NAIROBI, Kenya, April 19 -The world is changing so fast today. Nothing that we knew, could have prepared us for the pandemic and as such a lot of our beliefs, methods of doing things, and expectations of the future changed.
For those who relied on businesses, the impact of the pandemic was amplified by the fact that their competitors quickly adapted and found more resilient ways of running their businesses. So, a lot of businesses rode through the pandemic and at the end of it all cannot compete with their more technologically savvy counterparts.
Just because the pandemic has eased off and things assumed a ‘normalish’ trajectory, does not mean that these loses are over. A lot of businesses are losing to competition especially if their competition decided to wise up and use technology to better protect their future.
Today, the businesses that seem to be recovering well have less overheads, more sway and reach with the customer online, they seem to offer faster services, need less people to run their operations as they replaced some of the non-critical functions with technology and are better at learning and evaluating the cost of their decisions because they are better able to record everything through digital means.
This is the anatomy of the unfair advantage businesses get while using technology here in Africa, I call it unfair because adoption of technology in running businesses is still in its early stages here in Kenya.
Despite the obvious advantages of technology, most business owners lack the skills or the know how to implement certain things like websites, productivity tools, cyber security, professional email and many other solutions that may give them that advantage.
Safaricom Business identified this challenge and decided to work on a platform that allows business owners to browse through and learn about the suite of digital transformation tools and solutions available today.
They are also able to get in touch with free technology consultants who can offer great advice and guidance through out the whole business transformation process.
The process of getting a free technology consult is easy. All you must do is go to the portal and request for a callback, upon which you will receive details of your technology consultant and a timeline of 24 -48 hours for him/her to reach out to you on phone to discuss your business technology needs. Just visit www.business.safaricom.co.ke and start your journey today.
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This article will discuss the merits of the various solutions offered so that you know how each can transform your business.
1. Cloud Solutions
With the rising cost of electricity, long gone are the days when businesses had to keep on-premise physical servers. Many business owners are afraid of using certain solutions because of the cost that comes with hosting and keeping those solutions running. Some businesses will even buy new servers to host their business websites. With this they also must hire someone or a team to manage those servers and security to ensure that nobody physically or through cyber attacks affect those servers. This way of doing things can be extremely expensive and discourage anyone from deploying simple solutions that their businesses might need.
Safaricom business identified this challenge and created a suite of easy-to-use cloud solutions ranging from:
Domain and email hosting
Enabling businesses to have branded web presence online. Now you can represent your interests online with a www.yourbrand.co.ke domains and [email protected] for professional emails. Create a professional outlook for your business online and attracting more trust. Don’t just operate with a yahoo or Hotmail email account. Your business can now do so much better.
Microsoft 365 tools
Microsoft 365 offers a variety of collaboration and productivity tools for your team. It’s a great start to building a digital business since all the solutions from email through Microsoft Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel for spreadsheets, SharePoint for storing and sharing documents for approval, OneDrive to automatically store and back up your files and Teams for setting up virtual meetings can be accessed with one simple monthly subscription. There is no set up cost, no need for teams to run the software everything is accessed securely from the cloud just like you would your yahoo or Hotmail account.
Google Workspace
Much like the Microsoft 365 suite the G Suite offers a variety of collaboration and productivity tools like sheets, Gmail for business, Google chat, Google drive to automatically store and back up files, Google Docs for editing business document and Google Meet for setting up virtual meetings. Google workspace will also enable you to create branded domains that you can use for your business online. All you need to maintain this whole set up is a small monthly fee for each employee within your organization with the added benefit of economies of scale for larger organizations.
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Virtual, Cloud Servers and Recovery
These are a great alternative to the bulky physical server solutions that costs a lot of money, and which offer little protection once your physical servers get compromised or damaged. Virtual servers offer you remote control of a physical server held and managed under the best-in-class standards within a world class facility. This means that although you only pay a fraction of the cost it would cost you to buy, power and maintain a physical server, you now get the added benefit of world class security, a great managed storage, backup and hosting platform and great back up and recovery solutions that ensures that your business stays resilient against any disaster.
2. Cybersecurity Solutions
Let’s face it. Cybersecurity chaos is probably the next pandemic to occur in Africa. This is because digital adoption is picking up steam, but cyber protection services have not. Most users still consider antivirus software a big additional expense, exposing our networks to the spread of malicious software. For any organization with more than a few people, cyber security becomes even more important since every employee raises the factor of risk just by owning and using a smart phone, office laptop or computer. Threats like Ransomware, where an attacker blocks access to all your systems, or core websites until a certain amount is paid to him or her, went up 180% in 2021 alone. Ransomware remains one of the most business damaging threat to already existing networks and digital business architecture.
Most organizations may not have the talent or resources to keep a cyber security team, but Safaricom business can use its always-on cyber security team to provide world class service at a fraction the cost it would take to build an entire cyber security infrastructure.
Other cyber security services provided include: –
1. Smart Surveillance
Most CCTV systems are dumb systems. They have to be observed to identify security breaches in most cases it may be too late and the breach will have already happened. However, any business could add an artificial intelligence and machine learning layer that is able to identify risky activity, access issues/ trespassing e.g. If certain people should not access certain floors/sections of your premise. A smart surveillance solution can identify faces and can be taught to identify any other elements, or activity being carried out and alert admin team or company security teams before too much damage is done. It may also be used to identify patterns and insights into how different areas of your premise are being accessed.
All this is achieved without having to change your current CCTV infrastructure, but by sending your footage to a central server that processes footage as it’s being streamed. Safaricom business provides expert consultants to guide you through the process and make it all possible.
2.Unified threat management
Unified threat management provides a managed firewall service that can protect your systems from intrusion and snooping. Access to your organizations core technology infrastructure will be controlled with each device or access request being monitored before it is authorized. For example, if anyone wanted to get access to your servers by sending malicious software to one of your employees our firewall will be able to deter such a threat with ease. This is a service that can be delivered on your already existing technology stack with minimal interference to your business operations.
3. SSL certificates
SSL certificates are crucial today because they authenticate a website and let users who are trying to access your website know that it is safe. SSL certificates have become so essential in how businesses rank online that it becomes almost impossible to get your business on the first page of search results if its website and other digital assets are unverified by the major search engines like Google, Alexa, Bing and the likes. SSL certificates from Safaricom business enable browsers to trust your website. This means your
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customers will be confident that there will be less chances of getting hacked and their information stolen. To check if your website is secure, check the top left part of your browser, secure sites will have a small padlock sign to the left of your websites URL.
4. Security threat management
This allows your business to be resilient against online threats. Every minute, thousands of Petabytes of data get uploaded onto the internet. With this consistent influx of data newer threats find their way into the devices that are held and operated by various users, as a result, your business needs to be ever vigilant to protect itself for every new iteration of malicious software on the internet. To do so you will need a full team to manage DNS settings, VPN setting, active antivirus threat detection and many other platforms that are necessary to maintain such vigilance. However, Safaricom Business provides a platform where most of these are handled by our world class cyber security team meaning that you can operate worry fee and just pay a monthly or yearly fee to keep this protection going. Visit www.business.safaricom.co.ke and set up a meeting with one of our technology consultants to know more.
5. Security professional services
Sometimes you or your business partners may have huge growth ambitions. As such you may target digital transformation to help your business scale. Without the right advice you could be building a platform that will be a hot bed of cyber-attacks, revenue leaks and unhappy customers. This is the reason why your business may need a security professional to advice on what the best protections for your business need to be at every stage. Safaricom business offers security professional services with consultants at hand to offer the best guidance and advice if you are looking for the no-compromise security set up. Build with the best to get the best outcomes out of your digital transformation efforts. Just visit www.business.safaricom.co.ke and start your journey tod
