she
also knows quite well the organization and Mary as well.

Maria is aligned and fully committed with the strategic objectives of Happynix and her target for the
year reflects those objectives. Achieving her yearly target will significantly contribute to the group
objectives and will give great visibility to Maria in the group opening up new possibilities for her in
the African market. However, she told you that she needs to deliver a lower latency service to her
clients in order to beat competition – she knows your offer can provide that.

She told you that Mary Growing is aware that your solution will provide lower latency but she will
only approve a solution that is consensual among the team that is taking part in this decision.

Maria knows the market very well, so she told you that Paul Opex (the new Head of Operations) has
worked together and is a close friend of the Head of Customer Service of your company.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This case was prepared by Rui Franco, as a basis for class discussion in the scope of Angola Cables sales team training in February 2021,
and should only be used in such scope. Happynix is a fictitious entity and does not represent any customer of Angola Telecom. This case
is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation by Angola Telecom and is the sole
responsibility of Rui Franco.

This publication, or any part of it, may not be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written
permission of Rui Franco. In such case, a reference stating ‘© Copyright Rui Franco’ must be included.

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