Fitt scouted for locations and employees in South Africa in March.

Speaking on the reason for expansion, Founder and CEO of Velsoft, Jim Fitt, said “South Africa has become our fourth largest market and it continues to grow. The country is experiencing great demand for education, and the market in neighbouring countries is booming. Opening an office there, to expand our presence with feet on the ground, made perfect sense.”

“It turns out that in South Africa, we ’ve got a very large population who haven’t really traditionally had access to education the way they do now, so they are major consumers of education. So when you have a large population wanting to consume training, then you need the materials to do that,” the CEO said.

Velsoft’s South African office is its first independent location, a move that is paying immediate dividends.

“Already we’ve felt that the business increased from having a presence in South Africa, that we have people on the street there,” Fitt said.

“We have a fine partnership with Young & Able, a dynamic and up-and-coming professional development team in Johannesburg that shares our vision. On my last visit to South Africa, I was reminded of some of the shared values with our office in rural Nova Scotia. The passion for education, the determination to succeed and the pride in the place that we live, strongly influences everything we do as an organization,” he added.

A finalist for exporter of the year at the Nova Scotia Export Achievement Awards, Velsoft, has more than 10,000 customers including giants like Microsoft, Pfizer and NASA in 162 countries while developing software and materials for training.

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VENTURES AFRICA – The International Finance Corporation (IFC), in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation, has assembled financial players to build further momentum for mobile financial services in Ivory Coast.

Considering mobile access to financial services a key element in the fight against poverty, the IFC held a seminar yesterday in Abidjan to discuss the eradication of poverty amongst citizens.

Though Ivory Coast has more than 90 percent mobile penetration, only 14 percent of the population have access to financial services.

Cassandra Colbert, IFC resident representative in Ivory Coast, said: “IFC and the MasterCard Foundation want to help local financial institutions realize the opportunity in Cote d’Ivoire for the development of agent banking and mobile financial services that will accelerate the reach of financial services to those currently without banking services.”

During the event the market potential for financial increases to small scale businesses in rural areas and low income households were emphasised.

Through a four year plan the collaboration will work on the improvement of the Ivorian financial situation through mobility.

“Improving access to finance is important for supporting shared prosperity in Cote d’Ivoire,” Colbert added.

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Yookos, a social network site which focuses on providing users the platform to connect, share and interact unveiled the new app at the recently concluded World Mobile Web West Africa 2013 Conference in Lagos.

“We are particularly pleased that as a company, we have reached yet another momentous milestone in the development of our platform. What makes this remarkable is that it facilitates the ‘crowd-sourcing’ of innovative ideas and solutions that will not only expand the functionality of the platform but also make its usage an exhilarating experience,” Group Chief Executive Officer for Yookos, Tomisin Fashina, said.

Yookos will also be hosting a free Developer’s Workshop in Lagos today to reinforce the company’s commitment to the empowerment of developers in the region while using it as a platform to launch its newly released APIs to the global developer community.

“ Our focus is not just about getting something from developers but we also plan to give back through our multifaceted approach that will see the launch of programmes focused on university students, community engagement sessions aimed at attracting young people to the profession, as well as educational peer engagement sessions just to mention a few,” said Mr Fashina in conclusion.

Launched in Nigeria in 2011, Yookos currently boasts over 13 million registered users worldwide with Nigeria accounting for more than 60 percent of that base.

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“Our desire is to flood the Nigerian and African mobile phone markets with Tecno smartphones.” Boukali Mounir is the Director, Brands and Marketing, Tecno Telecomssaid in an interview early this month.

Etisalat and Tecno had previously introduced a co-branded Dual SIM phone, the T341 alongside a 12-month free data bundle for a range of Tecno smartphones and internet phones which include the N7, Q1, P3, T756, T736 & T608.

Tecno’s partnership with Etisalat will allow consumers who buy the Tecno P3 get 100MB free data monthly for a period of twelve month. powered by Easyblaze on the Etisalat 3.75G network.

The Tecno P3 which comes with 3G internet access is an entry-level smartphone that runs on Android 2.3Gingerbread operating system, and powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7225A processor to offer users 3G smartphone experience, good battery life, and easy access to the Internet and multiple social networks.

Speaking on the partnership, Tecno Group Vice President, Arif Chowdhury, said, “We realised that Internet savvy Nigerians are in dire need of a fast, innovative and seamless Internet experience. These experiences are what Tecno P3 smartphone brings, and that also informs why we partnered with Etisalat.”

However, customers are left with the choice to choose either the Etisalat customised version available at Etisalat experience centres and its partner retailers, or buy the un-customised version from Tecno’s partner retailers nationwide, as it comes with the same data bundle offer as the customised version.

The Chief Commercial Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Wael Ammar, said, “The telecommunications industry has seen an increased demand for data and smartphones in recent times, and it is important for network providers and phone manufacturers to continue to collaborate and initiate products and services to satisfy these needs.

“Etisalat’s most advanced 3.75G, HSPA+ Network and its easyblaze broadband service with speed up to 42 mbps combined with these Tecno phones is yet another example of our continuous effort to bring our customers easy, affordable and reliable access to the Internet.”

Also speaking at the event, the Director of Business Development for Qualcomm West Africa, Mr. Alex Dadson, said, “Our partnership with Tecno in manufacturing smartphones according to the Qualcomm Reference Design continues to offer the Nigerian market the best 3G smartphone experience.

“QRD is the only program of its kind that brings together the value of the mobile industry leader with specific products, features and programmes for emerging markets. Tecno’s P3 leverages the power of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor to give consumers an affordable smartphone that delivers a superior user experience.”

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Huawei’s innovative and trusted manufacturing capacities and TD’s massive distribution network in West Africa will be pooled together to provide a wide range of ICT solutions and services to enterprise customers of all sizes, TD Managing Director, Chioma Ekeh said.

According to Ekeh, the partnership comes at a time when the government is embarking on a transformation program across all sectors of the economy, as huge investments are being made in the transportation, energy, education, health, aviation among others and Huawei enterprise solutions, deployed already in 140 countries, should be a part of the choices that TD offers its clientele.

Besides, she added, 2015, the date set for the attainment of the MDGs was just a stone throw away and industry analysts were expecting that Governments and NGOs would make further heavy investments in ICT infrastructure.

Ekeh assured resellers and the market that, characteristically, TD stocks large quantities of Huawei Enterprise Servers, Enterprise Switches, Enterprise Routers, E-sight, WLAN Solutions, Firewall Solutions, Tele-presence Solutions and UPS. She also reaffirmed TD’s commitment to immediate delivery anywhere in West Africa.

Huawei’ partnership is line with its five-year business strategy in the enterprise domain announced during the Huawei Global Analyst Summit on April 23, 2013.

Huawei has said it will strengthen its role in the enterprise market by focusing on enterprise ICT solutions and being integrated with the global enterprise ecosystem, bringing faster, better and more Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) saving ICT products and solutions to customers in a better way.

“With significant growth capacity, the enterprise market is a core element of Huawei’s overall strategic development plans. The Convergence of ICT has brought about great opportunities for Huawei to contribute to the evolution of this market,” said William Xu, CEO of Huawei Enterprise Business Group.

He added that, “With the industry’s most comprehensive product line and Huawei’s ongoing strategic investment in the enterprise domain, we expect Huawei Enterprise’s sales revenue to reach $2.7 billion in 2013, achieving a sales revenue target of $10 billion by 2017.”

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The South African Social Media Landscape 2012 study by World Wide Worx and Fuseware, reveals that 95 percent of major brands surveyed have some form of social media strategy aimed at consumers. However, only 51 percent rate their efforts on Facebook as effective – and only 33 percent believe they are effective on Twitter.

‘Still trying to figure out how to use it’

“The survey shows that corporate South Africa has woken up to social media, but it hasn’t yet figured out how to dress for the role,” World Wide Worx managing director Arthur Goldstuck said in a statement. “Most large companies are still neutral on the impact of social media, and are still feeling their way.”

The report includes analysis of South African consumers’ use of Facebook, Twitter, Mxit, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Foursquare, as well as a survey conducted among corporate brand owners.

“We interviewed representatives of 61 major brands, and found that corporate use of social networks tended to be a case of responding to media hype,” said Fuseware managing director Mike Wronski. “The most popular social media platform in South Africa, Mxit, is used as a marketing tool by only one out of five large brands. This compares to Facebook, with nine out 10 using it, and Youtube, with two out of three.”

First National Bank

First National Bank (FNB) has taken cognisance of Mxit’s value, announcing a partnership between its eWallet solution and the social network’s MXit Money offering. Dubbed FNB Moola+, the new service will allow Mxit users to buy moola, Mxit’s online currency, at discounted rates.

Banking has always been a popular activity for South Africans online. FNB offers its online clients first rate online banking (although every bank has a pretty decent Internet banking service) and the big plus (which caused me to change my banking to FNB) was the iPhone app and easy connection to PayPal. FNB has done a fantastic job at identifying the needs of South Africans and offering services that appeal to them. FNB has 357,552 likes on its face book page and over 6,245 followers on its twitter account. The social network between FBN and its customers on its social media platform is superb.

Standard Bank

In 2010, Standard Bank Group was regarded as the bank of choice but over the last few years FNB has comfortably claimed the first position at the online bank of choice.

Standard bank Group has 14, 523 Twitter followers on its account and 15, 048 likes on its face book, page. Standard bank has a 150-year history in South Africa and started building a franchise in the rest of Africa in the early 1990s. It currently operates in 18 countries in the rest of the African continent, including South Africa, as well as in other selected emerging markets. The bank employs 52,000 people and has about 1,200 branches including loan centres and some 7,945 ATMs on the African continent. The bank updates its customers on these platforms (Facebook & Twitter) on new products and services and responds to their requests as well.

ABSA bank

The Group is listed on the JSE Limited and is one of South Africa’s largest financial services group. It is a subsidiary of Barclays Bank PLC (Barclays) which owns 55.5 percent. It offers a complete range of retail, business, corporate and investment banking insurance and wealth management products and services. ABSA has 6, 520 followers on its twitter account and 100,756 like its face book page.

Nedbank

Is a bank holding company and one of the four largest banking groups in South Africa measured by assets with a strong deposit franchise. Its principal banking subsidiary is Nedbank Limited. The group provides retail banking services, insurance and asset management. Its headquarters are in Sandton and it has a 1,000-strong regional branch network. Nedbank has 17,408 likes on its face book page some of its 10, 998 twitter followers want information on housing. The bank states on its facebook page: “If you’re a first-time home buyer, get a feel for the property costs in the areas you like so you can score a better deal and avoid paying too much. Once you’ve found that dream home, don’t delay, apply online for Nedbank Home Loan.

Vodacom South Africa

Vodacom SA is an African mobile communications company providing voice message, data and converged services to about 50 million active customers. From its roots in South Africa, the company has grown its operations to include networks in Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Lesotho. It is owned by Vodafone and has its headquarters in Johannesburg. Vodacom South Africa 274,835 likes, 6,512 are talking about the telecommunications giant and 58 379 followers on it twitter account.

MTN South Africa

MTN has topped the list as the Most Valuable South African Brand with a global value of R43.3 billion ($4.7 billion) and is also the only South African brand in the Brand Finance Global 500. MTN South Africa is part of MTN group, a multi-national telecommunications that boasts over 152 million subscribers across its company with operations in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Launched in South Africa in 1994, and provides voice data and telemetry offerings and solutions to its 20 million customers. The company is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and has the largest primary listing on the exchange. The company enjoys 37 percent of market share in South Africa and continues to expand its presence and brand across the African continent and now has a firm footing in the Middle East.

President and CEO Sifiso Dabengwa said: “Our key focus areas are improving our market position and enhancing our customer experience by driving innovation and efficiency.”

With 115,595 likes, 5,116 talking about this and 16 893 twitter followers, was named Africa’s biggest brand, MTNuses a proactive model to identify high performers within the company, called ‘Leadership Talent Management’ to ensure achievement is recognised. It also offers MyMTN Emergency – home medical and roadside emergency assistance for workers to its has

Netcare

The group provides innovative, quality healthcare in South Africa and the UK. Netcare has presence on social media. It has paltry 1,700 likes on Facebook and over 14 436 followers on Twitter.

It operates the largest private hospital group, primary care network and emergency service in South Africa. It is also the biggest private trainer of emergency medical personnel and healthcare workers.

Investec

Investec is a distinctive Specialist Bank and Asset Manager providing a diverse range of financial products and services to its niche client base. The company also has a good social media presence. It has over 33,612 likes on Facebook and over 5, 611 followers on Twitter.

It operates in three principal markets, South Africa, the UK and Australia as well as certain other countries. In July 2002, the Investec group implemented a dual listed company with listings on the London and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges.

SASOL

Sasol has over 5,800 likes and over 868 followers on Twitter. Based in South Africa, Sasol is an international integrated energy and chemical company that leverages the talent and expertise of its more than 34,000 people working in 38 countries. It develops and commercialises technologies, and builds and operates world-scale facilities to produce a range of product streams including liquid fuels, chemicals and electricity.

According to SocialBakers, (a social analytics website aimed at marketers, hosts lists of the most “liked” Facebook pages, dividing them into four categories: pages, brands, media, and services) the number of South African Facebook users was at 4,858,280 in April 2012, ranking SA as the 31st largest population in the world on the social network.

Based on estimates of South Africa’s population and Internet user base, SocialBakers puts SA Facebook penetration of the overall population at 9.89 percent, while Facebook usage among online South Africans is said to be 91.67 percent.

The table below shows the top 10 South African Facebook pages, along with the number of fans (or “likes”) the page had at the time of writing.

Another study titled “South African Social Media Landscape 2011” by World Wide Worx, one of South Africa’s technology research companies showed the following:

• MXit is South Africa’s most popular social network with 10 million users

• Twitter has 1.1 million

• Facebook has 3.2 million

• LinkedIn has 1.1 million.

The post Top Social Media Savvy Companies In Africa’s Biggest Economy appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Chosen from more than 900 applications from 45 countries, Nwaoga and nine others with their teams have emerged finalists for the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) after developing practical solutions to some of the continent’s most intractable problems.

The winners of the IPA 2013 will be announced at a gala dinner on 7th of May in Cape Town, South Africa, hosted by the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business and the Sekunjalo Development Foundation.

The winner will receive $100,000 for the best innovation based on marketability, originality, scalability, social impact and clear business potential. A runner up will receive $25, 000 for the best commercial potential and another finalist will receive $25, 000 as a special prize for social innovation.

“As global leaders gather for the World Economic Forum on Africa to discuss approaches to deliver on Africa’s promise, these innovators demonstrate that the best way to build Africa’s capacity is to invest in local innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, a co-founder of the African Innovation Foundation and the IPA.

From Tunisa to South Africa, the IPA 2013 finalists include Hassine Labaied and Anis Aouini from Tunisian R&D startup Saphon Energy, who both developed a wind turbine with no blades; Dr. Dudley Jackson, innovator of waterless toilet for rural areas and temporary settlements that separates liquids from solids to improve environmental impact, decrease the potential for disease, reduce odour and ensure easier removal; South African Professor, Eugene Cloete, who created a water filter that uses electrospun tea bag material to ensure one litre of the most polluted water is 100 percent safe to drink.

The amazing African innovators also include Ashley Uys, creator of a new rapid malaria test that indicates within 30 minutes if treatment is effective, which is one of only nine developed globally and is the only test of its kind fully-owned by an African company; Andi Friedman and his team has developed a software that provides mobile data collection and field research solution, allowing sophisticated forms of research to be conducted across Africa online or via mobile phones.

“We see a strong trend emerging of innovations that have significant social impact for Africa,” said Dr.Francois Bonnici, Director Bertha Centre for Social Innovation at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.

The prize encourages Africans to develop creative ways to overcome everyday challenges.

The IPA selection committee represents private equity investors, seed funders, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and development leaders who are looking for ideas that move Africa forward.

The call for applications for IPA 2014 will be announced in July 2013.

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It is understood that General Electric (GE), the US firm, has now connected 48 such batteries at the mobile network operator’s base stations in Kenya. Safaricom has about 1,700 base stations in Kenya.

According to Business Daily, these batteries are not connected to a back-up diesel generator. But they are positioned mainly on rooftops around the Nairobi metropolis area.

Safaricom has been forced to look for new solutions to make certain there is an uninterrupted supply of power in Kenya as black outs take their toll.

Outages in this East African country are often caused by natural causes such as falling trees during rainy weather and vandalism.

Bob Collymore, Safaricom’s CEO, told Business Daily that the company’s cell sites connected to the national grid experience up to four hours of electricity blackouts daily.

This often leads to network glitches, loss of business and high operations costs.

“The introduction of using this technology will ensure that our customers receive uninterrupted usage of our mobile services,” said Collymore. “Energy costs make up the biggest component in running a cell tower.”

Safaricom has turned to solar energy to power some of its cell towers located in regions that receive abundant sunlight.

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Social media has come to stay. And its effective use has become a pertinent tool in building brand awareness, loyalty and growth in modern businesses. When applied creatively, it improves loyalty, growth and income as it provides an informal, albeit unique, platform for marketing products and services, engaging customers directly and building relationships

Effective social media usage requires creative thinking and strategic planning, understanding the target audience and patiently building brand awareness. With the introduction of new technologies and a general move towards media fragmentation, the use of social media platforms in marketing is definitely set to grow even more. Hence we have seen the emergence of social and digital media managers and their respective teams in modern businesses. This highlights the importance of social media to corporate growth and success.

In Nigeria, two social media platforms command the most usage, they are Facebook and Twitter.

5 companies top the list of businesses in the country currently blazing the trail with effective use of these platforms. These companies are – GTBank, MTN Nigeria, Etisalat, Jumia and Konga. These companies have, through Facebook and Twitter, built brand awareness and loyalty by constantly engaging and interacting with customers and potential customers.

The criteria used in picking these 5 companies are the amount of followers and likes they have on their Twitter accounts and Facebook pages respectively, how often they share relevant product or service information to customers, if they encourage customers to provide feedback by leaving comments and how often do customers respond.

GTBank

Topping the list of these companies is GTBank, a financial services provider with a huge presence on social media. GTBank has over 1.1 million likes on its Facebook page and over 45,000 followers on its Twitter account. GTBank recently launched its social banking platform on Facebook were individuals with a valid Facebook user account can open an online account with the bank. It is the first of its kind in Nigeria. Immediately this information was shared on its Facebook page and Twitter account, there was a massive response by its customers and prospective customers who interacted with the banks’ social media team on Twitter and Facebook. Customers were ably informed of how the social banking on Facebook works. GTBank brought banking to its customers and prospects on Facebook by allowing them to open an account and do other transactions using their Facebook accounts. Also, their customer service is open to everyone on Facebook and Twitter.

MTN Nigeria

Telecoms giant, MTN Nigeria is second on the list with over 959,000 likes on Facebook and over 168,000 followers on its Twitter account. MTN Nigeria gives up to date information about their products and services on these social media platforms. Their interaction with customers is satisfactory as customer service enquiries are encouraged and responded to promptly on their Twitter account. Through these social media platforms MTN Nigeria consistently interact with their customers by offering rewards and prizes to different quizzes and they take questions and suggestions from customers on the services they offer.

ETISALAT Nigeria

Another telecoms provider in Nigeria, Etisalat has an impressive presence on social media despite being a new brand. It has over 301,000 likes on Facebook and over 47,000 followers on Twitter. Etisalat regularly updates its customers on these platforms on new products and services and responds to their requests as well. Etisalat also informs customers of other activities they are involved in and their Facebook page and Twitter account is always buzzing with replies to customers’ questions.

JUMIA

Online retailer Jumia has a decent presence on social media. On Facebook, Jumia has over 251,000 likes and over 3,000 followers on Twitter. The e-commerce company allows client to order for goods on both their Twitter account and Facebook page. Jumia interacts regularly with customers via social media – updating and announcing the arrival of new stocks. Also, customers can track their orders on these social media platforms and the response from the Jumia team is good. Their Facebook and Twitter account is a beehive of activities on a daily basis and they have uniquely sustained this interaction with customers.

KONGA

Konga.com, another retail online megastore, also has a good social media presence. Konga has over 191,000 likes on Facebook and over 7,000 followers on Twitter. Customers place orders on their social media platforms and track their orders on them as well. New stocks are also announced and displayed on their Twitter account and Facebook page. The interaction between Konga and its customers on its social media platform is also very efficient as customers’ requests are responded to promptly.

These companies through their effective social media presence have been able to sell their products and services on one-to-one basis to customers, engage people who are interested in their products and services i.e. their prospects, establish and maintain good customer relations and generate immediate response.

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Speaking to reporter in Lagos, Chief Operating Officer, Nigeria Internet Registration Association of Nigeria (NiRA), Ope Odusan, said, “The Board of NIRA has made some changes in the system that opens up the second level .ng domain for general registration at a price of N15, 000.”

Odusan says, NiRA is targeting 100,000 name uptakes by the second quarter of 2013.

Website owners in Nigeria have until now mostly use foreign internet domain names like .com, .org, .net, and .co.uk etc, resulting in a capital flight of about 3.76 billion Naira ($23.8 million) in the last five years.

In 2012, only 26,000 domain names were registered despite Nigeria’s booming population of over 160 million.

Odusan asserts that Nigeria, on the average, looses N600 million ($4 million) to the use of foreign domain names yearly.

“When you estimate the “.net, .org, .com, and combine all the domain names registered by foreign registrars is over 3000, multiply by 1000 renewal fee yearly, cost Nigeria’s economy an annual capital flight of over N300 million,” he said.

“People don’t understand that .ng is Nigeria’s internet identifier on the internet. It is important that people have .ng instead of .com, org and .net web suffixes.

He added that the usage of the DotNG signature on the Internet by individuals, businesses and government would do more for Nigeria rather than using foreign domain names.

The DotNG ccTLD is a platform for the Nigerian Internet ecosystem to boost online commerce and eGovernment services. It will also enable access to valuable information and knowledge which is able to boost academics through effective research resource and participation in distance learning programmes, Odusan said.

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