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The wings of East Africa
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CONTENTS CONTENTS E A S T
Cover Story
A F R I C A
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR CHIEF EDITOR TECHNICAL STAFF WRITERS
HEAD OF SALES & MARKETING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER ACCOUNT MANAGER
Harry Hare Louisa Kadzo Dennis Mbuvi Peter Nalika Rebecca Wanjiku Michael Malakata Bobby Yawe Sam Mwangi James Wire Lunghabo Ruth Kang’ong’oi Andrew Karanja Nicholle Myles Ivy Njerenga
LAYOUT & DESIGN
Navtej Dhadialla
EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS COLUMNISTS
5 reasons why CIOs cannot ignore consumerisation of IT: One, social media has become a business application and social networks have become necessary and ideal tools for building work relationships and conducting business. Two, the rise of a mobile workforce makes it difficult to control employee technology usage. Meaning, there is a need to develop policies to deliver and secure
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sensitive data...
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Contacts eDevelopment House : : 604 Limuru Road Old Muthaiga : : P O Box 49475 00100 Nairobi : : Kenya +254 20 374 16 46/7 Email: info@cio.co.ke
Disclaimer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The content of CIO East Africa is protected by copyright law, full details of which are available from the publisher. While great care has been taken in the receipt and handling of material, production and accuracy of content in this magazine, the publisher will not accept any responsility for any errors, loss or ommisions which may occur. ©CIO East Africa 2011
FROM US
4 Editors Viewpoint www.
.co.ke
6 From the Publisher
48 Last Word BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
TRENDS Trendlines
12 13 16 17
TOP TOPSTORIES STORIES
Banking in the cloud
15
NICE re-invents the cyber cafĂŠ Kenya refines e-Gov strategy SMEs turn to social media sites
International Trends
20 22 24
China to regulate the Internet
25
2011 census goes online
8
US, Nigeria, Ghana tops online fraud Governance prevents innovation
28
Trend Analysis
26
44
Leveraging the wisdom of crowd
TECHNOLOGY Security
38
Mine customer data the right way
Opinion
40 42
The pathetic story of QoS After installation
TOPLINE INTERVIEW
44
An angel for your business
New Products
8
Look out for these!
Trends
15 28
MTN Uganda launches IDEOS Increased use of hybrids by 2016
Business Tips
44
What LinkedIn Today can do
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Much needed SME sector reforms
W
hen the World Bank announced their new plan of support for Africa last month, my attention was drawn to what’s in it for the ICT sector. The Bank announced its priority for reforms and public investments in areas of high growth potential – ICT being one of them. In their report, the Bank urges the youth to capitalize on the IT revolution. Being a natural skeptic, I started thinking back at the number of young IT savvy lots who have brilliant ideas – most of which do not have any business value and cannot attract any funding that can elevate it to the level of a small and medium size enterprise (SME). How is the Bank planning to address this gap? I need to have a one-on-one with Ms Obiageli Ezekwesili one of these days.
Editor’s Viewpoint
4
Then came a launch of a study report by the Excelsior Firm and over 100 policy makers. These people sought to study the ICT landscape in East Africa with a view of proposing the innovations required to enable SMEs to play a bigger role in industry growth.
business and technical knowledge, providing early stage funding to companies, enabling job creation for knowledge workers and upgrading the business environment. All these proposals are good. My question now is how will the implementation be carried out? Who will be responsible? When the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) came out with their report and declared themselves the champions to spearhead an initiative to unlock the potential of SMEs in the ICT sector, I was elated. In their report, CMA tackled the root of the problem for all ICT start-up vetures – MONEY (lack of it and access to it). In their recommendations, CMA stated that for there to be a growth in the ICT SME sector, there needs to be emphasis on ICT business incubation, a network of business angels, policies to allow pension and insurance funds to invest in business ventures as well as having policies and reforms that will allow easy access to local capital. The plan spelt out by CMA seems workable. I know that we are now heading in the right direction towards an open market where ICT entrepreneurs can flourish.
In their findings, they listed the challenges faced by SMEs sector in East Africa to include access to business and technical skills, access to regional and global markets and limited early stage fi nancing. In addition, these organisations must deal with a complex and immature regulatory environment.
In this issue, we tackle practical issues that show you where the solution lies, and how to access it. For instance, Mbwana Alliy (pg 44) vividly elaborates the difference between a venture capitalist and an angel investor. He clearly shows you where to go and get the money you need for your business. In addition, our cover story (pg 32) shows you the practical steps you need to take to come up with a social media strategy and Dennis Mbuvi (pg 26) tells you why crowd sourcing is important for your business.
Interventions proposed as necessary to strengthen the emerging SME sector include the development of a fully connected SME network, filling the skills gap in advanced
Most exciting is the “State of the CIO Survey” (pg 28) that shows you the evolving role of a CIO in East African enterprises.
Louisa Kadzo Louisa Kadzo CHIEF EDITOR
louisa.kadzo@cio.co.ke www.
.co.ke
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
We would like to celebrate the 2nd year anniversary of CIO East Africa by hosting a Corporate Golf tournament We will be inviting 100 of the top CEO’s and CIO’s as guests to this event.
2
nd
year anniversary
Venue: Royal Golf Club Date: April 15th 2011
For sponsorship packages contact: Nicholle Myles nicholle.myles@cio.co.ke
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
CIOs are changing gears
L
ast month we conducted our first State of the CIO survey, which involved CIOs that made it to our CIO100 index. The objective was to understand the CIO; their business role, where they stand as individuals including their annual remuneration, how they see the future and their corporate spend as a percentage of revenues. The survey was conducted online and in just one month out of which we received 41 responses from the 100 invited participants. A summary of the results is reproduced elsewhere in the publication, but my observation is, CIOs are changing gears. Why do I say this?
From the Publisher
6
There are several pointers from the survey that I want to share to support my argument. First is their strategic access to top management. 60% of the CIOs who responded to the survey indicate that they answer directly to the CEO. This is a major shift from just about five years ago when CEOs view IT professionals with suspicion and did not want anything to do with them. In fact in most cases they would be relegated to the finance manager. Only 15% of CIOs indicated that they reported to the Chief Finance Officer. To me this goes to underline the importance that CEOs now view the contribution of IT in their businesses. That it is a strategic investment which requires top level strategic decision making, these are the signs that before
long, we shall see CIOs being invited and sitting in the Board. When we asked them what they would like to spend their time on in the next 3 - 5 years, it got even more exciting. 90% of the respondents indicated that they would like to spend their time developing and refining business strategy; 84% indicated that they would like to spend most of their time innovating for the business while 81% indicated that they would be cultivating the Business-IT partnership. Now, this is the crunch. Until recently many CEOs in the region were actually frustrated that their CIOs never understood the business side of things. But from this survey, majority of CIOs are breaking away from their technical mold and morphing into fearless business leaders. Aligning IT with business has always been a challenge to CIOs since most of them did not considerbusiness as a core IT function. But with the changing of the enterprise all c-level executives have to think business else they find themselves out of place. Making the top five functions that CIOs would like to be spending on by 2015 is re-designing business processes and aligning IT initiatives to business goals. This is a total change in the way CIOs are thinking. Ofcourse CIOs are meant to be the interface between business and IT, but this has not been the case. In fact many CIOs are still playing at the CTO space and involve themselves with the technical side of IT – which is their comfort zone – and totally blacking out the business side of things. So reading these responses from the 41 respondents was a welcome sign that things are changing for thebest. And that its probably time organisations started taping into this newly found energy to re-position IT into their business.
Harry Hare EDITORIAL DIRECTOR harry.hare@cio.co.ke www.
.co.ke
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Look out for these! Flash Player 10.2 readied for Android tablets Adobe’s Flash Player 10.2 for Google Android devices was availed on March 18, offering preliminary support for Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets, such as the Motorola Xoom, Adobe said. Flash Player is Adobe’s proprietary technology for playing rich media experiences within a browser. Flash Player 10.2 for Android offers hardware-accelerated video presentation for the H.264 video codec as well as deeper integration with the Android browser rendering engine. Both of these features work with Android 3.0.1 or higher. Website scrolling is improved as well, as is performance for the latest smartphones and tablets, Flores said. Automatic soft keyboard support improves interaction for touchscreen devices.
LG VoLTE enabled handset LG Electronics has promised its customers to await the release of it’s first ever Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Video call over LTE mobile handset, sometimes this year. First showcased at this year’s Mobile World Congress, the “One Voice” protocol will enable consumers to experience faster and seam-less high-quality voice and video calling via LTE technology. LG’s LTE technology will utilize established network carriers to provide HD voice quality through AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) wideband technology, while allowing users to maintain their existing phone numbers.
New Products
8
Internet Explorer 9 launched The fi nal version of Internet Explorer 9 launched on March 14. Internet Explorer 9 is redesigned to take on a minimalist look, which gives the user more browsing room by squashing menu space. It accomplishes this by using a single bar for URLs and searches -- Google Chrome-style -- and by placing browser tabs in a single strip alongside the omnibar. IE9 also fuses with Windows, allowing you to pin Website shortcuts to the Windows taskbar and create lists of links from within those pinned sites. There’s also a download manager. As for performance, IE9 supports hardware acceleration for HTML5 video.
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BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
iPad 2 showcases new accessories The iPad 2 features an all-new design along with new features including built-in cameras and a new gyroscope. At the heart of the iPad 2 is a 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 processor, a boost over the 1GHz A4 in the first iPad. The A5 also has a similar low-power consumption rating as the A4. The iPad 2 features two built-in cameras, for use with FaceTime video chat and other apps. Overall, the iPad 2 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, weighing 1.3 kg and measuring 0.35 inches thick. Other new features include a gyroscope, 10 hours of battery life, and a choice between a black or white iPad. Apple offers six models of the iPad 2. There are three WiFi only models: a $499 version with 16GB of flash storage; a $599 model with 32GB of flash storage; and a $699 model with 64GB of fl ash storage. Apple will offer three 3G-equipped models: a $629 version with 16GB of flash storage; a $729 model with 32GB of flash storage; and a $829 model with 64GB of flash storage. Apple said that the 3G iPad will work with AT&T or Verizon. Lenovo to launch LePad tablet worldwide in June Chinese PC maker Lenovo plans on selling its LePad tablet worldwide in June, but will first launch the device in China at the end of March 2011, a company spokesman said. The LePad, Lenovo’s first tablet computer, was unveiled in January during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The device is built with 10.1-inch screen that runs the Android 2.2 OS on a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Lenovo said the device would be priced between $399 and $449.
Quark unveils QuarkXPress 9 QuarkXPress 9, a new version of the popular graphic design and layout application, has been announced by Quark. The new version of QuarkXPress lets designers publish directly to digital devices such as the iPad and e-readers, as it includes App Studio for QuarkXPress. New features have been added to automate the design process and cut down the time spent on many manual, time-consuming design tasks. Conditional styles lets designers automatically style content based on pre-set rules, and there is a new wizard for creating and modifying difficult or unusual shapes called ShapeMaker. QuarkXPress 9 runs on Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher and requires an Intel processor. It will ship in April 2011 and will cost £779 for a full product license and £279for upgrades from QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7.
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
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IN BRIEF April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
The full articles are available on the CIO East Africa Web site (www.cio. o.co.ke)
AROUND AFRICA eLearning Africa photo competition 2011 is on
EA community e-Health workshop
The 2nd eLearning Africa Photo Competition aims to capture how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can nurture talent, skills and innovation across Africa. People can submit photos that depict outstanding achievements in Africa - empowered by ICTs, or that show innovative ways in which ICTs can foster the growth of people, communities and society in any sector of life.
Delegates at the East Africa e-health workshop held in Rwanda recommended the creation of an East African Community e-health work group that will be tasked with the coordination of e‐health activities, facilitate interoperability among other functions. Delegates also proposed the establishment of an inter agency e-health working group in each East African country, development of ICT legal and regulatory frameworks that will facilitate the adoption of e-Health services, as well as formation of an East African integrated telemedicine and e-health program that will create an international network that will foster medical/health diplomacy using telemedicine, advanced technologies and other medical resources.
Members of the jury will select the winners and the ten best photos will be featured in an exhibition from May 25– 27th at eLearning Africa 2011 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Participation in the contest is free and the deadline for entries is 21 April, 2011.
World Bank launch new plan of support for Africa World Bank launched a new plan titled “Africa’s future and the World Bank’s support to it”. The plan puts emphasize on the need for attention key areas of competitiveness and employment; vulnerability and resilience; governance and public sector capacity. The Bank identifies ICT as a channel to strengthen governance and leadership. Sub Saharan Africa is a casing point of how success of ICT, especially mobile penetration, can rapidly grow a sector. This new strategy opens up new partnerships avenues and deepens cooperation with a wider range of partners at national, regional and global levels.
AROUND THE WORLD
EU countries told to take action on mobile satellite service By Jennifer Baker
E-skills publishes IT guide for SMEs By Antony Savvas E-skills has published a new business IT guide for small firms.
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The European Commission told European Union countries that they need to take urgent action to allow the development of mobile satellite services. Some 21 of the E.U.’s 27 countries have so far failed to implement legislation leading to the pan-E.U. deployment of mobile satellite services (MSS) that could be used for high-speed Internet, mobile television, mobile radio or emergency communications. The Commission, the European Parliament and the E.U.’s Council of Ministers agreed to create a single selection and authorization process for MSS. and more than 20 months ago selected two operators to provide such services.
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The freely available “IT explained” guide covers six areas including getting started with IT, data security, using online resources, building a website, marketing and selling online. The guide also helps firms deal with cost and training implications, and plan for growth and changing business needs. Martin Harvey, of e-skills UK, said: “Technology has the power to transform a small business, but companies can find it difficult to know where to start. They worry about making the wrong choices, about the skills needed and the costs involved.”
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
Call for applications You could be a winner! 2nd Annual CIO Awards Competition
We are looking for ICT projects that showcase innovation to customers ICT Suppliers (vendors) may (are recommended to) encourage their customers to apply
Submit your application today and get recognized. No application fee This year we are asking you to fill and submit your applications online at www.cio.co.ke/cio100 Entries for submission open from April 1st – August 15th
Symposium and Awards - November 23rd-25th 2011 Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya
For more info: www.cio.co.ke
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Banking in the cloud By Peter Nalika
D
ecision makers, not only in banks but in any organisation, are faced with four major technology challenges: how to overcome flat budgets, manage the ever escalating system complexities, cope with relentless data growth and at the same time meet increased business demands. This is according to Delano Kiilu Longwe, Business Manager Data Centre and Application Infrastructure at Seven Seas Technologies.
By engaging in private clouds, banks will significantly reduce the number of information technology vendors they engage with, experience reduced complexities involved in system integrations and less time required on systems to be deployed.
Cloud computing is said to provide a solution to all these – a more affordable and simple way of running transactions in efficient and powerful cloud platform. With the private cloud concept, banks can move away from point solutions by pooling resources together. A private cloud breaks the traditional way of bankers having silos of infrastructure and pushes them to have mandate on virtualization. Private clouds also provide the greatest level of security and control but they also require an organization to purchase and maintain all software and infrastructure.
Rwanda to use GIS in census By Ruth Kang’ongoi
U Trendlines
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nited Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) handed over GIS equipment to National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR). The Rwf 137.6 worth equipment will be used in data gathering during the forthcoming National Census.
NISR Acting Director General, Diane Karusisi who received the donation, commended UNFPA and other partners including; EU, DFID and UNDP, who, through the basket fund, pooled funds which will enable the institute to acquire 20 new pick-up trucks to facilitate the exercise.
UNFPA representative, Victoria Akyeampong, said the equipment would assist the government in gathering data about the dynamics and trends of the Rwandan population for a continued sound policy management to meet the current and future needs.
Karusisi also said that the 4th national census slated for next year had passed through the planning phase and the mapping of village administrative units would kick off.
“Properly collected, census data with minimal errors is an invaluable resource for any nation because reliable data makes a difference,” she said, adding that the equipment was one of the latest technologies. “GPS will be used to update the existing maps including updating the administrative units starting right from the village level,” Akyeampong noted.
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President Paul Kagame has noted before that a national population census was vital for proper planning for the country’s modernization and will be done so that every Rwandan receives the best quality life he/she deserves, using all the resources provided. In addition, the census would also enable the government to assess the literacy rate, and the number of orphans, widows and disabled people.
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
NICE re-invents the cyber café Russell Southwood
These second generation low cost internet access points will roll out in Tanzania and Zambia “We used the first two years to get the technology right. At first, the solar panels didn’t produce enough electricity and the computers over-heated. But as the technology became more stable, we began to put more emphasis on generating revenues. So by the end of 2009, the first two pilot locations were making a profit”.
W
ith cheaper bandwidth access coming across Africa, cyber-cafes have been having a hard time surviving. Their non-profit cousins, telecentres, have always struggled to gain traction, particularly their Internet element, with poor network access and unreliable power. Also, not-for-profit management has not always driven high levels of skills and service. NICE International is a Dutch social venture that operates solar-powered ICT service centers with local entrepreneurs on a franchise-basis in Gambia. Recently it got EU funding to expand into Tanzania and Zambia. NICE started in 2006 with two pilot NICE-centers in The Gambia in West-Africa. After a successful completion of the pilot, a third center was opened in The Gambia in 2009 and four more where opened in 2010. Six of the centers are operated by local entrepreneurs on a franchise-basis. NICE International plans to expand the network of NICE-centers in The Gambia and to other developing countries in partnership with local organisations. As Kroezen recalls: “We set up the Energy for All Foundation with other energy industry people to offer decentralized energy provision in developing countries. We put together a container in a village with a grid offering power to the village. We knew it would never be financially feasible just through electricity sales so we thought, if we add ICT services, people might also pay for those as well. That’s the core of the NICE concept.” So it set up and ran a pilot in Gambia through its local subsidiary NICE Gambia and afterwards went on to open two more centres.
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
At this point, NICE initiated a change in how it did things:“We decided to change the business model to a franchise so 6 of the centres are now operated by local entrepreneurs through franchise companies who get leased equipment. The capex is about 30,000 euros so the franchisee pays a fixed monthly fee and there is a local company that takes care of maintenance”. In physical terms, the NICE centres have a reception and 1-2 computer rooms and can accommodate 15-35 people:”Ideally these are not all in the same room, as education users and other customers need to be separated.” The centres are designed for energy efficiency and NICE has tried to push down energy consumption by using thin client computers connected to a server. Total power needed is 1,500W and 50% of the cooling is done by fans. “Most NICE centres have a cinema where 50-150 people can watch things on a large, flat screen TV connected to a satellite TV provider and with a DVD player. They’re charged for the service and have to buy a ticket. So we sell primarily these kinds of ICT services but also sell snacks and drinks.” So how many people use these centres? One location gets 2,000-3,000 people a month but the intensity of use varies widely. NICE International has been granted a EUR 2.5 million subsidy from the EU for expansion over the next 4 years. This will allow NICE to expand to Tanzania and Zambia, setting up a total of 50 new NICE-centers in the 3 countries (including The Gambia) and develop new services that can be delivered through the NICE-centers. Furthermore, the project includes a pilot with a rural version of the NICE-concept in Zambia and the development of a solution for the e-waste of the NICEcenters. Maybe, just maybe, this is the shape of second generation cyber-cafes and telecentres, bringing together all the first generation functions with the traditional African “video booth” and other retail sales.
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Isis has her work cut out By Michael Malakata
Internet on their phones, as well as make calls. Pointing to Nyong’o’s past achievements at Google, where she led business initiatives in Africa and specialized in mobile partnerships, InMobi hopes she will drive the company’s growth across Africa. Nyong’o also developed a marketing strategy for Kenya’s fi rst online recruitment service, MyjobsEye. “The availability of local content for use on mobile platforms is still a challenge, but I’m confident that we, in the mobile advertizing [sic] industry, can and will succeed in fostering a stronger content development focus on the continent,” said Nyong’o in a statement. Isis Nyong’o, Africa vice president and Managing Director, InMobi
I
nMobi’s new director of Africa operations faces the tough task of coming up with a growth strategy for the mobile advertising network in a region where, though economic expansion has boosted the number of end users, competition is fierce.
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InMobi, the global mobile advertising network, appointed Isis Nyong’o as Africa vice president and managing director last month. Now present in South Africa, Africa’s second-largest telecom market after Nigeria, InMobi wants to quickly expand its geographical footprint and boost its customer base. Growth in mobile advertising in Africa is being driven by two major factors. Africa is flooded with a number of local, regional and international telecom service providers all competing for customers, causing a price war among the providers and the increase in supply and use of cheaper and better phones. In addition, improving economic conditions in the region have continued to push forward the uptake of mobile advertising as many people are now able to browse the
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Over the past two years, there has been a lot of talk about the mobile ecosystem in Africa, with recent reports pegging mobile subscribers in the region at more
than half a billion. InMobi’s vice president of global research and marketing, James Lamberti, said Africa is a major market in the global mobile ecosystem. According to an InMobi research network report released recently, mobile advertising impressions grew 19 percent in Africa in just 90 days. The report also said increased mobile Internet adoption delivered more than 250 million new monthly impressions. InMobi claims to reach 50 million subscribers in Africa through nearly 3 billion ad impressions monthly. South Africa is the largest market, with 1 billion impressions and 20 million consumers monthly. Although mobile adoption is relatively low among advertisers in Africa, it will need to grow if they are to reach their audiences, according to InMobi Research Director Surag Patel. South Africa and Kenya have continued their dominance as the top advertising countries in the region.
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
MTN Uganda launches IDEOS By Edris Kisambira
M
TN Uganda, the largest mobile operator in the country, has signed up to offer Huawei’s Androidpowered IDEOS smartphone, aiming to offer users access to high-speed Internet. The Huawei IDEOS U8150 will retail at “rates that will allow even average users to take advantage of the 3G+ data network,” according to the company. In an interview, MTN Uganda Chief Executive Themba Khumalo said company’s 3G network lets users make full use of the Internet, while most data networks in Uganda today do not allow mobile users to access popular sites and content streaming services. “You will also find it hard to conduct content uploads, which limits capacity to share locally generated content with the rest of the world,” Khumalo said. In Uganda, more expensive smartphones like Blackberries, iPhones and certain Nokia brands have been a reserve of the rich and trendy. Tie-ups such as the one between MTN and Huawei bring into focus the ongoing battle for market share among technology giants like Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Apple. MTN’s launch of the Android phone comes three months after Safaricom, in partnership with Huawei, launched the U8150 model Android-powered mobile phone in Kenya.
The IDEOS U8150 handset was launched globally at the end of 2010 and is described by Huawei as a simple, affordable Android smartphone. It has a touchscreen display, high resolution screen, a 3.2 Mega pixel camera and supports functions such as voice dialing, voice navigation, social networking and the ability to run applications off the SD card. “We are proud to be leading in this field not only because this is a Smartphone handset that will enable everyone to use our data services, but also because by introducing Android,” Khumalo said. “We are giving Ugandans an opportunity to own and use a Smartphone and to harness the power of reliable, high speed internet services off MTN’s 3G+ network.” Michael Niyitegeka, a lecturer of IT strategy and management at Makerere University said Android as a platform is growing globally and it is important for Africans to be able to contribute to this growth by developing appropriate applications and content to run on the operating system. Niyitegeka said because Android is an open-source platform, the devices available on Android are also growing by the day, and this variety is very good for the developers. “Once you have the content and apps that people can relate to - for example, we can have apps in local languages, then demand for devices with grow naturally,” he said.
Nokia sells the most mobile phone handsets in Africa but the recent launches point to growing competition.
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Kenya refines e-Gov strategy By Harry Hare
The proposed strategy aims to create an efficient public and government sector
A
new e-Government strategy is in the offing as renewed efforts to transform public service delivery through the use of ICT intensify. The new strategy, which will be Kenya’s second after the first one elapsed in 2005 with very dismal results is expected to usher in new thinking in the use of IT in Government including cloud computing, shared services and access of public services through mobile platforms. According to Dr Katherine Getao, the ICT Secretary in the Directorate of e-Government, most strategies fail because of lack of resources and capacity to implement the various programmes. The Directorate through the strategy is, therefore, seeking to restructure itself and align itself with the Vision 2030 and the implementation of the new constitution to make it relevant and also guarantee a steady flow of resources.
to change the experience of the citizens in accessing public service,” she said. “Citizens seeking public services should have the same experience as when accessing services from say Safaricom or Airtel,” she continued. The proposed strategy is meant to run from 2011 to 2013 and is divided into two broad areas – An efficient Government and the Public. Under the Efficient Government the strategy deals with issues of ICT infrastructure, shared services and a national information infrastructure. Under the Public, the strategy outlines the focus areas as easy access to public service, easy payment methods and the e-services bouquet. The ICT Secretary said her directorate is currently faced with numerous challenges as a result of the silo-approach to ICT procurement and implementation in Government leading to many stand-alone applications on multiple
The new constitution increases the rights of individuals and sets out strong information access and reporting requirements for central government. This, according to Dr Getao, can be achieved through effective, efficient and innovative use of e-Government.
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“The Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat has already accepted to have e-Government as one of the flagship projects due its transformational nature,” said Dr Getao. ICT is increasingly finding its way into the Vision 2030 agenda. A few weeks a go, Mr Mugo Kibati, the Director General of the Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat indicated that after consultations with various stakeholders in the ICT sector, they had expanded the Business Processing Pillar in the Vision to include IT Enable Services (ITES). Dr Getao envisages a one-stop shop with end-to-end public service delivery regardless of location. “We need
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platforms. This makes support these applications difficult, as they require different skills sets, which may not necessarily be readily available to the Directorate. The stakeholder workshop, which had representation from both the private and public sectors was meant to provide input into the draft document before it is refined and later presented to the cabinet for approval.
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
SMEs turn to social media sites By Maxwell Cooter
Small businesses look to Facebook to generate sales The survey revealed that the most popular social media site for small businesses was Facebook, which was ahead of LinkedIn and Twitter. Rather surprisingly, locationbased social media site, FourSquare, was also seen as making headway with 9 percent of companies in the survey using the website. “The survey illustrates just how resilient and adaptable small businesses have become in the face of some pretty tough economic conditions,” said PeoplePerHour founder and CEO Xenios Thrasyvoulou.
W
hile many corporations are thinking of ways to discourage their staff from using social media sites, small businesses are actively embracing social networking as a way to develop sales. This is according to new research from freelancer company PeoplePerHour. com which also found that SMEs believe that the government should be doing more to encourage innovation in the technology sector.
“It’s worth remembering that a key plank of the Government’s strategy is for the private sector to drive the economic recovery once public expenditure is cut.” “Entrepreneurs are clearly leading the field in incorporating all aspects of technology into their business model. This can vary from a mother using broadband access to set up a business from the home to a more sizeable company leveraging the marketing and networking potential of social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.”
DO M N’T IS S
Get more on: www.cio.co.ke kee
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• In our COVER STORY • Storage Enterprise
• Feature • Data Centres
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
All this in your
MAY edition of www.
.co.ke
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
China to regulate the Internet By Martyn Williams
The government is expanding control of the Internet to keep pace with new services
C
hina says it will step up administration of the Internet this year while continuing to build out the country’s fiber-optic backbone and expand broadband access for consumers. The pledges were made in reports to the National People’s Congress, China’s parliamentary session that took place in Beijing.
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Internet administration was mentioned in a keynote report on the work of the government. A copy of the Englishlanguage version was posted online by The Wall Street Journal. The Chinese government has yet to post the report on its website. It underlined the importance of culture and noted the need to “strengthen the development of civic morality” and “speed up the establishment of moral and behavioral norms that carry forward traditional Chinese virtues.” The government is gradually expanding regulation of the Internet to keep pace with the emergence of new services, said Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing’s Marbridge Consulting. “You’ll see an ongoing effort from China’s authorities to make sure there are systems in place to regulate and control what sort of content is accessible,” he said. Natkin cited as an example the development of services that offer access to movies through an Internet-connected set-top box. The services allowed users access to almost any content through a menu that automatically downloaded the content from a peer-to-peer fi le-sharing network. Initially such services were unregulated, but as they gained popularity the government found no company would take responsibility for the content that was being offered to users. As a result, the government moved to regulate them and there are now a handful of providers licensed to offer such services, said Natkin.
existing regulations,” he said. “There’s a very strong push in China to make sure that, regardless of access method, whatever content is available is [not what would be considered] unhealthy.” China will continue to expand its infrastructure this year, the government said in a draft of its plan for economic and social development. The report was compiled by the country’s National Development and Reform Commission. It calls for the establishment of projects to push a national broadband Internet agenda, cloud computing, machine-tomachine Internet communications, integrated circuits and flat-panel displays. The commission said China will add 1 million kilometers of fiber optic cable to the 10 million already laid in the country, and raise the number of broadband Internet ports by 35 million to 223 million. The report also detailed the break-neck speed at which China’s IT manufacturing industry is expanding. The country produced 57 percent more integrated circuits, 30 percent more electronic components, 35 percent more computers and 46 percent more cell phone handsets last year than in 2009, it said. The report didn’t specify if the figures were for the number of units produced or their value.
“The Internet is constantly evolving. With the addition of new forms of access come new ways to get around www.
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BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Increase use of hybrids by 2016 By Ralph Jennings
Hybrid drives will keep costs down while approaching solid-state drive performance, two storage experts said
A
quarter of new laptops and half of new desktop PCs will adopt an emerging data storage method by 2016, pairing flash memory with traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) for better overall performance, according to two storage experts. Flash paired with HDDs will also cost users less than rival solid-state drives (SSDs), they said. Although the quieter, faster, more shock-absorbent SSDs are replacing HDDs in new computers, their relatively high cost will keep HDDs in most PCs over the years ahead, said Tom Coughlin, president of Coughlin Associates, and Jim Handy, an analyst with Objective Analysis. The analysts predict 53 percent of PCs and 25 percent of laptops will have paired flash and HDDs by 2016. NAND flash memory, the main storage chips inside iPhones, iPads and SSDs, can offer a welcome layer of caching and buffering between HDDs and higher-performance DRAM memory, Coughlin and Handy explained in a report published by the Storage Networking Industry Association, a group of 400 member companies. The use of flash will become more critical because of a
growing “performance gap” between DRAM and rotating storage such as hard disk drives, they said. Extra caching would take pressure off the hard disk drive to provide temporary data storage. The pairing could also cut system power consumption. “Rather than displacing HDDs, flash memory will allow customers to keep their low-cost HDD storage while enjoying performance enhancements that approach those of a pure SSD-based computer,” the report said. “The required modicum of flash memory will be inexpensive enough to afford users these benefits without requiring a significant price premium.” “Paired Storage,” a name given by the association to the flash chip-HDD scheme, is already being used in data centers and high performance computing operations. Several approaches are in use today, including hybrid HDDs and flash on the computer motherboard. Only Seagate makes hybrid hard disk drives now, but the analysts expect most HDD makers to follow soon. They also predict the innovation will bring about a new kind of tablet, the hottest consumer product of the year. The new device, the “fat tablet” will combine flash memory with hard disk drives as today’s tablets lack power to give businesses and other users what they need, the analysts said. Forty percent of the total tablet market will be “fat” by 2016, the two U.S.-based experts forecast. Flash technology for its part is improving. Earlier this month a flash working group announced a new interface specification that could accelerate data transfers from storage products such as SSDs.
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
US, Nigeria, Ghana tops online fraud UK retailers tread carefully, report finds
O
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nline fraud against UK merchants is at levels that have forced many to refuse orders from certain countries, with Nigeria, Ghana and the US heading the list, a new ecommerce report has found.
This is probably down to the more limited means at the disposal of digital retailer when it comes to fraud detection. A physical retailer has longer to fulfi l and order which allows for fraud detection systems such as manual address checking.
According to payment company CyberSource’s annual fraud analysis of 200 companies, 55 percent of UK companies questioned refused to ship to Nigeria at all, ahead of Ghana on 34 percent, and, surprisingly, the US on 25 percent.
“The absence of physical products creates a different eCommerce environment for digital goods merchants and as a result, they experience their own set of fraud management challenges,” said report co-author, CyberSource’s Dr Akif Khan.
Of digital-only companies (i.e, those shipping downloadable goods as opposed to physical ones) Nigeria again headed the blacklist, with 47 avoiding it ahead of Vietnam, China and South Korea on 29 percent each, and the US on 24 percent.
“Their geographically diverse customer base requires the adoption of more sophisticated tools, like device fingerprinting, to help identify instances of cleaner fraud; ultimately detecting more fraud, first time,” he said.
The average fraud rate was now 1.6 percent of orders, down from 1.8 percent in 2009, with digital retailers suffering the highest rates overall. Rejection rates for online sales are now 5 percent. An interesting finding is that digital vendors seems to be much fussier about accepting orders than physical retailers, which sounds surprising given that this sector has less to lose in the event of fraud.
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This leads online retailers towards using automated fraud detection systems, with the most popular used by all sectors being external systems such as Verified by Visa and MasterCard’s SecureCode, as well as checking a credit card’s CVV number. Nineteen percent of vendors currently used IP geo-location to assess where an order is being placed from. In the coming year, 11 percent of those questioned said they would start using external screening agencies for some of the checking process.
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
New rules to aid online censorship The rules force intermediaries like blogging sites to block a variety of vaguely defined content The draft rules are secondary legislation framed by the government under the country’s Information Technology (Amendment) Act of 2008. Under the IT Act, an intermediary is not liable for any third-party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him, if among other things, he has observed due diligence under the draft rules. According to the draft rules, an intermediary has to inform users that in case of non-compliance of its terms of use of the services and privacy policy, it has the right to immediately terminate the access rights of the users to its site. After finding out about infringing content, either on its own or through the authorities, the intermediary has to work with the user or owner of the information to remove access to the information.
D
raft rules proposed by the Indian government for intermediaries such as telecommunications companies, Internet service providers and blogging sites could in effect aid censorship, according to experts. Under the draft rules, intermediaries will have to notify users of their services not to use, display, upload, publish, share or store a variety of content, for which the definition is very vague, and liable to misuse. Content that is prohibited under these guidelines ranges from information that may “harm minors in any way” to content that is “harmful, threatening, abusive.” Some of the terms are so vague that to stay on the right side of the law, intermediaries may in effect remove third-party content that is even mildly controversial, said Pavan Duggal, a cyberlaw consultant and advocate in India’s Supreme Court. While the definition of some of the terms like obscenity have been ruled on by India’s Supreme Court, some of the other terms do not have a precise legal defi nition, said Pranesh Prakash, program manager at the Centre for Internet and Society, a research and advocacy group focused on consumer and citizen rights on the Internet.
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Rather than recognizing the diversity of the businesses of intermediaries, the draft rules use a “one-size, fits all” set of rules across a variety of intermediaries including telecom service providers, online payment sites, e-mail service providers, and Web hosting companies, Duggal said. An intermediary such as a site with user-generated content, like Wikipedia, would need different terms of use from an intermediary such as an e-mail provider, because the kind of liability they accrue are different, Prakash wrote in his blog. The draft rules also add new provisions that appear designed to give the government easier access to content from intermediaries. Intermediaries will be required to provide information to authorized government agencies for investigative, protective, cybersecurity or intelligence activity, according to the rules. Information will have to be provided for the purpose of verification of identity, or for prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of offenses, on a written request stating clearly the purpose of seeking such information, the rules add. The Indian government has previously also said it would demand lawful access from Google’s Gmail and Skype, but has not taken any action so far in this direction.
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.co.ke
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Taiwan airport opens e-library By Ralph Jennings
T
Readers can consult Chinese and English-language titles for free on iPads or devices with e-ink screens in the e-library
aiwan’s international airport has opened what it calls the world’s first in-transit e-library, offering 400 e-book titles to ease waiting-hall boredom while showcasing the island’s high-tech capabilities.
The e-library at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport allows passengers to consult the Chinese and Englishlanguage books, and around 2,000 books on paper, in a special waiting area in the larger of the airport’s two terminals. The terminal commonly handles stopovers between North America and Southeast Asia. The e-books are stored on around 30 devices, a mix of iPads and e-readers with e-ink screens. The e-books are stored in the ePub and Zinio formats. The airport is 24
loaning out the devices on a first come first served basis. Passengers can’t download the books to their own e-reader, limiting the usefulness of the service. The duty-free shop manages the library, which was proposed by Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. The shop worked with Taiwan’s government-funded Institute for Information Industry and the project cost more than NT$3 million (US$102,000) The shop couldn’t say how many people have borrowed e-books since the library opened this week. The airport handles up to 17 million passengers a year. Availability of e-books worldwide is growing, with dramatic sales growth expected this year.
Governance prevents innovation By Lisa Banks
M
inimising overthinking of governance issues when deploying SharePoint is vital if CIOs are to achieve long term innovation, a SharePoint specialist has claimed. Speaking at the 2011 Australian SharePoint conference in Sydney, Seven Sigma’s managing partner, Paul Culmsee,
told the predominantly development-focussed audience that if they spend 99 per cent of their time talking about time, cost and scope and 1 per cent looking at the legacy a project will achieve, they will be doomed to repeat the legacy they are trying to escape. “If you spend all your time talking about things from a rational manager’s point of view -- it’s a failure,” he said. “When you install SharePoint, you need to ask what legacy you’re going to leave, otherwise you’re doomed to repeat yourself.” Using the project management behind the creation of the Opera House as an example, Culmsee said projects that create a positive legacy are remembered more than the bumps in the road during implementation. “If you judge the Opera House through the first order project management goals of time, cost and scope, it’s clearly a failed project, but the legacy is priceless and that’s what people go there for,” he said. “...Governance is a means to an end -- it’s not an end. You don’t need to over define it to understand it.”
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BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
2011 Census goes online By Simon Jary
Online submissions a first for UK Census
F
ollowing the popularity of the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are, genealogy has never been more popular in the UK, which was perfect timing for the 2011 Census of England and Wales that took place on March 27. For the fi rst time householders had the opportunity to submit their census answers online. 25 million household questionnaires, based on a newly developed national address register, were posted in the run up to the 2011 Census. These arrived in every residence by the middle of March. But the Internet, which has revolutionised the family history industry, is at the forefront of the new data gathering. People were able to complete the questionnaire online from March 4. The paper questionnaire had a code on the front. This was be the key to unlock the online questionnaire. Householders should then go to www.census.gov.uk, ‘Click to fi ll it in’ and follow the on-screen instructions. New web services have been created for the online questionnaire, and an online help centre will provide advice and guidance for completing the questionnaire. An accessibility area on the website will provide video and audio assistance, in English and Welsh, for people who are visually impaired or deaf. A census is a count of the population, and one takes place in the UK every 10 years since 1801 (with the exception of 1941). It gives a richly detailed snapshot of the population as it stands on one day. There will be separate censuses across the UK on March 27, 2011 - organised by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in England and Wales, the General Register Office for Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. In addition to being an invaluable resource for family historians the census results play a vital part in the calculation
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
of resource allocation to regional and local government service providers. It is a legal necessity for all households to return the census questionnaires or submit online. People who have not returned their questionnaire by April 6 will be called by a census collector soon afterwards. A month before the 2011 Census takes place the UK’s largest family history event Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE 2011, sponsored by Ancestry.co.uk and The Telegraph, takes place at London’s Olympia at the end of this week: 25 - 27 February 2011. The event is a one-stop-genealogy-shop where visitors can discover the landscape of their past guided by over 200 exhibitors; ranging from The Society of Genealogists and The National Trust to The Royal Artillery Museums and Family Tree DNA. Celebrity speakers include television presenter and horticulturalist Monty Don and actor Hugh Quarshie, who will recount tales from their own past. Blackadder actor and archeologist Tony Robinson will also appear at the show to discuss the 1911 Census and how it can be used to piece together a family tree. Although it is a relatively new tool, DNA testing is now used to confirm family ties where no conventional record exists. At the show renowned international experts will discuss how to apply the latest advances in genetics to help piece together a family tree.
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.co.ke
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Leveraging the widsom of the crowd By Dennis Mbuvi
B
usinesses and individuals require various resources to get their projects off the ground be it financial or skilled resources. The resources, however tend to be rare, both ways. There can be cases where a firm has enough financial resources but still faces a shortage in skills. Individuals mainly face a short fall of financial resources. There is an emerging trend, similar to the infamous ‘Harambee’ slogan, both firms and individuals can source for resources from others in what is now referred to as crowd-sourcing. The great thing about this is that you do not have to physically know your benefictors, they can be anonymous and from any geographical location in the world.
Trend Analysis
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Erik Herseman of the Ushahidi fame lists Kickstarter and Wikipedia as good examples of this. Kickstarter is a start up online firm that enables talented people to crowd source funding for their ideas. People list their ideas, a target budget and a timeline for when the project should start. The general public then pledges to fund the project via Amazon Payments. If the earmarked date is reached and pledges do not meet the budget, no funds are collected. Normally, the entity collecting funds usually puts up some incentive to those who fund, for example free albums and tickets for music recording. Wikipedia is an example of crowd-sourced knowledge where thousands of volunteers contribute to encyclopedic articles, which are edited by a set of volunteer editors. Wikipedia is funded through public and corporate donations. Herseman together with Julianna Rotich, David Kobia and Ory Okolloh teamed up to bring Ushahidi - an idea by Ory Okolloh that sought to collect and consolidate crisis information on an easy to read map during the 2007-8 post election violence in Kenya. Anyone can submit a report via SMS, Email or Twitter and the information is displayed on an Ushahidi interface. Information is grouped into classified and unclassified by the Ushahidi instance deployer. Since then, Ushahidi has been deployed in a number of distress incidents including the Chilean, Haiti, Christchurch (New Zealand) and Japan Earthquakes. For the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami disasters, Ushahidi has been deployed to track hazard areas, open shops and
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Hersman together with part of the iHub team announces the launch of research@ihub during iHub’s 1 year celebration
supply stores, transportation, and emergency centers amongst others in earthquake affl icted areas. Herseman, who is also a founder of the iHub in Naiorbi, says that Ushahidi is also finding a new use in enterprise applications. A few firms that operate large factories have approached Ushahidi to see how the application can be deployed in the tracking of issues in large factories. Rather than see a lengthy chain of information been relied from a floor worker to the supervisor and ultimately to the manager, Ushahidi enables live tracking of the issues by everyone as they are reported. Herseman says Ushahidi can also be used in running of promotional campaigns, for example by a firm like Coca Cola or Pepsi, in a wide geographic region. Ushahidi itself is a crowd-sourced application. With an open source licence and development mode, Ushahidi only actively employees a small team for core development whereas any developer in the world can voluntarily contribute to the code base of Ushahidi. This contribution may include code improvement, code contribution and new features. In return, developers can access all of Ushahidi’s code and modify it for their own use. The United Nations is another organization that relies on open source developers to contribute to some of its software projects. Some of the projects include Bungeni and RapidSMS. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) which is overseeing Bungeni has about 28 active developers on its Google Cloud application development portal, http://code.google.com/p/bungeni-
BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
portal/. The portal says Bungeni’s mission is “to increase the efficiency of parliamentary activities and make Parliaments more open and accessible to citizens -- virtually allowing them “inside the Parliament” or Bungeni, the Kiswahili word for ‘inside the Parliament’ “. Another UN open sourced project is RapidSMS and is overseen by The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Sean Blaschke, a Technology for Development Specialist at UNICEF says “ RapidSMS is a framework for developing enterprise level, server side mobile phone applications, using tools such as Short Message Service (SMS) and USSD to transmit data. It was developed to work on any mobile phone handset, with no software installation necessary. RapidSMS applications sit on the server-side, parsing and analyzing data, and triggering messages back to end-users.” Blaschke gives an example of a RapidSMS powered application in malaria drug tracking initiative, currently deployed at over 170 health facilities in Uganda. “With this specific application, health care workers send weekly aggregated reports via SMS on disease outbreaks and drug supply. This data is then automatically sent to the district health teams and the Ministry of Health for follow-up in the form of printed reports, SMS and visualized online through mapping,” he says. The technology specialist explains that in 2008, UNICEF identified a gap in mobile applications for lower end phones. While there was a lot of interest in the larger Mobile for Development (M4D) community developing applications
use SMS application, and was particularly effective for underfunded organisations working off the grid, our needs were a bit different. “UNICEF works primarily with governments and, therefore, we required an enterprise level application that could be customized by local developers in-country for specific use-cases. At the time, nothing like this existed. We trialed initial builds of RapidSMS in Ethiopia to track distribution of PlumpyNut, a ready-to-use therapeutic food. And in Malawi we used it for tracking malnutrition,” Sean continues. RapidSMS was then adapted by the Millennium Village Project in their award winning ‘ChildCount+’ program. “The impetus behind open-sourcing RapidSMS came months before work on the application started. While working in the field of electronic and mobile health, we saw governments increasingly being locked into contracts with companies who offered them proprietary solutions. Along with often-expensive license fees and support, the governments didn’t own the software and, therefore, could not make any changes to it. In the case of poor service or support, these companies could rarely be fired because of the prohibitively expensive need for any new company to rebuild the application from scratch. Finally, there was little incentive for these companies to make their systems work with others being implemented. This contributed to silo-ed systems being built, fragmenting the electronic and mobile health ecosystem,” he adds. Blaschke says that while traditional monitoring systems have proven effective in tracking medium to long term development trends, they were never designed to generate light weight, low cost real-time information directly from the community level. “Now, emerging technologies and new methods in crowd-sourcing data represent an extraordinary opportunity to close the information gap. While recent crowd-sourcing initiatives such as crisis mapping in Haiti after the earthquake have shown the potential of harnessing the “wisdom of the crowd”, these networks of social monitors are rarely set up in advance of emergencies or used in non-emergency settings. UNICEF Uganda, in a new initiative called uReport, is in the process of building a trusted community of volunteers invested in playing a key role in their nation’s development,” he says.
Sean Blaschke, a Technology for Development Specialist at UNICEF
for PDAs, smart phones and java enabled handsets, there weren’t many options for SMS. “At the time, UNICEF looked at FrontlineSMS. While we determined that Frontline is a great solution for organisations looking for a ready-to-
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“The idea behind crowd-sourcing is getting more quantity plus It lowers the bar to entry. However this does not mean that you are compromising on quality,” says Herseman. He gives an example of Volkswagen who outsourced a TV ad as a videos submission competition, resulting in a great advertisement and more engagement with their customers in the process. “There is much more value than the product itself,” he says.
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The State of theCIO 2011
Survey methodology CIO East Africa’s first annual State of the CIO survey was conducted online between 21 February and 18 March 2011. 100 CIOs who made it to the CIO100 2010 index were invited to participate in the survey. The results are based on 41 respondents who indicated that they are the heads of IT at their companies or organisations. Percentages on questions where respondents selected one answer may not add to 100% due to rounding.
ROLE
YOUR BUSINESS
The Way Others See You How you think business leaders perceive IT Competitive differentiator
12.50%
10%
Cost centre
How IT makes a difference
Trusted partner/ business resource
There is a clear shift of how CIOs are thinking about IT. It is no longer about automation but more business enablement and compliance. More CIOs are looking at IT to improving workforce productivity, improving quality of products and/or services and improve security/risk management.
27.50% Valued service provider
50%
Innovative new market offerings or business practices
48.8%
Support global expansion
26.8%
Manage customer relationships
34.1%
Lower the company’s overall operating costs
53.7%
Enable regulatory compliance
14.6%
Improve security/risk management
65.9%
Acquire and retain customers
14.6%
Improve end-user workforce productivity
68.3%
Improve quality of products and/or processes
61.0%
Re-engineer core business processes
36.6%
Planning for change In the coming year, most CIOs will draw heavily on their expertise on long-term strategic planning and their exerience in running the IT function.
1. Long-term strategic planning 2. Expertise in running the IT function 3. People development 4. Meeting or beating business goals 5. Change leadership
Ways to build influence Improving relationships with business stakeholders requires that CIOs make sure that system problems are fixed quickly and do not affect the operations and productivity of other departments.
Strategic access
58.50%
Created a portfolio approach to IT
17.10%
Met more frequently with influential stakeholders
34.10%
Cultivated a relationship with a board member
17.10%
Created quick wins for business partners
19.50%
Called on customers
7.30%
CIOs reporting to:
Trained IT staff to focus on external customers
24.40%
CEO
60
Developed a cross-functional focus among IT managers
12.20%
CFO
15.5
Developed IT leadership capabilities in senior managers
43.90%
COO
5
Trained IT staff to partner better with business stakeholders
34.10%
Other
19.5
Created a project management office
12.20%
Deepened staff bench strength in management/leadership expertise
19.50%
Delegated more IT operations to trusted lieutenants
34.10%
Initiated new products and services for competitive advantage
48.80%
WHERE
YOUSTAND
Fixed major problems with systems operations
60% of the CIOs who responded to our survey report directly to the CEO, this goes to underline the increasing importance of IT in business. Perecentage
The Average tenure for CIOs is
4 years – if you are focused on transforming your company, or your strategy, you are likely to stay longer than if you concentrate on operations. CIOs in public sector tend to stay longer too.
Average salaries
28% of CIOs earn below US$ 25,001 per year, these are mostly CIOs in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which form the bulk of the
48.7% earn between US$ 25,001 – 75,000 per year
companies in the region.
FUTUREHOLDS
WHAT THE
Beyond technology CIOs anticipate increasing responsibilities for business areas outside IT, especially strategy, security and administration and operations.
Procurement
30%
55%
Strategy Risk management
37.5%
Valued service provider
47.5%
52.5%
Administration & Operations
NB: Multiple responses allowed.
What’s driving change Mobile computing, cloud computing and Technology as a Service are the top three trends that will profoundly inuence the role of the CIO this year.
Cloud computing
26.8%
Mobile computing
29.3%
Software as a Service
7.3%
Ubiquitous data
2.4%
Social media
4.9%
Next-generation workforce
4.9%
Technology as a service
22.0%
Consumerization of desktop/devices
2.4%
Ambitious innovators CIOs have their eyes on innovating for business; this is what they told us they want to be doing in 2015.
90%
Driving business innovation
84%
Cultivating the business/IT partnership
81%
Re-designing business processes
68%
Aligning IT initiatives to business goals
64%
YOUR
SPENDING
Developing and reďŹ ning business strategy
8.9%
Average IT spending as a percentage of revenue Adevrtising, Media, PR & Publishing (18%) Travel - 3.5% Retail - 4% Government, Education and NGOs (8.3%) Financial Services (13.2%) Manufacturing & transport (9.6%)
Outsourcing Third parties, including cloud vendors provide
Whose spending more? As a share of revenue,
financial services
10% of IT services
are spending a whooping
today. That number is
13.2% while the
expected to rise to about
41% in 2015.
travel and leisure sector is spending just 3.5%.
By Louisa Kadzo
A
n interesting article written by Paul D’Arcy spells out 5 reasons why CIOs cannot ignore consumerisation of IT. One, social media has become a business application and social networks have become necessary and ideal tools for building work relationships and conducting business. Two, the rise of a mobile workforce makes it difficult to control employee technology usage. Meaning, there is a need to develop policies to deliver and secure sensitive data. Three, the emergence of new mobile devices has enabled enormous application choices for employees. Four, there is a shift in business models and word of mouth selling is now happening online through social media. As the control of corporate brands shifts to online conversations outside of the company’s purview, organisations will
increasingly value employees who can navigate the ecosystem and are influencers in their social networks. Lastly, employee’s expectations of corporate IT is changing. Desirable hires do not want to give up their devices, weakening the recruitment and abilities of companies who refuse to accommodate them. CIOs find themselves in a hard-hitting position with pressure from their employees, including senior executives, to open the corporate network to consumer devices and allow access to more of the Web. The risks to data security are obvious and real, and some CIOs are reacting with bans on the use of employee-owned devices or social networking access, but this, according to Paul, can be counterproductive.
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda compared to other countries in the world have a high number of users accessing the internet and social networks on a daily basis. A Digital Life Survey published in December 2010 states that 69% of people visiting the internet on a daily basis in Kenya visit social networking sites, compared to 62% total in subSaharan Africa and 53% global internet users.
Like any other new innovation, adoption of it will mean a change in the whole business model, that, unless this is done, will result in failure. Jack Bergstrand, a former CIO of the Coca-Cola Company and former CFO of Coca-Cola Beverages in the US states that successful innovation has three outcomes: First, it makes your current enterprise more effective; second, it helps the enterprise identify and realize its potential; and third, it allows you to create a new type of enterprise for a different future.
The survey predicts that the percentage of people accessing social networks using their mobile phone and PC will keep increasing. 84% of people aged between 35 – 44 years will access social networks using their mobile phones, compared to 74% of those aged between 25 – 35 years and 83% between 21 - 24 years.
To Jack, a CIOs job is to make sure your company isn’t feeding technology birdseed to expired business canaries. If you pour new technologies into old business models, innovation will never get translated into customer orders and new revenue. At the same time, a CIO must never mistake great technology for great innovation.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Buzz and myspace.com are the highly visited social forums on a daily basis. People visiting these forums are looking to chat, send messages, read blogs, post comments and read news.
How to devise a social media strategy
CIOs and the spirit of change
The research found that a third of social networks in Kenya are talking about brands in these social networks. Many seek brand information, advertisements and promotional material beyond a company’s website. These statistics seek to show that consumers want to interact with their brands online – but with a plan and proper engagement. Consumers want to be informed and they want to talk, they want to ask questions and get responses.
Many perceive a social media function as marketing and communication function. As true as this is, it is important for a CIO to champion and participate in this move as you do in the adoption of other new trends like cloud computing and mobile technology. Without a CIOs participation in an innovation, the plan will falter, however good the idea. Besides, the security concerns that comes with such an innovation makes it paramount for a CIO to be strategically involved in coming up with a social media function.
When faced with a change situation, what role then does a CIO take? Should a CIO embrace change, be a champion, be the conservative?
The key to success for companies seeking to embrace social networking as a business function therefore lies in the strategy you put in place.
According to Paul Sagnia, CIO Standard Chartered Bank, a CIO has to be both the conservative person in an organisation and also the champion in terms of adopting technology that would derive value to the business. A CIO should also be able to say no to technology being proposed that may not be appropriate for the business.
Marvin Tumbo, CEO SocialLight Media company – a social media consultancy service – has the following laid down stages to coming up with a social media strategy.
Paul says in as much as social media is the way forward in terms of communicating; the concern is more on the security than the concept. Security measures including fi rewalls, protocols and procedures must be adhered to. There is need to ensure no unauthorized person gets access into a company’s sensitive data. Standard Chartered Bank remains conservative, though social networking is an inevitable trend for the bank. Social media is a fad, and as a CIO it is important not to throw your investments into new technologies just because they are popular.
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Step 1: Observe and report
This, he describes as an entry point to better understand the organisations culture, expectations and experience of employees, who the customers are, their expectations and perception of your organisation. This process is more of an exploratory research phase and the importance of this stage is that it will determine whether having a social presence will add value to your business or not. It will also help you decide what social channels are best suited to target your audience. Capture this information in a report that should include what platforms your business should have a presence in, what reach your message will have in the various platforms, as well as your plan of rolling out your information – days, weeks, months.
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“Many companies I have dealt with want awareness, to market their products and service, research and development of their brand, and customer care. It all depends on the kind of company and products that you handle. It is good to spell out your objectives in this policy. That way, they become measurable.” Analysis It is important to put in measures to guard whether you are achieving your objectives or not. Do this as frequently as possible. Measures to guard our example objective named above can include reviewing the frequency/rate of mentions, traffic, size of followers/fans and so on. Your strategy should specifically benchmark the number of followers in your fanpages, set monthly targets for followers, fans, traffic to website and analyse this on a weekly and monthly basis. You should also always come up with creative ways to foster presence and grow a fan base and following. Marvin Tumbo, CEO SocialLight Media
“Companies should be aware that almost every company, listed or unlisted in the Stock Exchange Market, are usually mentioned online – some in a good light, others in a bad light. Companies should leverage this situation to push for their products and services. There is a demand for companies to move to the social forums. You will be surprised that people now look to know about companies in these forums.” Stage 2: Setting the stage
This stage involves asking and answering important questions of what you want to achieve in the social forums. It involves spelling out your objectives in clear and measurable steps. Each objective should have one or more strategies associated with it and should describe how to achieve the objective. 34 Practical example if you have an objective of of increasing your presence online for instance, you may want to spell out your strategy as follows; • Facebook – to include customized fanpage with product pictures • Twitter - content • YouTube – video of events, new products and presentations • Flickr – pictures of products • Scribd/Slideshare – uploading presentations and embed on site • Blog – content/guest blogs • Newsletter – embed twitter and facebook as well as site links
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You will also need to continuously review your objectives and strategy combination to embrace emerging social technology trends and describe how these technologies can support, enhance or replace the strategy. A social media strategy must keep up with the change in technology. “If your objective is to increase awareness of your company or product you can measure by the increase in the number of your followers. If your objective is to engage your customers, look at how many replies you get, retweets and comments posted in your page. If you have an objective of hard sales, benchmark using simple tools like Google Analytics, measure your corporate website hits by looking at where people are coming from (what social network).” Stage 3: Finding your voice
By listening, hearing and observing your audiences responses and mannerisms, you can surface points, source for ideas, foster innovation, earn inspiration, learn and integrate all this into your social media programmes. Keep narrowing and refining your strategy to be more direct. You do not have to be everywhere in the social forums, just in places where either your presence is unfelt, or it stands to bring you more value. Be careful not to respond to just anyone or any comment. Identify your key influencers and respond to them. These are the people you should invite to test your new products and services. Keep them involved as they will be your eyes and ears on the ground. Stage 4: Define your experience
The success of a social media strategy is the ability to humanise your brand to create conversation that will bring true reactions, perception and perspectives. Therefore, once you truly understand the people who influence your targets,
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The state of a brand in social media is largely tied to the awareness that a socialized version of a branding style guide is necessary. The persona of the brand is calculated and defined by how it is you wish to be portrayed and perceived. Your activity online must therefore not only maintain a sense of purpose, it must also direct traffic and shape perceptions and experiences in the process. “As much as an organisation is a corporate with its own corporate standards of communication, the language used in the social forums must be casual and conversational. If you apply formal language, you automatically lose your audience. Interact with them as if you are a customer service talking to a client from behind your desk.” Stage 5: Community
Community isn’t established with the creation of a Facebook Fan Page, Group, or any online profi le for that matter. Community is earned and fortified through shared experiences. Hosting a community is a commitment and must be done so without compromise. A community is continuously built through engagement using the knowledge of who your audience and influencers are. Stage 6: Collaboration and communication
An organisation’s communication outside is only as good as its internal communication. Social media as embraced in the earlier stages is not scalable. An internal team will have to be introduced to champion this campaign. For smaller organisations, one main person is assigned to handle the role of a social media champion. For larger organisations, larger teams are appointed. Social media will entail the introduction of new roles that will mean the restructuring of teams and workflow, which will ultimately necessitate organizational transformation to support effective engagement. Successful social media management will require governance and accountability. The process of hiring social media personnel is the same as employing any other personnel in your organisation. They must be someone you believe can fit into your organisation culture, who meets your minimum organisation requirements for any department. For social media, creativity is key. A social media champion should be someone who can write well and is social. It is also advantageous to hire someone who understands your business and who has an appreciation for social media. Always research on the person and see what presence they have in the same channels you want them to champion for you.
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Monitoring and evaluation tools There are tools like Google Analytics – a free online tool that is good to track referral traffics. Using this tool, you can measure from which social forum people coming to your website are. You can also measure sales that come from social media. Another simple tool is social mention. This is a free tool whereby you mention your company name and it will give you a breakdown of what people are saying about you and from where. However, it does not give you such in-depth information. For monitoring purposes, you can use a tool like Radiance 6 which costs around KES 40,000 per month. This tool is particularly good because you can enter your brand name, competitors names and this tool can give you a graph to compare your brand to other brands online. It can also give you a cloud of information stating what people are saying online and how they are saying it. This tool is good to make you more targeted in your social policy for example, if you have more comments of you coming from Facebook and not Twitter, then it will be more strategic to focus your strategy on Facebook.
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The key to success for companies seeking to embrace
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you need to establish a persona worthy of attention and affinity.
social networking as a business function lies in the strategy you put in place. www.
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Learn about deploying a social media strategy page. Our total fan base for all our social forums comes to about 250,000 followers. There could be some duplication. from two companies who are early adopters Capital Media Group Limited
Our approach Part of our policy was that every show on air must be posted in our social media as separate pages – that way each becomes targeted in its content and audience. In our social fan pages, we will tease stories to our website, directing traffic to our website. We hence get to sell our products, as well as market the brands of our clients. When we promote brands on behalf of companies, we also direct our followers to their corporate website. This presents them with an affordable marketing strategy which also adds value that they can see and measure. We also use our social forums for research. Here, we conduct surveys to see what people’s opinions on certain issues are. We normally pick trendy issues that are currently rocking society, for example the mobile price war. People give their opinion and we send it back to the concerned corporates. This is more of an informal polling that we do not charge for. It is a way for us to also stay relevant by getting people to talk.
Waithera Kabiru, Head of Digital Media at Capital Group Limited
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At capital FM, we have a website, mobisite and social media presence as well. Capital FM has an operational digital media department. We offer our clients a digital media campaign in addition to radio campaigns. We handle everything from the creative aspect of the campaign design, mobisite strategy and social media marketing strategy. We have a team of 15 people in the digital media department who work closely with the editorial team for content. Where we began Our story is similar to that of many other organisations. By 2008, Facebook was barred in our organisation except for our presenters who could interact and get feedback from their listeners. We started our digital media division in 2009 when we started to rebuild our website. We then came up with the digital media strategy for our organisation which included employees getting into these social forums and being champions for our organisations. This included laying down rules and regulations, and communicating this to our employees. Heads of Department closely monitor what employees say about the company in these forums. Our fan pages started out slowly. It takes time to grow. Right now, we have about 100,000 fans in our Facebook www.
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Education is key for our strategies. For clients who want their brands advertised in the social forums, we must first educate them on what will be required of them. We work with our clients to develop the campaign. Corporates must allocate a champion within their organisation to manage the feedback. On our part, we compile reports on the progress of their campaign and monitor the campaign on a weekly and monthly basis. We are always quick to revise our strategy if we see it is not working as we had planned. Lessons learnt Communicating online is different from communicating on print. If you advertise your product or brand online, people who are actually interested in your product will visit your page for more content. The options are wide online. By the time someone follows you to your page, they are potential clients. A corporate gets to see the value of their advertising revenue when advertising online. A social networking strategy must reflect the culture of an organisation. Your strategy should fit in with your staff, otherwise it will not succeed. Our organisation is a family kind of structure, we are a young and savvy lot, and we love entertain ourselves and our clients. Looking at this culture, we came up with a strategy to suit us. A task force was appointed internally from all departments to say what they would like to have online – do’s and don’ts. We had casing points from best practices from around the world. It took us about 2 – 3 months to develop something concrete. We did not really have too many problems implementing
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this strategy internally. The only problem is with our clients who are mostly too conservative and shy away from the social media. With time, this concept is becoming easily acceptable to our clients. Monitoring and evaluation When we first began, we used to monitor who is saying what about us manually. That was hard. Eventually, we invested in a tool called “Rightnow� that monitors who is saying what and automatically generates a report for your attention. We are now the licensed distributor of this tool in Kenya. This costs around USD 1000 per month. Bata Shoe Company (Kenya) Limited
months, we had only 20 followers in our twitter page. Eventually, our following picked up and we now have about 1,200 fans with whom we closely interact. We also had to complement this effort by coming up with daily updates for our website and blogs so as to maintain the interest of those who visit our pages. We now have all our products accessible online, and this works well for both our local and overseas clients. As we continued growing, we expanded our social networks to include Facebook and YouTube. We now advertise and hold campaigns on FaceBook. We put our old television advertisement on YouTube. These have been well received because the advertisements were very popular in their days. We also post videos of our new products and any other creative innovation we do as a company. With the continued increase in the popularity of our digital media, we are implementing a home delivery service this year. We are partnering with MPesa, credit card and other mobile money services to enable people to purchase products online, pay for them and they are delivered at a the place of their convenience. Our strategy Social media is also about reputation management and brand placement. A key to success online as a brand is being able to humanise your brand by interacting with customers. They give us complaints, complements and comments. Immediately we receive any feedback, it is channelled to the respective departments who must respond. We then communicate this back to our followers.
Christine Mwiti, Systems Administrator, Bata Shoe Company (Kenya) Limited
Bata Kenya is the leading footwear manufacturer in the country with a national retailer network of over 100 ultra modern stores stocking high quality fashion shoes, handbags and other accessories for ladies, men and children. We are largely viewed as a conservative company. However, Bata is among the early adopters social media as a business function.
We get very personal sometimes by going to the step of getting our followers cell phone numbers and I will ensure that we call them and update them on the status of their feedback. Monitoring and evaluation Using Google Analytics, we compile a weekly report to show the number of fans, how we are achieving our objectives, and whether we need to review our strategy. This report is shared with management.
Into social media By the beginning of 2009, the Facebook craze was catching up in our organisation. Because of people spending too much time online, social forum pages were blocked. By the end of 2009, I made a suggestion to have a fan page so that people can be useful in a social setting. I then became the company’s champion for social media.
Our biggest lesson learnt is that social media is just about having a conversation with an audience that you do not see. A company must move from selling to building relationships. A social media strategy should be looked at as a long term investment. The returns to sales may take time to build, but the value addition to a corporate is direct and measurable.
It took us some time to build our networks and develop our follower base. We started with Twitter and for several
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Mine customer data the right way By Robert Vamosi
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ou have to run a business, and that requires understanding what interests your customers. But you also want to do the right thing and protect your customers’ privacy. How do you walk that line when trying to mine information from the Web? Some data-mining shortcuts, such as scraping data off of social networking sites, are obvious options. But taking such measures can get you kicked off a site for violating its terms of service, or at the very least it will incur the wrath of your customers. Here are some simple, nonintrusive methods to track your loyal customers, build your contact lists, and otherwise analyze data to learn about potential opportunities online. Generate your own lists You have several ways to generate your own customer lists. One is to write a white paper, post it on your site, and then legitimately collect contact information from anyone who wishes to download the white paper for free. As long as you ask for the minimum of personal information (name, e-mail address, contact phone number), most people will oblige. You could use the same technique to sign people up for a monthly newsletter. MailChimp is a free service that allows you to send up to 12,000 e-mail messages to 2000 recipients each month. Or, you can post a survey on your Website that collects respondents’ contact details, using a service such as SurveyMonkey.
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Another way to generate a contact list is to use social networks within their terms of service. You can legitimately set up a fan page on Facebook and use that page to promote your company. Using names, you can search for contacts and request that they join the Facebook fan page. By sending out friend requests, you allow the recipient the option of following the site or not. LinkedIn makes the process even easier by allowing you to create niche groups. Forming a targeted group around your company’s interests can also generate leads; both this tactic and creating a Twitter account for your business require a steady stream of new content, if not daily then weekly.
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Capture traffic If your company has a Website, you can monitor who visits it using various services. Sites such as Pardot capture site visitors, integrating those results into Salesforce CRM. Another service, Etrigue, also integrates with Salesforce. com, as well as with Salesforce’s AppExchange or Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This is a passive opportunity; the contacts simply come to you. And it doesn’t require someone to enter the data into your preferred customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Buy a list You don’t have to do the data collection yourself. You can buy and customize lists to suit your specific needs--for example, to target healthcare professionals earning more than $100,000. Dun & Bradstreet’s Hoovers is perhaps the best-known source, with over 85 million individuals in its database; also using the Dun & Bradstreet data is Zapdata. However, such lists are not without fault, even when purchased at a premium. You can expect to fi nd some “bounces” even on the best of these services as people change jobs (or at least change their e-mail addresses). Perhaps up to 10 percent of the entries may be “bad,” so plan accordingly. Don’t scrape As mentioned above, the terms of service for most social networks prohibit commercial use of the information contained in their sites. It might seem easy to obtain e-mail addresses from members of a particular social network, but this action violates the terms of service for most networks. Basically, you can use your fan page and solicit contacts by asking them to be your friend or to join your network, but you can’t copy someone’s information without their permission. What about copying the contacts from a rival or former company? That is also disallowed, although the legal precedents are still being worked out in the courts. In some cases courts have found that a company’s contact list on
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their social network site is public, while other courts have found that that is not the case.
did pull this feature due to public pressure, but the company appears certain to launch it sometime in 2011.
Also, not every social network is the same. Facebook grants members only noncommercial rights, but LinkedIn is designed for professionals to use in building up contacts, so usage of its information for commercial use may be all right.
Despite the given privacy policies of a site, when creating an application make sure that your developers follow some form of secure software development lifecycle. Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) is an open framework, adaptable for both small and large businesses; it is derived from the secure development practices employed at Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, and 27 other companies worldwide. By securing their code at the beginning, businesses can avoid the embarrassment of seeing their application singled out as having “privacy issues” by third-party security products.
Use a targeted approach So, on which social networks should you build a page and collect friends and contacts? If you already have a mailinglist program, you can use it to find out which social media services your clients use. The program SocialPro employs MailChimp-generated mailing lists to crawl social media sites and return raw numbers of contacts using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, among others. From such results, you can learn which media your clients prefer so that you can better target your marketing campaigns. You can then design video and even applications that best appeal to your audience. Beware of unintended risks from applications Last fall Facebook disclosed that developers may have leaked personal information about its users; applications such as FarmVille allegedly sent Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data fi rms. A class-action lawsuit regarding such third-party access to data has been fi led against Facebook. However, that hasn’t stopped Facebook from making a controversial move to formally allow thirdparty apps to access users’ personal information. Facebook
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Follow the rules Whatever method you use to build up customer lists, abide by these few simple rules. • Always be clear as to what contact information you are asking the customer to provide. • Don’t overstep; ask for the bare minimum from your customers. • Clearly state what opt-out options exist. If sending a newsletter, include an opt-out option within each issue. • Create a privacy policy that explicitly states how your company will use the collected information. The greater transparency your company offers, the fewer problems. • Design apps that follow the best security practices to avoid embarrassing privacy issues later on.
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
The pathetic story of QoS James Wire Lunghabo | CIO Uganda Bureau
To start off with the Blocked Calls category – which is the inability to make a successful call due to network failure – the UCC set 2% as the maximum proportion for a network. Performance results indicated Uganda Telecom and Orange Telecom as the best performers here closely followed by MTN. Airtel and Warid Telecom had the worst statistics. Blocked Call Rate
maintained the same trend of performance. Orange Telecom came tops closely followed by Uganda Telecom and MTN. Airtel and Warid came a distant fourth and fifth. The UCC target for this category is 95%. No provider was able to achieve it. Good Calls Rate Orange Airtel Provider
T
he Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) released its report on the Quality of Service of the GSM operators. The study was centred around the capital city Kampala. A quick scan represents a not so flattering picture and shows that there is still a long way before the consumer gets the much desired benefits from their provider.
Warid MTN UTL 0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
Percentage
The performance by Orange and Uganda Telecom is very commendable as they consistently were closest to achieving the set targets by the UCC. MTN too deserves a serious mention as it is always a big hurdle to maintain good service provision with a large subscriber base since it has the biggest subscriber base of all the providers surveyed.
Orange Provider
Airtel Warid MTN UTL 0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00% Percentage
In the Dropped Calls category – the calls that are unceremoniously terminated by the network before they are ended by either party – the performance patterns are similar with only UTL and Orange swapping positions. None of the providers was able to beat the UCC target of 2%. Dropped Call Rate
40 Orange Provider
Opinion
Airtel Warid
Word in the industry has it that Airtel is planning some network upgrades that should see them rating very well in the Quality of Service provision. This is not a farfetched ambition as by November 2010, Airtel was rated as the best quality mobile service provider in Kenya. The message is very clear and in black and white. While there have been complaints by numerous phone users about call quality, this revelation by the regulator puts many things into perspective and it is expected that the telecomm companies will now shape up.
MTN UTL 0.00% 1.00% 2.00% 3.00% 4.00% 5.00% 6.00% 7.00% 8.00% Percentage
The last category was the Good Calls – calls that are of good signal quality guaranteeing two-way end-to-end connection between the calling and called parties for the entire duration of the call. Once again, the providers
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One interesting characteristic of the lagging companies in this study i.e. Airtel and Warid Telecom is that they happen to be at the forefront of the cut throat price competition strategies aimed at winning them more subscribers. Probably investment in their networks is not matching the rate of increase in the subscriber base.
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The UCC should consider extending these service provision studies to the rest of the country as the picture is likely to be different and more realistic of the situation on the ground. Many a times I travel to the countryside and get the rude awakening that decent service quality is yet to be a right enjoyed by subscribers everywhere.
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
CRM: business philosophy than IT Ruth Kang’ong’oi | CIO Rwanda Bureau
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ately, I have been writing articles from and about Rwanda and the responses I get from my readers are questions regarding whether or not I work for the PR section of the Presidential Press unit. Well, my answer is – give credit where it is due and always do criticize only when necessary. I am here with my short lived excitement. Just when I had seen something negative to write about MTN Rwanda’s crazy roaming rates, they decide to announce that they have decided to scrap cross-border roaming charges for their customers when they use the service in Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland. MTN Rwanda attributed this drastic change to long negotiations with their sister companies and agreeing on the amount to charge each other. MTN has spent the past few months negotiating in response to their customers’ requests to slash roaming costs. This only shows that MTN Rwanda knows very well that any business is highly dependent on its customers. So, what to do other than talk about customer relationship management (CRM). Smaller businesses are thought to understand their customers’ needs better, simply because their size make it easier. Some years back, it was a matter of “This is what we can offer, who wants to buy our product?” Since then, businesses have changed their customer relationship approach. These days, businesses are driven by customer wants and needs, and they continuously review what they need to do to be able to produce and deliver it to them. Large enterprises in Rwanda like banks, telecommunication companies and others have therefore started introducing ways in which to serve their customers better. While CRM is not solely about technology but more on the customers’ response and satisfaction, it also can’t be effectively pioneered into a business without at least some technology. In fact, technology is the core aspect that enables the blend of all the means by which
companies communicate with their customers through telephone, e-mail and the internet. CRM systems are not yet very common in the Rwandan market, limited to a few large corporates who have the financial clout. The good news is that a growing number of small enterprises can now access CRM systems at affordable costs through the internet. CRM systems, like other aspects of technology, can be outsourced from the internet. Outsourcing these solutions from the internet might not be as cheap as buying an off-the-shelf solution, but this is a sure better way of obtaining the application quickly, and also avoids having to have an extensive in-house technology team. According to Peter Rudasingwa, an ICT consultant, software and ICT play a significant part in enabling an effective CRM capability, especially in large organisations. Therefore, he notes that as much as there are many and various systems and solutions available, it is important to have a clear idea of your requirements during the selection process. This is because almost all but very small companies generally require support for specifying, implementation, training and maintenance. The area of customer service in Rwanda generally faces a real challenge. Even though there are tremendous positive things happening here, on a daily basis I interact with people complaining about poor service delivery. Lack of customer care was identified sometime back by the Rwanda Development Board as one of the constraining factors in making yet a better impression on visitors; and the major ingredient missing in our service industry. Why not incorporate CRM systems in all our businesses? This will not only see our businesses grow but we will have significant business benefits such as reduced costs due to the right things being done through this effective and efficient operation. When the focus of the organization is external, and the customers get exactly what they want, there will definitely be increased customer satisfaction hence growth in their numbers. Karuthum@gmail.com
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
After Installation HARD TALK | Bobby Yawe
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ccumulating professional qualifications and badges is something that many of us aspire to and flaunt around. The Microsoft MCSE certification was the entire vogue; even I pursued it almost to its logical conclusion. At some point, the course lost its lustre and become another piece of paper that provided no practical skills. We characterise mode Xenix, Unix and DOS operating environment fossils, we should change the acronym meaning of MCSE to Mouse Click Setup dot Exe because many of those who touted the certification were dependent on the mouse and the setup.exe fi le. This article is about us developing an installation mentality rather than implementation, in all facets of our life. Installation of an application is not the same as implementation. Both words may begin with an “i” and end with an “n” but that is where the similarities end, the devil is in the detail. Here is a case in point; I recently needed to pay off a mortgage facility with KCB, so I requested for the liquidation value of the facility. The customer service person asked for the account number, and I gave a savings account and not the loan account number. I asked if they could search for the loan account details from the system but shock of shocks, they could only search by account number and nothing else – how does this happen in the twenty first century?
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I adamantly insisted, so they logged into a separate system I believe was the CRM from where she copied the number and was fortunately able to paste it into the banking system. After 30 minutes of fidgeting, cutting, pasting, logging out of one system and into another, the statement finally appeared on the screen but she could not print it because the default printer was not operational, and neither print redirection nor PDF generation was possible. Getting to the bank the following day, I found a different staff member and had to undergo the entire painful process again to generate the statement. Fortunately, the
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default printer had been restored to operational status after a new toner was installed. Yes, yes, there are printers out there that can send you email when the toner is low – yet another case of installation rather than implementation. To cut a very long story short, I finally received my statement with penalty charges handwritten on the paper – there is a penalty for early repayment of the facility, I am yet to understand why. I then requested for the account into which to remit the final payment. Yes, your guess is correct; we had to go back into the system to search for the liquidation account number which is different from the loan account number and the savings account number. What is more concerning is that all these numbers are separately stored and not cross referenced in the systems – might it be a banking security issue? Off to my other bank to issue an electronic transfer to the liquidation account, RTGS. Following through two days later, there was a form that needed fi lling requesting for the funds in the liquidation account to be transferred to the loan account – the beauty of prepaid airtime, load the card and you’re off. As of this writing Aluta Continua, I hope to complete the liquidation before the Ocampo Six get back from The Hague. KCB’s banking system is feature rich but incorrect or incomplete implementation is the issue. The only reason why this hasn’t hit the fan is because the staff and customers are resilient; the front office staffs are intelligent enough to work round the shortcomings – which unfortunately means they will then never be addressed. We are fast retarding in the productive use of technology, at this rate we shall be in the stone-age soon enough. The fact that we can read email on the road and update our facebook status on the fly is a mirage of productive use of technology. Let’s get it clear in our minds that installation of software is fundamentally different from implementation. Unless we pull up our socks, organisations will keep pouring good money after bad, and the CIO will soon be relegated back to Data Processing Manager or Data Entry Supervisor.
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Is Kenya an e-money economy? SECOND OPINION | Sam Mwangi
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obile money transfer, mobile banking and internet banking have become very popular products in the Kenyan market. By the end of 2011, two-thirds of Kenyans above 15 years will be using mobile money transferring an estimated Kshs. 200 billion annually or 20 percent of GDP. Internet access also seems to have a reached a tipping point with an expected more than 8 million subscribers, many accessing it through mobile phones. The concept of virtual money has crept into the money system thus significantly impacting the business processes for most corporates and indeed the Government. Mobile phone-based money transfer and banking solutions have also been recognised as the avenues to take banking services to people outside the formal financial industry. In essence, “Mobile Money” is cash converted to electronic form, stored in a virtual account in the SIM card. Mobile Money solutions such as M-PESA, ZAP, YU Cash and Orange Money run on a SIM Application Toolkit, commonly referred to as STK. Once a mobile subscriber registers for either of the products, a virtual wallet enabled for them on their phone. Person-to-person money transfer has boosted incomes of rural recipients through the ease, security, and affordability that allow their relatives or friends in urban centers to send money home more frequently. Mobile money transfer systems are already being used to allow bulk disbursement of payments from organisations to employees, and have been used to allow the disbursement and repayment of micro loans. These services are cheaper than conventional banking which comes with expenses the poor could not afford. Safaricom in conjunction with local banks has integrated M-Pesa with the banking systems to develop Mobile Banking models such as KCB Connect, Hello Money, M-Kesho and Easy24, which utilize a unique platform known as Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).
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USSD is highly user-friendly, and provides an extremely convenient system for customers to access virtual account in real time. Orange’s mobile payment service, Orange Money, was launched in partnership with the Equity Bank Group. Orange Money is a money transfer service that is mapped to a bank account to allow customers access fi nancial services using their Orange mobile phone numbers. The service is hosted on Equity Bank’s mobile banking platform which gives the customers the convenience that comes with a bank account. With the growing penetration of Internet access, the banking sector in Kenya has identified a new front for competition - Internet banking. Internet banking allows customers to conduct financial transactions on a secure website operated by their retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society, fi nancial services accessed via the Internet’s World Wide Web. Over 20 commercial banks in Kenya have already deployed Internet banking. Services available through internet banking include: inter account transfers; EFT payments; local EFT payments to other banks; cross currency payments; direct debit payments; recurring payments; urgent payments (RTGS); and electronic cheque payments. Judging by the enthusiasm in the market, Kenya may be heading to an economy where less tangible money is in circulation. Another growing trend in the Kenyan market is development of e-commerce solutions such as Rupu, Jambopay, PesaPal, Zetu, Obopay and so on. These solutions increase efficiency since the merchant is a technology solution rather than a physical person or premises, allowing exchange of goods or services in a virtual environment. There has been a significant impact especially in rural areas considering one can find mobile connectivity in the remotest of places in Kenya, where having an Internet connection could be a problem. For entrepreneurs, one can make transactions or pay bills anytime and thus saving a lot of time. Promotional products can also be launched over the Internet at a lower cost, such as the daily deals on Rupu and Zetu. Moreover, mobile or Internet banking saves the record of any transactions made reducing on fraud incidents. Benefits of these services to the banks are enormous. Banks can promote and sell their products and services like credit cards, loans etc. to a specific group of customers.
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.co.ke
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
An angel for your business By Louisa Kadzo
Mbwana Alliy is an associate at i/o ventures, co-founder of Yellow Masai and Board Member at Envaya. Alliy was part of a three man team of i/o ventures who visited Kenya in December 2010 with a goal of encouraging the growth of local ICT entrepreneurs. He speaks to Louisa Kadzo about his journey into the angel investment space, and the role that i/o ventures play in bridging the gap between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. network of mentors and angel investors. Given my interests in Africa and the potential we have, Paul Bragel asked me to help bring Silicon Valley mentoring and angel investing to Africa. We first visited Tanzania then came to Kenya. Who exactly are i/o ventures and what do you do? i/o ventures is an early stage start-up program that focuses heavily on mentorship. Our goal is to spread ICT entrepreneurship and encourage the growth of a local “tech ecosystem”. Our network of entrepreneurs have started multi-billion dollar internet companies including PayPal, YouTube, Myspace, hi5 and yelp. com, many of which have over 100 million users visiting their website monthly. Our most recent graduating class of six companies in the internet space was exposed to 120 venture capitalist and angel investors and all got funded.
Topline Interview
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i/o ventures is not a venture capital fi rm in the traditional sense. We like to focus on startups due to our extensive experience in incubating startup entrepreneurs. During our visits, we participate in variety of events including speaking at top universities, meeting with upcoming entrepreneurs and top business leaders.
Mbwana Alliy Tell us more about yourself. I am a Tanzanian with an engineering and business background working in aerospace in UK and Microsoft within the US as a product manager for Excel and Access in the Office Group. My involvement with startups dates back to 2009, influenced by my admiration and mentorship by great people such as Russ Simmons co-founder of Yelp.com , first engineer at Paypal, as well as Paul Bragel co-founder of Lefora (online forum), CEO of Meetro (location based social networking). I became an associate of i/o ventures after it was formed due to the fact that it was a startup accelerator with a
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.co.ke
Explain the difference between angle investment and venture capitalism. Angel investors like i/o ventures can deploy smaller amounts of capital as seed investments of between USD 20-100,000 on average. We focus more on mentoring entrepreneurs to help solidify their product and business. With angel investments comes significant “hand holding” or mentoring. Angels will work with entrepreneurs with little to no revenue and work to get a prototype on the market. We also have significant domain experience in the sector to part to the entrepreneur. As a result, angels and help often inexperienced entrepreneurs get going.
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
Venture capitalists on the other hand are not interested in businesses that do not scale. They typically invest no less than USD 0.5m on average. They seek returns from 10 to 100 times. They come in at later stages and fund the product or service with a proven team for growth and scale with larger amount of capital. Do you think that the use of venture capital is the best way to go about developing new technology in Africa or is there some better way? In today’s era – breakthroughs are increasingly coming from smaller and distributed groups. These benefit more from direct investment and mentorship of the startup until it grows to a sustainable level. A good example is Ushahidi which was founded by a distributed team. Governments also have a role to play in fi nancing of technology ventures. After all, the internet was founded as robust network out of fears of the cold war – many radar technologies, foundation of communications technologies were founded in the UK during World War 2. Governments in Africa can help in a similar manner by providing grants to promising technology areas that can help their nations in key sectors such as healthcare and fi nancial services. Governments can also help by creating policies to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship borrowing lessons from established ventures like inc. StartupChile, StartupAmerica and Singapore’s SPRING programme. In Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, there is no robust angel network in the technology sector. I attribute this mainly due to the fact that there has not been big success of previous technology entrepreneurs with the risk capital to fund the next generation of entrepreneurs. As a result, African entrepreneurs are not able to get their technology investments off the ground and reach a point where venture capitalists can fund them. There are some entrepreneurs who say most venture capitalists are risk adverse. How true is this statement? It should be clear that venture capitalists do not act as angels investors – they do need ideas that have potential for big scale and a founding team to do this. People must be targeted in their search for funding. Not all venture capitalists or angel investors invest in just any technology area. i/o ventures for instance has angel networks that are rich in internet experience. Asking i/o ventures to invest in hardware companies is obviously a wrong fit. Entrepreneurs needs to focus on not just bringing in a business plan – but showing a proof of concept. In today’s world, there are many tools that allow one to create prototypes very cheaply and even start attracting users and
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revenue. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs can make is to hold on to an idea in their head and not try getting attraction before approaching the venture capitalist. Venture capitalists don’t invest in plans – they invest in execution and potential to scale. It is not true to say that venture capital is not for startups. Venture capital can and is often used for startups. Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley fund startups all the time. The key is at what stage and what traction you have. How do you evaluate a company’s portfolio and what is the key to making a winning proposal? Team, product and market size are crucial in the evaluation of a company. Team is especially important because you need to show that there are passionate and talented people to drive the business to completion. For instance, a technology project must have a technical person to build the product, and a CEO/business head who can sell the vision and do initial sales. There are some well known concepts in Silicon Valley such as “product-market fit”, “lean startup movement” and “pivot/iterating”. Basically they advocate keeping your costs low, changing your business model quickly if you do not see any returns and picking on the correct market for your product. In the early stages of a business, one needs to try different models and experiments, scaling up as the business grows. One should evaluate any investment based on potential market size, talent of the team including their ability to execute, as well scalable and monetizable technology with natural barriers to replicate from competitors such as a network effect. Look at the mobile phone growth and rise of mobile banking in East Africa. The market is really there if you target correctly. What are the 5 most important things you have learned in business? 1. Work with really smart people. 2. It is better to share an idea with people who will help you expand the pie than keeping it yourself or adding people of no value who have a sense of entitlement. 3. Help out as many people you can on the way up and never forget your roots. 4. Get to know everyone you work with on a social level to build trust and understanding in the long-term. 5. Never underestimate the importance of marketing and branding with building a business. Don’t assume you will build a business and customers will come wautomatically, especially in technology. www.
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
What LinkedIn today can do By Kristin Burnham
Business Tips
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inkedIn has launched a beta product called “LinkedIn Today”--a social news service that aggregates the top headlines and stories related to your industry and based on what your connections share. According to Liz Reaves Walker, senior product manager at LinkedIn, the company hopes to make this platform the go-to source for users to keep current on industry news. “For people who are short on time, we think this is a great product to help you get a sense for what matters,” she says. LinkedIn Today launched to 22 industries and is also now available as a feature on the LinkedIn iPhone app. The announcement follows LinkedIn’s admission in its initial public offering document that “a substantial majority of our members do not visit our website on a monthly basis, and a substantial majority of our page views are generated by a minority of our members.”
LinkedIn today: your “front page” Visit linkedin.com/today or click the News tab from your LinkedIn homepage to access it. Note that not everyone’s “LinkedIn Today” front page will look the same. The stories are aggregated based on the industries with which you are associated or have expressed interest. The main story at the top is the most-shared story within the LinkedIn community. For some, you’ll see when the post was first shared, in which industries it’s trending and which of your first and second connections have posted it. Below the main story are the other top stories that you can browse. In the photo thumbnail of the story, you’ll see a blue button with a number--in this case, 772--which denotes how many people on LinkedIn have shared the story. Clicking the number will open a page where you can drill down on and filter who shared the story, what they’re saying, their company or industry and from where they are.
Here’s a rundown of how LinkedIn Today works, plus a look at the mobile app.
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.co.ke
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April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
You can share any of the top stories with your connections and/or on Twitter by clicking the Share button at the top of the news story, or click Save to bookmark the story to read later. You can read all saved stories by selecting Saved from the navigation toolbar above. LinkedIn today: your industries Listed in the navigation bar are the industries that, from your profi le, LinkedIn has surmised matter to you. Clicking through the industries will open individual news homepages where you can browse stories related to a specific industry. Scrolling down the industry pages you’ll also find related top posts from StumbleUpon, “unusual” related stories under “Novel & Newsworthy” and related stories that your
connections post, found under “From Your Connections.” How to add or edit your industries: To edit the primary industry where you belong, click on your name at the top right of your LinkedIn profi le and choose Settings. Next, choose Profi le > Edit your name, location and industry. Use the drop-down menu to choose the appropriate industry, and click Save Changes. To customize the industries you see on the navigation bar in LinkedIn Today, click “Browse All” then select “Follow” or “Unfollow from the industries and sources list. Similarly, you can choose to make sources part of your LinkedIn Today. Under “Browse All” click the Sources” tab, and follow the sites that interest you. The ones you select will now be part of your LinkedIn today.
LinkedIn today: the mobile app LinkedIn’s move today puts a strong emphasis on mobility, led by the iPhone app component of LinkedIn Today. Visit the App Store to download the free LinkedIn app or the update. 47
To begin, click “LinkedIn Today” and you’ll be prompted to choose industries to follow. From there, you can navigate top stories based on everyone on LinkedIn, industries you’re following and your connections. To save a story to read later or share the post among your Twitter followers and/or LinkedIn connections, click the arrow next to the story. View saved stories by clicking the icon on the bottom navigation.
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.co.ke
April 2011 | Vol 3 | Issue 1
You are now a certified reader Dear Reader, Thanks for reading through our 48 page magazine. You have now reached the 48th page of the magazine and are hereby rewarded this page as a certificate to acknowledge your sweat breaking effort. Please keep this certificate and quote it as one of your many accomplishments. This certificate will be an exhibit of your prowess in the ICT industry. You are now in a position to rival the McKinseys of this world and will be headlining ICT conferences from Johannesburg to Nairobi. Great responsibility will be bestowed on you based on this certificate. If you are not yet already the CIO in your firm, march into your CEO’s office and demand the job based on this certificate. If you are the CIO, demand a remuneration package equal to that of your CEO. Tell your company’s board that based on this certificate, blue chip firms in the region will be falling all over themselves in an effort to hire you as one of them.
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The possibilities are endless. The US Ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, will be approaching you soon. His government will have heard of your prowess based on this certificate. Do not worry about your conversation with him appearing in Wikileaks 2.0. The reason for him approaching you will be that his government has determined you as the best placed individual out of a possible 6 billion others to advise them on their ICT security matters – based on this very certificate.
organisations. All along, they have believed that possession of a certain certification automatically results in skills in a certain field. However, the dynamic nature of ICT means that individuals need to go beyond the certificate to be up to date in a specific field. Certifications are based on curriculum that is updated periodically, perhaps every few months or years. There has been a worrying trend where certified individuals have opted to stick to the course outline of their certification and not explore any new domain, awaiting the next certification to brush up their skills. Taking a critical area like security, relying on a certification alone will mean that you are a few months behind, security wise. If your security consultant only relies on tools to run your audit, you are better off procuring the same tools and running the audit yourself. Data from HB Gary, a firm that deployed such tools and that was breached by an ‘anonymous’ person revealed that the same fi rm secretly sold highly sophisticated security infi ltration tools. Security tools are compiled from commonly used exploits, hence do not usually contain the latest exploits which hackers are usually quick to exploit. Again, you may need an individual to assist in steering your ICT or social strategy towards a certain direction. While relying on an individual may appear as well suited based on various certifications, it may take you a while to discover that the individual, rather than relying on the certification to aid in their strategy, are trying to map your firms strategy into the certification strategy. While certifications are quite important strategy and knowledge tools, it is detrimental to rely on these alone.
Last Word
Do I sound ridiculous? How can I be ridiculous while am doing the very thing that many firms have been using to drive their ICT policy? Managers have long relied on certified individuals and certifications to provide rare ICT skills in their
Source for the correct skills, research and find out whether the individual or firm you are hiring has the right attitude and domain in the field. Their previous experience should give you enough basis of their skills. You are now a certified decision maker!
Dennis Mbuvi
Dennis Mbuvi
dennis.mbuvi@cio.co.ke www.
.co.ke
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