Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 06 | Page 10

NEWS Safaricom partners with mSurvey to measure Kenya’s cash and digital economy Safaricom has partnered with mSurvey to launch Consumer Wallet, a versatile mobile platform that quantifies offline consumer spending habits and trends. The solution leverages mSurvey’s mobile messaging platform to measure and benchmark Kenya’s cash economy. mSurvey leverages SMS to measure the cash-based spending drawn from Safaricom’s mobile subscribers. The data is then fed into the Consumer Wallet database, benchmarking preferences and expenditures of various items. The majority of the country’s consumer spending happens at informal businesses, which presents an information gap for businesses looking to explore business opportunities in the sector. Consumer Wallet plugs this gap by providing unprecedented insight into the spending habits of such ‘offline’ consumers. tools that offer the same advantages as those in Silicon Valley,” said Sylvia Mulinge, Director – Consumer Business, Safaricom. “Consumer Wallet addresses a pressing business challenge by providing real time collection, assessment and analysis of data. With the world currently undergoing an information revolution, it is essential that businesses in Kenya have the Consumer Wallet will empower businesses with the requisite insights to arrive at more strategic decisions and with deeper understanding of their customer needs. The service will be available on both a subscription and license basis. ¡ Maximize Manufacturing Growth China Telecom and Orange Business Services partner to deploy IoT services in Africa China Telecom and Orange Business Services have announced the extension of their strategic partnership into the IoT space. The new cooperation will enable both companies to serve their respective enterprise customers through a combined footprint across three continents – Asia, Europe and Africa. Multinational customers of China Telecom and Orange will be able to deploy IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) services across each other’s networks. China Telecom’s enterprise customers with outbound IoT business can deploy their assets and offerings on the Orange networks in Europe and Africa. Both partners propose a global solution to address local IoT connectivity requirements, leveraging eUICC capabilities and the commonly deployed Device Connectivity Platform of Ericsson for a seamless customer experience. China Telecom and Orange will cooperate both commercially and technically to create new service models that support global IoT opportunities. Under this agreement, Orange will be one of China Telecom’s preferred partners for connectivity in Europe and Africa, while China Telecom will support Orange for connectivity in 10 INTELLIGENTCIO Manufacturers are under constant pressure to meet demanding timelines with little margin for error. Epicor solutions help you uncover potential production obstacles— as well as new growth opportunities—so you always know how your business stacks up. China. The companies will jointly explore the potential of enhancing existing IoT capabilities and the application of new technologies such as mobile IoT in the global market. epicor.com | [email protected] | [phone] Karsten Selle, Vice President, Finance & Administration of Orange Mobile Enterprise, said, “Orange Business Services is always striving for innovative solutions to respond to the global needs of its customers. We are looking forward to creating together with China Telecom true business benefits around the global IoT projects of our respective customers. With this extended footprint in Asia, we further strengthen our IoT and data analytics offering, Datavenue, with enhanced global connectivity capabilities.” ¡ www.intelligentcio.com www.intelligentcio.com Copyright ©2016 Epicor Software Corporation. All rights reserved. Epicor, the Epicor logo, and Grow Business, Not Software are trademarks of Epicor Software Corporation in the United States and certain other countries. INTELLIGENTCIO 11