BY TOM ODHIAMBO Oil, oil, oil everywhere but should we really celebrate? Oil is being discovered all over East Africa. Kenyans and Ugandans are all dreaming about petrodollars. But are we possibly arriving at the party when it is about to end? Could we be investing scarce resources and emotions in a commodity whose global market price is already depressed and could continue to decline, and therefore unlikely to make a profit in future? Could we be borrowing too much in anticipation of the riches from the oil only to end up with a debt bigger than the returns from…
Author: Editor
BY TERRY MWANGI When you think of a gentleman, the first thing that comes to mind is definitely a good mannered man with a suit. While good manners are important, the overall look is very crucial because people judge you by appearance. So to play the gentleman part, you must look the part. Here are the 5 rules to make you look sharp Shirt & Tie When it comes to shirts, be sure to know the different collars. The type of collar will guide on what kind of tie the suit needs. If you cannot be able to button the…
BY JARED JUMA A luta continua, the struggle continues, was the rallying cry of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Mozambique Liberation Front) FRELIMO during the country’s war for independence. The phrase is Portuguese (the official language of the former Portuguese colony) and was used by FRELIMO leader Samora Machel to cultivate popular support against the Portuguese colonial presence. The phrase could have been originally used far from Kenya but the spirit has been alive within our boarders, not just with the Mau Mau war at independence or the opposition struggles against government excess or clamor for change. More recently, though…
BY KENYATTA OTIENO Luos have a shortened one-word phrase, ‘asayi’, which loosely translates to – I beg or I plead with you to let me go back home – in full. It is usually used as a postfix after the name of a place to connote a goodness that makes visitors feel like staying longer and longer. More like the Mombasa tagline of kuingia harusi, kutoka matanga I have heard the phrase used to describe two townships, Muhoroni in the Kisumu sugar belt and Mbita, the headquarters of Suba Sub County. Mbita is the Luo word for a headland. I…
The government will by August this year set up a component of the Shared Services Platform to be utilised by government ministries, departments, agencies and counties. Under the centralised platform, ICT Authority will be able to provide various ICT services to both National and County Governments starting with 16,000 licences. This will be the first step towards advancing economies of scale, maintaining standards as well as promoting security of government information. The government, through the ICT Authority, will also be providing training targeted at various levels of ICT Officers within the County over the next four month period. For 14…
BY PETER WANYONYI In today’s connected workplace, virtually everyone is drowning in email. Since the late 90s, email has become the most heavily used form of business communication, and nothing is about to change that – not even the advent of social media, with its chatting and profile status updates, comes close. “Do me an email” has become a salutary way of getting someone to commit thoughts into writing and unload them onto the corporate network. As is expected for a medium that is so ubiquitous, email is regularly abused and used for ends other than what it was meant…
African Media Agency (AMA) Safaricom, the largest integrated telecommunication service provider in East Africa, is improving services for more than 25 million subscribers in Kenya thanks to Nokia’s Customer Experience Management on Demand. With help from Nokia, Safaricom now uses big data technology to derive real time insights from network, customer and revenue touchpoints. With the insights, Safaricom is better able to provide proactive customer care, resolve network issues and prioritize capital expenditures. Safaricom uses Nokia CEM on Demand to derive insights on voice, SMS and MPesa traffic, processing 214 billion data points per day. The team is currently adding…
BY VICTOR ADAR It is that grey afternoon. You are rearing to send that daily report when your Internet starts fluctuating. No emails are going through. Then, your laptop, too, begins to act up with problems that you can’t fathom. The system down time makes you angry wondering what to do. Mark you, time which flies like a bird and waits no man, is ticking and you have a deadline to beat… the emails must be sent out before close of business, that document must be printed on schedule but the printer won’t allow you to do so because there…
BY LANJI OUKO Immediately a salesperson utters the words ‘GNLD’ or ‘Forever Living Products’, unconsciously or consciously the dreaded word ‘pyramid scheme’ simultaneously hoovers. Not that GNLD and Forever Living Products are pyramid schemes or have been proven to be. They are merely assumed to be. Sadly, these assumptions are purely based on hearsay and not on fact. The duding question one would ask the salesperson is to prove they are not, a debate, which could occasionally take approximately one or more hours. A pyramid scheme is a type of business model. It is, however, a term that has scarred…
BY LUKE MULUNDA In 1980, two guys working for the same company met for a chat over coffee. Nazir Noordin and Rajoo Patel had seen an opportunity in the market and decided to set up a company to supply photocopying machines, which grew into Copy Cat Group. “Our friendship thrived during that time and both of us had a desire to own a business,” says Noordin, who later became the company’s managing director. In 1984 they registered Copy Cat Limited, which started in January the following year. With aggressive marketing and networks, Copy Cat quickly became a household name in the…