A New Window into Kenya Software Industry.

By Standard Digital Reporter

NAIROBI, KENYA: Kenya’s ambition to be  Africa’s silicon savannah is well known. The signs  that this vision is becoming reality are now unmistakable, the biggest of these yet is the Konza city, Kenya’s brand new Technopolis being built from scratch in Makueni County.

On the software front, Kenya is world famous for the story of M-pesa, the transformational money transfer solution from Safaricom,  that is now a household name in Kenya, and a case study in financial and telecommunication circles worldwide.

Other big stories in software include Mr Kamal Budhabhatti’s Craft Silicon, an international software powerhouse specializing in banking systems. Many people may remember the Nokia’s USD1 Million award for innovative software given to Virtual City’s John Waibochi, in recognition of their mobile distribution solution. Other world acclaimed software from Kenya include Ushahidi, the open source product for gathering and visualization of special information and data.

Encouraged by these and many other stories of successful software innovations, ‘techies’ are plunging into the software industry with great hope.  Kenya’s software engineers are churning out nifty software products at a furious pace, giving a good account of themselves. So much so that Kenya is now an integral part of the global software community featuring Windows,  the Web, Java and Android platforms.

The software industry holds great promise, and is now a prime employer for the smartest  ICT brains in Kenya. The sheer quality and abundance of skilled software talent in is evident at the I Hub, Kenya’s de-facto software innovation centre.

Kenya’s new Software Hub.

Now a team of software engineers called Isellers Kenya, have launched a platform called The Software Hub. (www.softwarehub.co.ke). Their vision is to create the most comprehensive directory of working, Kenya made software.

According to Nguru Kabugi, a founder member of team, the aim is to expand the market for this rich spectrum of Kenya built software among local and international customers, by creating a reliable first point of reference for the products.

He says that two of the biggest challenges facing software innovators in Kenya are the skill to package the software products, and the capital for marketing.  Weighed down by these challenges, many good Kenya built softwares never grow beyond a few customers. They die a premature death, lacking capital to fuel  them forwards. 

Many customers frequently opt for better packaged and marketed software from India, US or UK, even when these have to be overhauled to suit the Kenyan market. In doing so, the customers deny the local products the much needed breathe of life that was required to enable them to  survive in the competitive software marketplace.

Packaging software for the customer perspective

Giving the example of antivirus software, Nguru says that the fact that these are packaged on CDs or online, ready to install by the user, makes them much easier to distribute and sell. He says that software developers should aim to package their products similarly, where the users drive the products with little or no assistance from the developer. He adds that a successful software product should be like any other product, eg a motor vehicle, which the manufacturer makes and releases to the market via a chain of distributors and resellers.

When software has to be installed and configured by the developer,  he explains that this reduces its acceptance, because customers reason that the software is not quite mature, and that they will rely on the developer to keep the software working. Given a choice, customers would rather buy the software, and buy upgrades if and when they need them.

The Software Hub has been designed such that when adding products on the platform, developers will be required to give their products a unique name, to describe and differentiate them from others that may be fulfilling similar needs.

These and other features of the platform enable the developer to position their products using customer centric language and perspective.  He advises that developers must know what customers are really looking for as they search for solutions. For example, while the developer may be very passionate that his product is developed using the portable Java language, the customers core interest will be the software’s stability, ease of use and functionality. 

More and targeted questions from customers.

Using the platform, customers will quickly be able to see the Kenyan products available, and distinguish between them, adds Robert Muriithi, another founder member of the team.  For example, a customer looking for a POS (point of sale) system or Payroll will be able to see all the listed products side by side, and prepare his short list for the one that are of interest.

From a sales perspective, developers stand to benefit a lot from the platform. By answering many of the first questions that customers ask, the platform will leave the developer to answer focused customer questions, and these will be when the customers are nearest to closing the sale.

The team will be sending out marketing messages for the listed products, category by category. For example online accounting packages. Besides targeting individual customers, these messages will be used to sensitize the government and public sector clients about what is available from local innovators.

Searching for untapped software ideas

A third member of the Isellers Kenya team, Zack Matu, argues that another main benefit that developers will get from the platform is the identification of the new frontier products that they can invest their time in.

Many a time, young innovators pick up a product idea thinking that it’s a niche. After developing the same, they find that there were several other products already in the market doing the same thing. The hub will therefore be a good place for developers to evaluate their niche or better software idea,  before spending time on them.

 There is no shortage or great ideas from Kenyas ICT industry.  If the software industry were to embrace the ideas championed by The Software Hub, there would be big benefits to the many creative innovators dotting the Kenya’s software landscape.