Category Archives: Commercial Projects

Commercial Projects, Current Issues, Development Projects

Mobile Agricultural Information Services in Mali by Sènèkèla

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An exciting new development is the launch on 1 April in Bamako, Mali of Sènèkèla – a market price and agricultural information mobile service provided by IICD and Orange Mali, with the support of mFarmer (GSMA). The solution comprises an SMS/USSD information service and a call centre, serviced by specialised agricultural experts. My research in Ghana, suggests that West African farmers are reachable more readily via communication modalities, such as voice, which are congruent to their rural oral traditions. Therefore, I expect that complementing the SMS/USSD channels with a call center will raise the usability and attractiveness of Sènèkèla for rural stakeholders. Additionally, access to trained service operators is likely to increase farmers’ levels of trust in the information provided to them via SMS/USSD.

Sènèkèla

The service was developed through a complex partnership between technology providers (Orange Labs, Orange-Mali, GSMA), development partners (IICD, RONGEAD) and agricultural content providers such as the Malian Institute of Rural Economy (IER). Content quality is a shared concern with IICD taking responsibility for market price data collection; with RONGEAD providing market analyses and tips; and with IER ensuring the quality of the agricultural content delivered via the call centre. During the pilot phase the service was limited to he regions of Sikasso and covered only a few crops. With the recent launch, the partnership is entering a commercial phase with increased coverage and an increased range of agriculture information services.

The service relies on the combined SMS/ USSD and a call centre channels, using an operational model familiar to me from the of Esoko in Ghana. The 24-hour service provides market price information from different markets in the regions of Sikasso and Koulikoro; and information on crops such as corn, shea butter, onion, cashew, shea nuts, potato, sweet potato, rice and millet. Message services are delivered via a USSD menu on Orange Mali’s mobile network. The call centre staffed by agricultural advisers is reachable by the short number 37333 and the short code #222. The content for the service is generated via wide data collection efforts on food prices; as well as, national and international market trends.

via IICD and Orange Mali Launch Market Price and Agricultural Information Service in Mali

Commercial Projects

Vodafone’s mobile money pioneer reveals frustration at industry progress, Latest Videos | Mobile World Live

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M-Pesa pioneer and Vodafone’s managing director of mobile money, Michael Joseph, has told Mobile World Live of his frustration at the way in which operators have tackled mobile money deployments, claiming the industry has been held back by a lack of long-term investment.

via Vodafone’s mobile money pioneer reveals frustration at industry progress, Latest Videos | Mobile World Live.

Commercial Projects, Technology Development

Africa’s business technology revolution gathers pace

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By Egon Cossou Editor, Africa Business Report, BBC World

Think African economies and you may think commodities, like oil and gas. But it may be time to start thinking tech innovation.Countries around the continent have identified technology as a key weapon in the battle to boost prosperity – and that has sparked a tech revolution.

Sky high ambition

The continent’s biggest economy has sky high ambitions.

South Africa is a serious contender to be home to a massive deep space telescope project called the SKA – or Square Kilometre Array. If the country beats off competition from Australia, its aerospace industry would receive a massive boost.

In fact, science and technology minister Naledi Pandor says the project would be “the largest science-based capital injection” Africa has ever seen.

That could mean more jobs and training in a cutting edge sector.

Young guns

But Africa’s tech revolution could run out of steam unless it produces a new generation of innovators. That is why Kenya is taking steps to develop the talent that could help it get ahead of the game.

It is doing so with projects like m:lab – a consortium of stakeholders, including Nairobi University, which aims to hothouse talented mobile application developers.

Manager John Kieti says he is convinced Kenya is now a major world technology hub.

“[The mobile] is much cheaper to get, plus it can be used outside where there is no infrastructure like power,” he says.

“Essentially, the mobile is going to be huge for us in terms of innovation, much more than the PC was a few years ago.”

But it’s not enough just to come up with good ideas – m:lab encourages innovators to focus on “demand driven” applications so they can be turned into viable businesses.

Pay it forward

Kariuki Gathitu

Kariuki Gathitu is one of the hottest properties in Kenya’s tech sector.

He is a 27 year old software developer who has come up with an application to build on the country’s already sophisticated mobile payments market, called M-Payer.

“It has come into the mobile money scene to solve a huge challenge,” he says. “This challenge is basically the interoperability, aggregation and integration of mobile money.”

It streamlines the whole process from start to finish and so aims to benefit consumer and business operator alike.

Mr Gathitu demonstrates how subscribers can pay bills, receive cash and transfer funds with just a few taps on a mobile, and cash will clear in minutes, not hours or days.

M-Payer claims it can end the ‘cheque in post’ culture that has ruined many small African firms, often operating on tiny margins, with little or no access to bank credit.

Wider markets

But the revolution is not only happening in Kenya.

Right across the continent, developers are coming up with applications designed to reflect local needs. In Ghana, it is now central to the health of both companies and individuals.

ShopAfrica53

The country has no shortage of enterprise, but smaller operators can struggle to gain access to wider markets.

And that access can make the difference between stagnation and prosperity.

One company in Accra is itself making a living by using technology to boost the prospects of other businesses.

ShopAfrica53 is a kind of web-mall – advertising goods and services from a range of small businesses in Ghana.

This means the tiniest and most remote operator now has access to an international market. The website also handles logistics like collection and delivery of goods, and takes payment on behalf of the vendors.

The technology being used by ShopAfrica53 can be a lifeline for small entrepreneurs ranging from tailors to artists.

Fighting the fakes

IT is even being used to protect the health of individuals by tackling the potentially deadly problem of fake medicines. An application called mPedigree allows you to check the authenticity of drugs.

Mobile phone using mPedigree

You simply examine a special verification code on the bottle or packaging and send it, via free text, to a central online registry. An automatic response confirms whether the product is the real deal.

So far, only two of Ghana’s major pharmacies have actually joined the system, but mPedigree says others have expressed interest.

“The drug industry in Ghana is worth about $750m (£465m) a year,” says mPedigree’s Selorm Branttie.

“Assuming about 10% of those are counterfeit drugs, we are talking about $75m a year going into the wrong hands… being invested into the wrong industries.”

So whether it is fighting fake medicines or developing cutting edge telescopes, it’s clear that Africa’s technology is increasingly important in changing the lives of people across the continent.

“We cannot miss this train,” says ShopAfrica53’s chief executive Herman Chinnery-Hesse. “It’s the only way to go.”

via BBC News – Africa’s business technology revolution gathers pace.

Commercial Projects

COCOBOD launches CocoaLink: a new extension service for cocoa farmers

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By: Adwoa Gyasiwaa/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana

The Ghana Cocoa Board COCOBOD in partnership with Hershey Company and the World Cocoa Foundation WCF has launched a new mobile telephony system dubbed “CocoaLink – Connecting Cocoa Communities” to deliver timely farming, social and marketing information to cocoa farmers to improve their income and livelihoods.

Through this programme, cocoa farmers will receive and share practical information with experts on new farming techniques, crop disease prevention, post-harvest production and crop marketing through voice and SMS text messages delivered in their local languages or English.

Cocoa farmers across the country are expected to text the word COCO to short code 1980 at no charge or be registered by an agriculture extension agent to join the link.

Cocoa farmers in 15 communities in the Western Region are participating in the pilot programme with each participating community having a local agriculture extension agent and on-the-ground trainers to ensure a successful programme.

The programme will reach more than 8,000 cocoa farmers in the country and it is expected to grow to reach 100,000 farmers within three years.

Speaking at the launch, the Minister for Employment and Social Welfare E.T. Mensah commended COCOBOD and it partners for giving meaning to corporate social responsibility.

He said “Gone are the days when corporate social responsibility was just a piece of rhetoric intended to placate environmentalist and human rights campaigners. Hershey through CocoaLink project has given practical meaning to corporate social responsibility as a facet of business”.

E.T. Mensah pledged his ministry’s support in ensuring a successful implementation of the programme and appealed to cocoa farmers to send their children school.

Present at the launch were Mr. Tony Fofie, CEO of COCOBOD; Mr. Andy McCormick, Vice President of The Hershey Company; Charlie Feezel, Education and Programmes Director, World Cocoa Foundation and some farmers.

via Ghana News :: COCOBOD launches CocoaLink; a new extension service for cocoa farmers ::: Breaking News | News in Ghana | business.

Commercial Projects

MTN Ghana Subscription Increases by 9%

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The annual report of MTN Ghana revealed that the company saw a 9% increase in subscribers as of December 2010, bringing the number to 8.7 million.

According to MTN, the increase was largely driven by the introduction of new price plans and a revision allowing subscribers to view discounts in monetary terms rather than percentages.

The report also revealed that MTN Ghana’s performance was encouraging, considering aggressive competition through headline tariff reductions. SIM card registration has also had an impact.

Revenue increased by 14% ahead of subscriber growth, mostly due to increases in airtime and subscription revenue. SMS revenue also increased significantly, contributing 5% to revenue.

According to Phuthuma Nhleko, MTN Group President and CEO, the Group’s strong operational performance was underpinned by a 22% increase in subscribers to 141.6 million from 116.0 million in the prior year, as well as improved efficiencies due to various cost initiatives and despite higher levels of mobile penetration, aggressive competition and increased regulatory requirements. MTN continued to maintain network quality and capacity and to offer attractive segmented value propositions to customers.

 

Commercial Projects, Observations

Esoko blog: Mira Slavova, MIS Researcher

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As I’ve been settling down in Ghana and struggling to find the time to start posting more often. Luckily, an invitation from the Esoko blog managed to get me to focus and write something coherent on MIS topics again. I am re-posting the sections, other than the introduction. If you are reading this, you’d know who I am.

MIS as Intermediaries?

I prefer to consider the broad topics of Market Information Systems MIS, Warehouse Receipts Systems and Commodity Exchanges in Africa within the context of the intermediation theory of the firm. According to this theory see Spulber 1999, intermediaries emerge within the space of decentralized trade due to the encountered transaction costs. Firms providing agricultural market information alongside other services exist in Africa because decentralized exchange with agricultural commodities is plagued by transaction costs. Intermediated exchange emerges as a stable form of organization because intermediaries are able to economize on transaction costs and deliver net gains from trade, in excess of the gains obtainable from direct exchange.

The Difference between MIS, Warehouse Receipt Systems, and Commodity Exchanges

In considering MISs, Warehouse Receipt Systems and Commodity Exchanges as intermediaries, it is clear that some of these services are involved in more extensive intermediation than others. MISs often define their role purely as that of alleviating market price information asymmetries. MISs deliver mobile price information to farmers, leaving the bargaining and the details of the transactions to the farmers to sort out for themselves. To say the least, in the absence of consistent grading and sorting practices in many value chains in Africa, verifying the correspondence, between the quality of the commodities the price information refers to and the quality of the commodities being traded, becomes a non-trivial matter. By certifying the quality of the commodities and the identities of the buyers and sellers, Warehouse Receipt Systems go one step further in addressing the transaction costs present due to lack of communication between producers and buyers.

Commodity Exchanges go even further by providing an auction mechanism for reaching agreement on the terms of trade. As market-making intermediaries, they determine the mechanism of exchange and institutionalize that mechanism. Commodity Exchanges provide the market microstructure for the transactions between the buyers and the sellers. The market microstructure includes the details of the process through which the exchange occurs. By contrast, the market microstructure on which MISs rely tends to be the product of recurring, customary behaviors on behalf of the buyers and the sellers. The institutions governing their transactions are informal and based on relational norms, rather than formalized.

Reducing Communication Costs

In considering MISs, Warehouse Receipt Systems and Commodity Exchanges as intermediaries, it becomes clear that the differences among these market systems stem from the different transaction costs they are aimed at alleviating. Clearly, there can be numerous sources of transaction costs. The choice of a bundle of transaction costs which to be addressed is part of the strategic positioning of an intermediary. Within the complex social-business hybrid value chains, encountered within the agriculture sector of developing countries nowadays, communication costs can form a significant part of the transaction costs. Technology platforms such as Esoko enable, for-profit and non-profit organizations interested in streamlining agricultural value chains by acting as intermediaries, to address communication costs.

via Esoko.

Commercial Projects

Google Trader launch stuns Accra

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by Joseph Appiah-Dolphyne and Kent Mensah, AfricaNews

Google literally brought Accra – the capital of Ghana in West Africa – to a standstill with the public launch of its new product Google Trader. It is a free online classifieds service that allows Ghanaians to buy and sell products and services, as well as search for jobs or just about anything else.

Google Trade launch in Accra, 2 Dec 2010.

The service seems to be catching on fast with traders in the capital in particular as some have already listed items from livestock to stationery. “I’m actually surprised this is for free and I can just do it with a touch of the button on my cell phone,” Kofi Baah, a secondhand clothing seller at the Makola Market – the largest shopping centre in Ghana – told AfricaNews.

“This is incredible. You mean I can really advertise my coconut selling business on the net?” Stephen Agyapong, a coconut seller at Osu queried after he was handed a handout explaining how the service works.

“I’ll give it a try definitely,” he promised. According to Google, Trader can be used by anyone in Ghana, but is expected to have the biggest uptake in major towns and cities across the country. “Individuals can post short ads to buy and sell items and services, whilst businesses of any size can also use the site to reach more customers and increase their sales,” a statement read.

The Ghana launch took the crew through Makola, Kwame Nkrumah Circle lorry park, the Oxford street of Osu where the public was spellbound with a professionally crafted chorographic antics that would eventually be transformed into a video clip for the online community.

The Country Lead for Google Ghana Estelle Akofio-Sowah could not hide her excitement as she watched the large crowd that took a brief break from their daily activities to take a glimpse of the flashmob.

She said: “We are excited about Trader because its free, easy to use, and locally relevant. Having a web version, a mobile web version and an SMS option means that Trader is accessible to everyone, no matter where you are.”

To make sure that Trader is easily accessible to users across Ghana, Google has partnered with AIRTEL and TIGO to offer a FREE SMS option. Users can subscribe by texting START to 6007 on any Airtel or Tigo phone and can start posting and selling straight away.

via AfricaNews – Google Trader launch stuns Accra – The AfricaNews articles of Dolphyne.

Commercial Projects, Service Design

Zain is ZAP-ping Ghana?

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At a press conference today, Zain announced the launch of its award-winning, enhanced payment service ZAP in Ghana. The service is set to compete for the custom of the Ghanaian “unbanked” with MTN’s Mobile Money.

The development of mobile payment mechanisms in the Ghanaian market for value-added mobile services, alongside with the evolution of the local market information platform Esoko, makes mobile commerce in Ghana an increasingly realistic prospect.

Zain Introduces Enhanced Payment Product

Phillip Sowah - Zain Ghana boss

The mobile phone has become one of the most important pieces of equipment that has revolutionaised processes in the society, making people transact business and communicate in a friendly and more convenient way.

Not only have authorities predicted the continuous revolution in the sector, but they believe Africa, which was written off as one that could not realise the full benefit of the technology, will now be at the centre of the mobile phone revolution, using the device to facilitate trade and the settlement of values beyond its traditional use as a communication tool to which the device is put in many parts of the world.

Leading the mobile revolution in Africa and the Middle East is Zain Telecommunications which continues to use veritable market survey to design products and services on its platform to the benefit of the ordinary person and businesses.

The telecom service provider has introduced onto the Ghanaian market its award-winning mobile commerce (m-commerce) product, the Zap service, which is set to make business transactions on all platforms easier by enabling users to access funds from their bank accounts and pay utility bills using their mobile phones.

ZAP has been extensively reviewed and approved by industry experts across the world as an efficient way of doing transactions. The product is the reigning winner of the coveted award for Best Mobile Money for the Unbanked Service at the GSMA Global Mobile World Awards 2010.

The Country Manager of Zain, Mr Philip Sowah, explained that the service went beyond money transfer into enabling users of the service to effect payment of any kind be it a bill at a grocery, utility bills, pay-TV bills, school fees, or even to honour pledges and tithes at church.

“This service will enable people to transact business and make payments without resorting to cash,” Mr Sowah explained, adding that although the service would initially be available to Zain customers, it would later rope in other platforms.

Currently, Zain is working in partnership with three banks, namely Ecobank, Standard Chartered Bank and UBA to deploy the service with the hope that after the launch other banks would be roped in.

With its authentic ability to capture people in the informal sector, who would load cash on the service for transactions, the product would help in banking a lot more people in that sector, thus help in mopping up excess money in circulation, a condition necessary for checking inflation. Currently, only 80 per cent of the Ghanaian working population is unbanked. This means a teaming number of people in the informal economy remain unbanked.

“The unbanked will become banked under Zap and enable banks to have access to more customers,” Mr Sowah added, adding that the general economic and business benefits of ZAP were astounding and would further revolutionarise commerce in Ghana.

How it operates

Customers of the network will first have to register with the mobile provider before being able to access their Zap service. The customers can send money from their bank account to ZAP account or go to the nearest Zain dealer or Zap centre to deposit cash onto their Zap service to enable them to send money from ZAP to a bank account, send virtual money to friends and family, receive virtual money or withdraw cash.

Mr Sowah said “money can be redeemed from any ZAP outlet or Zain accredited shops all over the country.”

On another level, merchants and service providers who would be signed on would also have their Zap account which would facilitate a unique settlements system that would facilitate the exchange of goods and services to take place.

For instance, at the Accra Mall, all the big and small vendors would have the service which would allow customers to buy from say game supermarket and pay through the Zap service.

It can also work in informal economies such as at traditional markets in Ghana such as the Makola market in Accra, the Asafo market in Kumasi or the Techiman market in the Brong Ahafo Region.

For money transfer, the upper limit is GH¢600 a day, while transactions with merchants could go beyond that to bigger amounts, in an attempt to check fraudulent deals with the system, such as money laundering.

Convenience

Besides the multi-faceted services it offers, Zap also promises convenient and a cost efficient way of transferring money; or for the payment of goods and services in the Ghanaian market.

Zain officials said there would be no need for any special subscriber identity module (SIM) card or customers to begin to enjoy the ZAP service. In addition, however, customers who would use ZAP would be allowed to keep their phone numbers confidential with the use of ‘nicknames’ to transfer money.

The service could also be used to top up airtime for the customer or for someone else.

Security features

The company stressed that since Zap operated in a ‘virtual’ world of transacting business without carrying cash, theft cases and armed robbery would be drastically reduced, citing building contractors as an example of a category that could “Zap” workers’ wages directly to their handsets without carrying sack loads of money.

The workers could later redeem the cash at the ZAP outlets doted all across the country, Mr Sowah explained.

The ZAP service is currently in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Niger and Sierra Leone.

via Zain Introduces Enhanced Payment Product| Business News | Graphicghana.com | Ghana News,Politics,Sports,Business,Entertainment.