It therefore came almost as a God-sent when a product like Zidisha Biashara was born under partnership of two ardent believers in SMEs – Safaricom Limited and Kuza Biashara Limited which is an exclusive capacity building portal that helps businesses have a one point source of information on all SME issues.
The product promises to solve the SME question of need for affordable communication, and desire and need for online presence. Now the first time one hears of what this product has to offer, the first reaction is usually…. “Too good to be true. Almost impossible. There must be some hidden charges”; and this was not different when my team and I based in the coastal region introduced the product to Mombasa business people. It took a lot of time and effort to convince our pioneer clients to give it a try.”
Not many are able to understand how one product can slice down a business calling expense by up to 400 percent, have discounted data, free SMSes and the beauty of it all, the ability to share talk time. The product then gives an SME a website complete with ten corporate emails developed and hosted for free with only a mere annual Shs1160 charged for the domain name.
The pessimism on the ability of this product to deliver was so high that it almost shook my faith despite my rigorous training and the fact that I had seen it work with the premier clients in Nairobi and elsewhere but perhaps the need to see positive change effected by technology on SME operations together with the shared dream of my employer Kuza Biashara Limited of nurturing and seeing SMEs leverage with new technologies kept me going.
Few engagements and first ten employees onboard and the product was up for “testing” by the pioneer clients. It came as a shock to most of them when the product was delivered as promised and was actually working. Discounted voice and data directly loaded to clients phones and their beneficiary’s as they desired was amazing to say the least. One client actually called and expressed loads of gratitude for chance to enjoy such a good product. He said, “This is the best thing that has happened to me as a business person and will not hesitate to refer the product to fellow business people.”
If the discounted voice, data and SMSes took the clients by surprise, the website bit delivered to the clients in just under a month after signup was inexpressible. The websites are carefully and professionally developed as per clients specifications, that besides the fact that the website comes with an easy-to-use admin module which enables the client to edit and maintain the website without any prior IT knowledge. The clients were all very cheerful giving the sites address to colleague’s clients and family besides putting the website addresses on their business cards. That was more than one year ago. Today with more than a 1000 clients onboard in coast alone, and more than 50 websites created and operational, the product is with no doubt changing the way SMEs do business.
