It’s time for local knowledge generation

SMS Media, a pioneer in the Short Messages Service won the Innovator of the Year Award from the Uganda Communications Commission. The Independent’s Haggai Matsiko spoke to Simon Kaheru, a director.
How significant is the Short Messages Service platform in doing business?
Over the last ten years, the significance of the SMS for discerning businesses has grown exponentially - there are now actually business enterprises that rely on SMS Messaging for their service delivery, customer traffic and customer relationship management.

The SMS is cheap, quick, instant, and most of all, once somebody receives an SMS they must read it by default, before deciding whether or not it is worth their time. This makes it a must-consume channel of communication, and the value of this to any advertiser is unquestionable.

What advantages does a business get when using SMS?
For some business streams, SMS communication is extremely important because it allows the business to stay in touch with their clientele or customers in a more structured manner but directly. We have established an SMS module that allows a business entity or even individual client to set up a Sender ID which they use to personalise their relationship with customers.

The Independent magazine, for example, can set up their Sender ID as ‘Independent’, and whenever your readers receive an SMS from you, it will originate from ‘Independent’. That way, they come to build trust in messages from you and even look forward to receiving them - and when as a business you are being treated like a person, then your brand has truly arrived.

What other services does SMS Media offer?
SMS Media is a New Age Media firm that provides mobile phone Value Add Services and Solutions. On top of the ability to send ordinary SMS messages, we design and implement SMS Marketing campaigns, we provide SMS and New Age Media content, and we build mobile phone applications. The business is dynamic and fast-moving, and we find ourselves moving with the times but ahead of what our clients expect.
For our general users, though, we provide a lot of content such as news, current affairs information, social tips, ringtones and wallpaper and logos, and a host of products that make their mobile phones much more useful to them.

What new products or innovations can clients expect?
In about three weeks we will be introducing something monumental to ease life for ordinary users and owners of mobile phones. And we promise to continue rolling out new products on a regular basis.

You won the Product Developer Award, how would you rate the level of invention in Uganda?
Uganda has lagged behind for a long time in ICT innovations even though we have been creating products, applications and making innovative use of existing ones.
Today, more and more young people are creating more localised products using open source software, and even proprietary platforms like Symbian. Google and Nokia, for example, are spending more and more time grooming and identifying people from Uganda to develop solutions that can be used more comfortably locally but also possibly adapted in other parts of the world.
We have a community now in Kampala called Mobile Monday Kampala that brings together many of these ideas and people and we are seeing success stories that inspire. There is a Ugandan firm, for example, that has software being used in Latin America and Europe the same way we over here like to use Quickbooks and Tally. That shows that we can, if we put our collective minds to it, develop an entire Operating System in a local language with local commands. The future is in our hands!

As a manager, what drives you?
I am driven by respect for the potential of the people I work with - and I know that they are the company. A happy and comfortable workforce will always deliver more because they enjoy what they are doing. But more importantly, the rewards for their hard work have to be given to them before anybody else.
Our employees in particular are the best in the business. The SMS Info sector is a new one and requires lots of vibrancy, innovative thinking and creative intelligence - which we look for when recruiting.

More than nine years down the road, what lessons have you drawn in this business?
Never sit back thinking somebody else has already done it. Innovations always come from within and are sometimes not affected by what other people may think they are doing. We have had many opportunities to be the first in the world to accomplish something but the thought that we are in Uganda and can’t possibly be in the lead held us back till it was too late.
Then, also, there is no set way of doing things - our sector did not exist when we started and we have found ourselves making up jobs and role profiles, and putting together teams of people from very different educational backgrounds, basing simply on what we wanted to achieve. In a few years’ time, we won’t be surprised to be providing course content for new studies at University level.

In your view what opportunities presented by technology are Ugandans not utilising fully?
Ugandans are not using the internet. We have the world at our fingertips and we only use the simplest applications and platforms such as Facebook and webmail. We need to change this as quickly as possible and become part of the knowledge generation.