this biggest concern for this industry is the lack of business. not the lack of talent or the high costs. It's the cost of overcoming perceptions, reaching out to new prospects, convincing them that kenya is a worthwhile outsourcing destination. Marketing! Spreading the word. I have just spent a week in the UK meeting with some of the largest outsourcers in the world. They have never heard of Kenya as an outsourcing destination. Very interested now, but completely unaware. We stopped marketing Kenya as a BPO destination before we had built international recognition and credibility, which raises questions in these prospects' minds about our commitment as a country to making Kenya an outsourcing destination... Nicholas A. Nesbitt Chief Executive Officer KenCall EPZ Ltd P.O. Box 27507 - 00506 Sameer Industrial Park, Mombasa Road Nairobi, Kenya +254.20.660.2000 (office) +254.20.660.2222 (fax) +254.721.458.458 (cell) +253.733.458.458 (cell 2) [email protected] www.kencall.com BEST Non-European Contact Centre 2008 Fastest Growing - Kenyan Top 100 company Legatum - Winner Pioneers for Prosperity Award On Jan 29, 2010, at 1:56 PM, [email protected] wrote:

Absolutely true Liko.

Quoting Agosta Liko <[email protected]>:

...

Rebecca

maybe the industry did not really need the subsidy ... maybe they needed work ?

If you are hemorrhaging clients and employees ... it does not matter how much bandwidth costs ... maybe bandwidth is/was not the biggest challenge/obstacle to BPO's ...

just putting that out there

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Rebecca Wanjiku <[email protected]>wrote:

...

Read more here...

http://bit.ly/bnRo1r

Tel. 254 720 318 925

blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/

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Dear Paul, Thank you so much for these very importants highlights.. Indeed, I would be speaking for many on the forum that such debriefing is highly welcome on a regular basis as you now propose. I would be concerned with a couple of issues, as pertains the direction the Board is taking:- * The Digitial Village Project ( Pasha) - it looks like the digital villages are taking quite some time, to "take off", the ground. Just over the last Dec Holidays, I was back in the village hoping to see some real digitization back there - and the entire length and breadth it looks like no one has ever heard of this project..! Is the Board's outreach effort really getting to the far-flung areas, because I sense these are the most disenfranchized areas. They need to be hooked up. What is the approach the Board is taking to reach all areas in the country..? Is there a follow up programme, to have those who have been trained get help to start off? If the first batch of trainees is about over 1,000, then certainly we need to have in place now, more than 5 pilot projects now countrywide. Does the Board need help to get the info out there, in order to roll out these villages much faster...? I believe many of us on this forum would be interested to get involved, especially when kept abreast what is happening. Bridging the digital divide underpins the very fundamentals that will help realize the vision 2030 * Outsourcing:- What is the official postion/policy - Especially ICT Board, on procurement of Open Source solutions? Is it not cost effective, for government going this direction...? What decisive steps are being undertaken to work towards effecting this? Is the Board involved in shaping up procurement policy..? * ICT security/National Cyber Security:- I have not seen it covered anywhere in the 5 pillars. I strongly suggest that this becomes your Pillar no.6. I suppose we are currently faced with such vulnerability and exposure than ever before, now with the international Fibre at our doorstep. While we broaden up the broadband takeup for government, one of the key things I suppose we need to take care of is security for such sensitive infrastructure. We possibly may need to come up with a national cyber security policy & standards and enforce across all Govt. agencies. It would be good at least to start from somewhere, and build upwards. Regards, Harry _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paul Kukubo Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 8:16 PM To: [email protected] Cc: ke users; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenyan BPO fails to snap up the subsidy, why? Listers ICT Board Progress Report and Status update As a major implementer of government ICT projects I shall accept that the ICT Board has not communicated as effectively as we should have and I am therefore not surprised to read some asking what we have been up to. I accept full responsibility for this. I have effected a change in approach effective today to widen communication from the board to include project progress details rather than reporting what we consider major achievements. Our previous approach was developed before we increased our staff count and beefed up our skills which we have now concluded. I will be brief and yes, this is being brief! The board has divided its projects into five pillars as follows each headed by a Project Manager. 1. Digital Inclusion. These are projects concerned with providing access to the masses. Specifically this includes, * KENET bandwidth support project (for providing universities bandwidth, so far 64 tertiary institutions in Kenya have been connected). * Upgrading university networks where they were not optimal and purchasing and providing 200mb of bandwidth. This has resulted in reliable broadband availability to all students in public and private universities. * Board has initiated the development of a world class network operating centre to manage this network * Digital Villages Pasha Project. I provided an update on this in an earlier email * Laptops for universities project, which is aimed to making it affordable for students to purchase laptops. This project is currently awaiting approvals to be formerly launched. 2. Egovernment Shared Services. Working with the egovernment secretariat and the ministry of local government, the aim is to provide a shared services platform for the delivery of key government applications that are run government-wide, including financial systems, HR, procurement. The status here is that we are concluding the consultancy award. * Other projects in progress include * The development of the government network operational centre * The migration of government telephone systems to an IP based unified communicated system * ICT Board fundraising efforts have resulted in a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation towards the support of shared services development for local government. Details of this will be made available once the project has commenced. 3. Egovernment Applications. This project relates mainly to projects to digitize key government registries, o Operationalisation of the Outsourcing Business by Governments: The State Law Office. The Board has been supporting the State Law Office in Digitising and eventually automating its operations: To this end, the project to digitise the entire company registry has already been awarded, and the contractors are mobilising teams. The immediate benefits we are seeing are: . A total of 300 NEW direct jobs in the BPO sector will be created for the digitisation project alone. . Operationalisation of the Outsourcing Business by Governments through mainstreaming of documents conversion o Broadband Internet for Government . A total of 80MB of Fibre -based Internet connectivity has been delivered to the government through an initiative by the Board. All the head office government ministries in Nairobi are enjoying this capacity, and there are plans to take the same to the entire provincial and district offices through the National Fibre Backbone Infrastructure. This is a first o Capacity Building . As a partnership with Microsoft, the Head of Security for Microsoft Mr Roger Halbheer will be giving talk on IT Security Best practice to stakeholders. He is already in town and the Board has organised a specific session for GOK officers on 2/2/2010. . As a partnership with Oracle East Africa, The ICT Board will be conducting a 2 day detailed workshop on shared services implementation for leading government officials. . As a partnership with Microsoft, the ICT Board is completing its 20 seat eservices training centre at the new offices under completion on the 12th floor of Teleposta Towers. . As a partnership with another leading global player, the Board will be setting up a state of the art video conferencing facility to be used by the BPO and other players in international marketing to minimise marketing costs. It will also be used for training. o Pilot Project for computerised digital land database . A partnership programme with a leading global player is working with the Board and Ministry of to establish a Google Maps enabled Digital Land Database. Shortly we shall be announcing the outcome of the pilot project of a web based digital lands platform as a precursor to the national mapping and digitisation exercise o The Digitisation of the Judiciary . This is ongoing. 4. BPO/ITES. (It enabled services) The Board has recognised that promoting this sector includes widening its definition to include all the organizations that provide information and communications based services employing mainly IT based skills. The Board has therefore brought into focus the growing and highly entrepreneurial local software based business. . Software Certification. We are reviewing bids by local and international firms to establish a software certification standard for Kenya and certify local software. . BPO Centre of excellence project 1. We have communicated this in the media before. We are concluding awarding a contract to a consortium of consultants to establish a BPO training centre of excellence for Kenya as part of developing the skills base. This compliments private sector efforts. . BPO ITES marketing 1. This is an area under review to focus not so much on deals for individual businesses here (business to business) but rather on targeting blue chip global players to set up in Kenya. This approach has been necessitated by speaking to various contemporaries around the world on the dollar return of attending all the various outsourcing events. In any event, there is a discussion on-going to substantially increase the resources allocated to these 2 components and more details will be availed. 2. Last year we supported Kenya BPO society to attend the following 3 events. We did minimise our spend per event in order to manage our budget. 1. Birmingham Call Centre awards 2. The South Africa BPO week 3. ITU ICT World Forum . BPO ITES Capacity building. 1. We continue to provide the sector with training in standard, exposure to best practices and opportunities for partnership (such as the forthcoming ICT Board sponsored tour of South Africa's BPO sector in March 2010) . Multinational partnerships. Many of the largest outsourcers in the world are already represented in Kenya in other capacities; some of them are large banks, large IT firms, and large oil companies. We speak to their principles regularly to pitch our value proposition of Kenya as an attractive emerging destination. One large IT firm (not be named, has just opened up a 700 seat technical support centre in Tunisia for French speaking global support, they are interested in setting up one here in Kenya. The gestation period for large deals such as this is a minimum of 18 months from conception to 'ground breaking' 5. Local Content Development. Having recruited a new project manager for this in January 2010, work has commenced to take forward this project. o The Grants Manual that will be the basis for the ICT Board grant disbursement is nearing completion and we expect to launch our call for proposals in due course o We have partnered with a major global player on capacity development for local IT and content development sector capacity building to include training, and skills development. An announcement will be made in due course. o Our new content project head is reviewing the www.tandaa.co.ke with a view to upgrading it to provide a meeting point for Kenyan digital content providers Towards its internal capacity, the Board has contracted Deloitte Consulting to provide Project Management implementation framework for the Board and the department of egovernment with the following objectives 1. Skills upgrade in project management with an emphasis on certification of Key staff t implement multiple projects 2. The establishment of a national project management system for government ICT projects in line with international best practices. Further to this update, the ICT board has concluded the development of its 3 year strategic plan and will be inviting stakeholders for a validation workshop in last week of Feb once venue details are finalized. www.ict.go.ke Ends Paul Kukubo Chief Executive Officer, Kenya ICT Board PO Box 27150 - 00100 Nairobi, Kenya 12th Floor, Teleposta Towers Koinange Street Tel +254 20 2089061, +254 20 2211960 Fax: +254 20 2211962 Cell: + 254 735 180001 website: www.ict.go.ke skype: kukubopaul googletalk: pkukubo ____________________ Vision: Kenya becomes a top ten global ICT hub Mission: To champion and actively enable Kenya to adopt and exploit ICT, through promotion of partnerships, investments and infrastructure growth for socio economic enrichment Sent from Nairobi, Kenya On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Rebecca Wanjiku <[email protected]> wrote: Read more here... http://bit.ly/bnRo1r Tel. 254 720 318 925 blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: [email protected] Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/pkukubo%40ict.go.ke