Monthly Archive for August, 2009

The SEACOM Cable One Month Report Card.

Published on August 30, 2009 in random. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

So, its just over a month since the SEACOM high speed cable went live, connecting Eastern and Southern African countries to broadband Internet for the very first time. In East Africa, SEACOM is gradually connecting hinterland countries like Rwanda and Uganda through regional and national fibre backbones. However, Kenya has been more or less running on SEACOM for the better part of the last two weeks as much faster internet access speeds are being experienced by consumers and businesses alike.

However, one of the most contentious issues at the moment since SEACOM went live is that the end-user has not experienced any price reductions yet, as had been hoped for, or expected. What has happened so far instead is that the Internet Service Provider (ISP) community has doubled or even quadrupled bandwidth on the last mile to the end-user with no price reductions. This is somewhat perplexing for the end-users since it is also known that the ISP community now buying wholesale SEACOM bandwidth for up to 90% less than they used to pay for similar bandwidth via on Satellite connections.

Therefore, in defense of the Internet pricing status quo, the ISP community has been pressing several arguments for the lack of price reductions to the end-user. One is that they are recouping the high cost of connecting to and maintaining links to SEACOM on service agreements. The ISP community also argue that they (still) have costly satellite connections in place due to service agreements that they must run down over time, even as they connect to the SEACOM cable. Lastly, they have also raised the argument that SEACOM has (apprently) gone offline on several occasions in the last few weeks and as such they intend to maintain redundant sattellite connectivity, just in case any other outages happen in the future. I believe this final argument will indeed become redundant when both the EASSY and TEAMS cables go live in Kenya within the next year or so – Kenya will then have 3 high speed cables when they go live and it would be cheaper and more practical then for the ISP community to drop satellite connectivity altogether.

In a nutshell, the SEACOM cable is delivering Internet access speeds that many end-users have never experienced before in Kenya. Personally, I use various ISPs when I am at home, at work, or on the move. In all of these cases its interesting to see that for the first time I can watch streaming video or listen to podcasts without buffering or distortions. There is one ISP I use for instance where I was able to download a large 100MB file in less than 5 minutes. Yes, you read right. 5 minutes! Imagine that! But, I think this is just the beginning. I can’t wait for the other high speed cables to go live and competitive pressure starts to bring the prices down. This is what we all want the most. Fast, reliable, and most importantly inexpensive broadband Internet.

Safaricom’s CEO Michael Joseph speaks at the Kenya Diaspora Conference 2009.

Published on August 25, 2009 in random. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Just picked-up this video of highlights on Safaricom’s CEO Michael Joseph speaking at the Kenya Diaspora Conference in Atlanta, USA. Credits for the same go to Mshale.com, an online Kenyan Diaspora Magazine.

Nokia’s OVI.com comes to Kenya.

Published on August 25, 2009 in random. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I almost failed to pick-up the significance of Nokia’s OVI.com launching in Kenya this past week. OVI.com is a relatively new service from Nokia that consolidates a range of mobile applications, music and gaming offerings in a web portal. The launch which was largely carried out in the newspapers, OVI.com enables anyone in Kenya with a compatible Nokia handset to register for 1000 free email messages. OVI.com also lets you access existing mailboxes on services such as Gmail and Yahoo! Email. Clearly, this is only the beginning as OVI.com is so much more than email. The word OVI fittingly means “door” in Finnish where Nokia has its operations headquartered. The launch of OVI.com demonstrates that Nokia is serious about maintaining its relevance in Kenya and the rest of Africa as not only a leading mobile handset manufacturer, but also as a leader in the emerging market for mobile data offerings.

As of this writing, Kenya has almost 18 million mobile subscribers and 4 million internet users (and counting). These impressive numbers point to fertile ground to position OKI.com and Nokia handsets as a de facto mobile data services platforms for the future. What cannot be lost as key drivers in the OKI.com initiative is the recent go live of the SEACOM high speed undersea cable, as well as the soon to be launched TEAMS cable in September 2009. As a result, Kenya now has broadband Internet so the opportunity exists to deliver a whole range of mobile data services to the market and especially to the mobile phone -  which is fast becoming the first (and possibly only) Internet experience that most Africans will ever have.

I have registered for my OVI.com account today and will play around with it for the next week or two before writing a review on the same. Already, from what I have tried, it looks impressive and is well integrated for both PC and mobile user experiences. I am keen to see how well the mobile email works as well as the mobile maps. In addition, since I currently use a Nokia E63, I’d like to see how the business-focussed applications work such as file sharing, contacts, and calendering. One thing I am already NOT happy about is that OVI.com does NOT have a Mac version of the PC software suite (I use a Macbook) – maybe this is still in the works? Nevertheless, OVI.com is bound to become a major player in Kenya’s mobile data services marketplace, going forward.

AccessKenya ups the ante and Zain Kenya’s Merali ditches equity.

Published on August 23, 2009 in telecoms. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

In the news this past week, AccessKenya has announced that it is now fully operational on the SEACOM high speed under sea cable. As a direct consequence, AccessKenya has doubled Internet bandwidth for all of its customers at the same prices that they have been paying to-date. AccessKenya has also announced that it has acquired 2500 megabits capacity on SEACOM as a well as similar capacity on the yet to go live TEAMS cable. This means that AccessKenya will have a total of 5000 megabits Internet bandwidth capacity by the end of September 2009 when TEAMS is expected to go live. AccessKenya has also invested significantly in building out its last mile infrastructure using various wireless and fiber technologies, ultimately giving them an end-to-end Internet service by owing the entire bandwidth delivery channel. Incidentally, we use AccessKenya at work and over the past couple of weeks we have had been experiencing much faster Internet speeds, for a change.

In other news last week, Naushad Merali who owned 20% in Zain Kenya quietly sold around 15% of his shareholding in the struggling mobile network sometime earlier this year. Could this be a sign that Zain Kenya is in much larger trouble than they may be letting on? The point here being that Kenya has one of the largest and fastest growing mobile telecoms sectors with close to 18 million subscribers currently. Therefore, for Naushad Merali to ditch such a substantial chunk of his equity in Zain Kenya it can only mean that a storm is brewing and he bailed out before the sailing got too rough. Whatever the case, it looks like Zain Kenya has a tough road ahead as their market share has remained marginal to dominant Safaricom. It also doesn’t help that Zain is looking to sell their Pan-African operations to a suitable buyer but no one seems to biting, yet.

An Interview with Kencall’s Nicholas Nesbitt – Part 2

Published on August 21, 2009 in random. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Kencall CEO, Nicholas Nesbitt

Kencall CEO, Nicholas Nesbitt

In the first part of the Interview with Nicholas Nesbitt, he talked about where Kencall has come from, from a vision and to realities and challenges of setting up. In the second part of the Interview, Nicholas talks about the key factors that have made Kencall a success, and what keeps them going. From his role as a leader, to having the right team, and their plans for the future:

Did Kenya’s post election violence (PEV) last year affect Kencall?

Yes, indeed. It made it very difficult for us to get genuine business and destabilized our process to get foreign clients as well. And then, just as we were beginning to recover from that, the global credit crunch happened, spelling travel bans for a lot of people out there; leading to staff cuts and the lots of businesses to consolidating with existing vendors. So that’s what affected our business towards the end of last year and even in the beginning of this year. Then there was the promise of the soon-to-land fiber technology. It was then that we decided to put our plans on hold for additional satellite bandwidth acquisition in January/February 2009, and wait for the cables to in April/May 2009. This led to many clients holding their contracts as they waited for this to happen. For the last 15/18 months, it’s been a very difficult time for us compared to 2007, when we grew and gained lots of new accounts.

What kind of goals do you set for yourselves at Kencall? Is there a specific mindset?

From a entrepreneur’s standpoint my overall perspective is to always be unstoppable – that’s where it has to start.  At Kencall, we have this absolute belief in our abilities and a pragmatic approach to thriving and surviving. We have almost had to close down business several times over the last 4/5 years due to those issues I mentioned earlier but the attitude now is that even if we hired 100 people and they all trickled down to 2, that would not be enough reason to close down.  The only option would be to go out, source the money and start all over again. We have had that experience before and that’s our guiding spirit, especially for those who have been at Kencall since we started. For us, It’s not really about setting up specific targets and objectives, its the opportunity to take the positive and negative elements of business and learn from them for continuous improvement.

So, firstly, what is really important in our business is passion, energy and positivity to get things done. Secondly, it’s all about the processes and the professionalism. All our processes are documented and every procedure  updated. We adhere to strict guidelines and we do everything from recruiting to training and managing our human resource. As a result our  a business performs  efficiently which gives us the ability to be very flexible and opportunistic.  At Kencall we set our targets on how we want to grow and we definitely hit them. This is one of those unique businesses where you can grow 100% a year very easily if you have the right ingredients – we’ve been growing for the last five years.

What unique qualities make you a successful business leader?

From an early age, I have always been a high achiever. I am very competitive and have always had a belief in my capabilities. I am also very detail oriented. I encourage the same qualities in my team and this is instilled in them from the moment they join the company and grow into senior managers. I often give a brief on my expectations and leave it to them to deliver through initiative.

What accomplishments are you most proud of at Kencall?

That would have to be the recognition of Kencall as the top Non-European call center for 2008 by Contact Centre Focus (CCF). We won a global award where we beat competitors from all over the world. We have already have nomination as finalists for the same award this year. I would also say that our successfully handling Telkom Kenya’s customer service function and growing their Orange account to over 350 staff in under a year is significant.

What do you think will be the key business impacts of the high speed under-sea cables?

For Kencall, its definitely going enable us get better business, as well as more complex work from clients because they will now trust the technology we use. Secondly, it will allow us to charge higher prices than we are able to charge currently, as well as reduce costs and invest more on our business processes and technology. Lastly, the cables will enable us to expand in East Africa.

Kenya is relatively unknown internationally for outsourcing, what are you doing about this?

We are opening hub offices in America and the UK so as to raise our profile in terms of how much publicity we are getting via all different forms of media, including the Internet.

2 to 3 years down the line, where do you see Kencall?

I see a happy and satisfied team, living a dream that they helped to build and foster – Kencall everywhere! I see operations across East Africa and running satellite offices in different countries doing a lot of call center work, back office work and knowledge processing work. We plan on being involved in plenty of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities such assisting in famine relief rapid transition, HIV/Aids and youth targeted campaigns.

What kind of clients do you handle, and from which markets?

We source business from the U.S, the UK and across East Africa. It’s pretty much split unevenly among these three, depending on what’s happening, who’s growing, who’s shrinking. The market segments we focus on are telecommunications, financial, retail and a little bit of CSR.

How do you go about looking for Kencall’s talent?

Most of our new talent comes from referrals. Other than that we advertise in the newspapers once a year and once in a while we go out to colleges and universities for recruitment drives.

What key points would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs in Kenya?

  • Do something that you are good at.
  • Become a student of your industry.
  • Pick your business partners wisely.
  • Make more money than you expect to spend.
  • Focus on really performing well for your first clients.

Business Daily Kenya Census 2009 Web Site Review.

Published on August 21, 2009 in random. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Yesterday, the Business Daily’s Beatrice Gachenge reviewed the Kenya Census 2009 web site in the Digital Business Magazine Pullout. The Kenya Census 2009 web site was developed in a very short time span by our firm Dotsavvy Limited so the positive review was something of an unexpected but highly appreciated boon! Congratulations to our team members who worked on the same! Below is a scan of the review:

BDKenyaCensus2009Review

An Interview with Kencall’s Nicholas Nesbitt – Part 1

Published on August 15, 2009 in random. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , .
Nicholas Nesbitt, CEO, Kencall

Nicholas Nesbitt, CEO, Kencall

This week, I had the opportunity to interview Nicholas Nesbitt, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kencall, Kenya’s first and most successful international contact center. Kencall is focussed on providing world-class Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services for East African and Global Clients through a broad range of offerings. Here is the first part of the interview:

What is your background prior to founding Kencall?

I finished my high school education in Kenya and then moved to America and stayed there for over 20 years. I did a Masters Degree in Engineering and later did an MBA. My career there was in consulting, business development, marketing, sales, and product management. I worked in the manufacturing sector and then went into telecommunications, where I worked for over 10 years before deciding to come back to Kenya. I was right at the beginning of the Internet in America. I came to see how it could transform businesses. We were trying to create the first online catalogs where we literally scanned printed catalogs page by page and then created PDF versions of 200 or 300 pages on web sites. It was way back in those early days.

In my last job in the US, I was the head of channels, i.e. third-party sales. I was in charge of everybody who was selling on our behalf worldwide. It was during that time that I got to see a call center in India and thought that if in 2001/2, if they could do it in India, which at that time an emerging market, we could certainly do it Kenya. I could see it happening right here in Kenya.

I was in America looking for an idea to bring to Kenya. So, finally when the Government changed in 2002, I realised that was the time to do it. So I came back to Kenya with a large number of ideas and decided that I would focus on one of them. The big idea was to create a new form of employment, and a new industry in Kenya and possibly make a decent amount of money for myself, and do what I wanted to do – which was to bring lots of knowledge and transfer it to Kenya. To do this, I believed the best way to would be hands on, which is not by going to seminars, but rather by doing it, day in and day out. Basically, If you could transform the way people work, hundreds of them, if not thousands of them, you can begin to make a dramatic change in the culture that can lead to massive economic benefits. If we could do that, we would have a great outsourcing industry in Kenya and we could achieve our goals. That’s how we started.

What challenges did you face in setting up Kencall?

The first major challenge was regulatory. We weren’t allowed to do any communication over phone lines using a third party provider, we had to use Telkom Kenya and they would charge us US$ 48,000.00 per month for a 1 Megabit link. So, we had to convince the regulator to allow us to use a third party provider directly where we lowered our monthly bill to US$ 7,000.00. There we’re also no call centers in Kenya at the time. The telecommunications regulator had to invent a license for us. Then they said we would have to set-up in a the Export Processing Zones so that they could monitor our activities. So, regulatory issues were very difficult.

Another challenge we’re the technical issues because we were on a satellite link. We had to get specialized equipment to run the call center. It was very difficult to find the right equipment and the right people who could tune it. So, when we started, American clients were pissed off because of the noise, the echoes, and the internet was occasionally down, so we would lose clients.

The other challenge was legal. We signed contracts with sub-contractors in America or in England, and sometimes they didn’t pay. They made us work for months then in the last month they stop returning your calls and then they stopped paying you altogether. Then you realize you can’t pay salaries, you can’t pay your bills. So, the legal issues of having to sign contracts with people abroad, was very challenging, as well as finding the right clients. Since I didn’t have a reputation in this industry, I couldn’t rely on my own name. Kencall was not a recognized brand name then, and Kenya was not a country that was recognized in the business, as well. So what we would get were briefcase people who would come and give business to us. And the briefcase people would come to us and say, you are going to work for me and then I will pay you once I get paid. We would then ask, “How much are they going to pay you?” Then, they would say, ‘Don’t worry about how much they will pay me.’ The contract would say within seven days of receiving my money, we will pay you. How do you know when they’ll get paid?

Training was also a challenge. How do you get your employees trained to world class levels? There we’re no training institutes here, so we would import people from India, America, Canada, Britain, to come and train our people for us. Then another issue we had is where we are in our location and our building. It’s a nice building but in India and in the Philippines, their buildings look better than in Nairobi. Transportation was also an issue. You’ve to got to transport your employees home. Since there is no readily available transport to our location, you have to take people home – then, you run into security problems too. We pretty much got over all these issues – but it’s been costly for us.

Safaricom launches low cost solar mobile phone.

Published on August 14, 2009 in random. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This is certainly interesting! And at such an appropriate time! Safaricom has launched a low cost solar mobile phone this week that is retailing at only Kes. 2,999.00. Right now, Kenya is reeling from massive power rationing country-wide so isn’t it so prescient that they should launch a solar powered mobile phone at this moment in time? I am a little disappointed that Safaricom did not take this action many years ago as large parts of rural Kenya still do not have electricity. It makes me wonder how rural folk have been charging their phones up to this point in time! An interesting fact about the solar mobile phones is that one charge lasting eight hours gives them enough power to run for a several days or so. The solar mobile phone is good initiative that will certainly endear Safaricom to Kenyans for being market sensitive.

Safaricom is angling to own the last mile, seriously!

Published on August 13, 2009 in telecoms. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

In the news today, Safaricom has once again aquired another WIMAX network operator, Packet Stream Data Networks, subject to Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) approval. This follows their now controversial acquisition of WIMAX network operator One Communications last year which was highly over-valued at the time. Finally, only last month, Safaricom entered into strategic partnership with Jamii Telecom to use their multifaceted network infrastructure to deliver Internet and Data services throughout Kenya. The writing’s on the wall – its not just about connectivity to the high speed undersea cables – its more importantly about the last mile to customers. In buying or leasing lots of last mile network infrastructure, Safaricom is poised to become the most ubiquitous Internet services provider throughout Kenya, in rural and urban markets.

Safaricom’s M-Pesa outage and Zain’s Zap game changer?

Published on August 12, 2009 in random. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Over the last week or so, many of Safaricom’s M-Pesa subscribers we’re affected by service failures that meant that they could nether send or receive payments. For many M-Pesa users, its not just a money transfer service, its a lifeline that they need just to function financially. Many un-banked M-Pesa users use the service as a form of a bank account and any failure in its reliability seriously compromises them. So, the jury is out as to whether M-Pesa has finally reached a breaking point after its exponential growth over the last few years.

Another interesting development on the mobile money transfer market in Kenya that recently came to my attention is that Zain’s Zap users can send money to other mobile networks. Now, at first, I thought that this surely can’t be possible. But, basically, a Zain Zap user can send you money on your Non-Zain mobile number and then you present the details of the transfer to a Zain Zap Agent. Its as simple as that! Could Zap be a game changer in Kenya’s mobile money transfers business? This remains to be seen!