• Earlier this year, Lenovo announced Springbok captain Siya Kolisi as a local partner.
• Kolisi is a part of The Sharks rugby team, which too has partnered with Lenovo on the supply of notebooks.
• Lenovo will provide players, staff and management with access to notebooks moving forward.

Current Springbok captain Siya Kolisi is well sponsored, with Dove, Luno and others among the brands that have chosen to partner with the rugby player. Earlier this year he also joined the team at Lenovo as a partner, with the former providing him with technology and other devices.

Kolisi also happens to play on The Sharks rugby team locally, with it unsurprising that the organisation has announced a partnership with Lenovo in terms of supplying notebooks.

“As the Official Laptop supplier to The Sharks, Lenovo will provide state-of-the-art laptops to the Sharks staff and management to ensure that The Sharks are able to perform at their peak both on and off the field,” noted Lenovo in a press release sent to Hypertext.

“The Sharks are committed to partnering with like-minded brands, and with both companies sharing the same values and ethos, this partnership with Lenovo falls in line with our ambition of being a globally recognisable brand that is centred on excellence,” added The Sharks CEO, Dr Eduard Coetzee.

Further explaining the reasons behind the partnership, Lenovo highlights the work that the rugby team does off the field in terms of helping the communities of KwaZulu-Natal.

Here Lenovo specifically notes the programmes of assistance to individuals and organisations affected by the looting in KZN in 2021, as well as the devastation wrought by this year’s April floods.

“As part of our ambition to make the smartest technology accessible to all, we’re delighted to be bolstering our partnership with local entities in South Africa who share our vision,” Yugen Naidoo, country manager for Lenovo Southern Africa emphasised.

With most professional sports teams leveraging partnerships with technology service providers, it will be interesting to see what insights this one with Lenovo yields for The Sharks.

Given that Dell Technologies is a technology provider for the Springboks, we could see Kolisi and others walking around with two different notebooks in hand moving forward.