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15 UNITING THE DIGITAL ENTERPRISE

36 SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB A 10.1" 2016 REVIEW

38 THE EVOLUTION OF BANKING

Davis & Shirtliff

Walking the innovation journey with

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E A S T A F R I C A

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Harry Hare

TECHNICAL STAFF WRITERSLillian MutegiBaraka JefwaJeanette Oloo

COLUMNISTSBobby YaweAmit SanyalBen Mann

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Editor’s note

TO CONTACT ME:

Harry Hare

The WannaCry attack just a couple months ago prompted many people to apply the latest Windows patches to protect themselves. NotPetya introduced “more

spreading mechanisms to be more successful,” McAfee said.

NotPetya, which is a variant of Petya, is an unusual ransomware threat that was first seen by security researchers in March. Instead of encrypting a user’s files directly,  it encrypts the master file table (MFT)  used by Windows NT file system (NTFS) disk partitions to hold information about file names, sizes, and locations on the physical disk. Before encrypting the MFT, Petya replaces the computer’s master boot record (MBR) which contains code that initiates the operating system’s bootloader. Petya replaces it with its own malicious code that displays the ransom note and leaves computers unable to boot.

At the just-concluded Africa Security Summit that we hosted, Ransomware was one of the hottest topics, with CIOs and CISOs having just come off of a trying time managing the WannaCry menace. Key to the recommendations was the need to educate users on cybersecurity trends and for the IT folk to remain vigilant as hackers will continue preying on vulnerable users. Another critical takeaway was the need for cyber security to evolve from being a technical discussion to a business discussion. A lot of CEOs and senior business leaders in the region are completely clueless when it comes to cyber security, and as such do not pay attention to the risk that weak cybersecurity poses to their businesses. To move this discussion forward, CIO

NOTPETYA SENDS TREMORS, AND THE GIANT AWAKENS

East Africa is in the process of instituting a cybersecurity working group. If you are interested in joining the group, please drop me a note.

So, last month saw what could be a major shift in the Kenyan telecommunication sector. After several false starts, Telkom Kenya relaunched its new brand, Telkom, after the acquisition of the Orange stake by Heleos Investment Partners. The mood at the launch was that the giant has finally awakened! The change of name and change of owners has suddenly changed the competitive landscape of the industry with the de facto leader, Safaricom, taking notice and rebranding a few weeks after. It appears the battle lines have been drawn, so brace for some interesting times as we start to see real competition as the two giants jostle for market share.

As usual, we have packed this edition with interesting reads, from workplace transformation to Internet of Things. Read about how water and energy solutions provider, Davis and Shirtliff, is utilising IoT technologies to power their borehole management system. Don’t miss Baraka Jefwa’s review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. He has done the heavy lifting for you. And Bobby Yaweh, aka “the Village Madman,” thinks IT professionals in Kenya are schizophrenic. Find out why!

Enjoy.

ANOTHER MONTH, ANOTHER RANSOMWARE! THIS TIME AROUND, NOTPETYA – A NASTY VARIANT THAT ENCRYPTS FILES AND THE COMPUTER’S MASTER BOOT RECORD RENDERING THE MACHINE UNUSABLE.

FROM OUR ONLINE LOCATIONS Five most popular stories on www.cio.co.ke

Safaricom to set-up Kenya’s first telecommunications lab worth Sh.200 million Four Kenyan Start-ups make it to the Ecobank Fintech Challenge 2017Andela launches in UgandaBBC invests Sh1 billion in multi-media production stu-dios meant to create 250 jobsAs citizens demand accountability, governments keep data locked away

Five top facebook.com/ cioeastafrica posts with highest reach

You are all invited to our Twitter party. Get to  #Ask-DrGameli  Dr Bright GameliMawudor (https://www.facebook.com/brightgameli) questions on all things #cybersecurityFollow us on Twitter @CIOEastAfrica and use #AfrSS2017 to keep up with the party.Let us talk Security! Visit https://www.africasecurity-summit.com/  to register and learn more about the summit.It’s never black and white for any CIO when trying to identify security vendors – at times it gets grey! Join Catherine Muraga, Director IT and Operations at Sidian Bank as she walks us through the challenges CIOs face as they try to identify security vendors. For more infor-mation visit: https://www.africasecuritysummit.com/.#AfrSS2017: African Security Summit registration deadline set for 6th June. What is WannaCry? What does WannaCry ransom-ware do?

Five top tweets with the highest reaction

Currently taking place is a Hack simulation by @BRIGHTZEED on breaking the kill chain with @fayyazayoub. CEO, Infosec pscp.tv/w/bA_pHzF3QktB…You are all invited to our Twitter party. Get to #Ask-DrGameli questions on cybersecurity Date: 07/06/17 Time:11 Am - 12 Noon #AfrSS2017pic.twitter.com/q1uIwsA1NHNjiru says #omnichannel comes with automation op-tions, rich workflow, campaign builders, reporting, & analytics #CIOBreakfastSeries pic.twitter.com/5Dn-QNovVmcGetting the pieces together ready for D-day #afrss2017 @laurachite @coachyawe @Baraka-Jefwa @DEMOAfrica @mbuguanjihia pic.twitter.com/rpcQxQwL1iDennis Volemi, IT Head Commercial Bank of Africa, takes stage #CIOBreackfastSeries to give a testi-monial on working with @infobip#omnichannel pic.twitter.com/H3kiM4Eegt

QUOTED VERBATIM

I think in reality if you want to build a product, build what the market wants, and what they want to pay for because

they see the value.

We are very clear about the role of IT in the organization and its our belief that

any business that runs without IT is doomed.

I know the Russian hackers are good, but even this is likely to be beyond

their Siberian abilities, in addition, this implies that our cellular networks are all compromised and so too are all the

phones in the country.

We already see the potential of disruptive technologies, like blockchain,

to revolutionise how businesses and people transact with each other – the

next step in the evolution process.

Joab MakOngul Head of IT, at Davis &

Shirtliff

Audrey Cheng Founder Moringa

School

Kunle Awosika Country Manager

Microsoft

Robert Yawe Columnist CIO East

Africa

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 5

GUEST EDITORIAL BY JOHN WALUBENGO

The first was, of course, the widely published audit report of the voter register, followed by the equally important, but less glamorised, public testing of the electronic

election systems.

Contrary to the public shock expressed about the number of dead voters still in the voter register, there is, in my opin-ion, nothing shocking about dead vot-ers being in the voter register.

Even as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) promis-es to clean up the register, there will still be a couple of voters who will, unfortu-nately, die between the time it publish-es the cleaned-up register and when we finally go to the polls on August 8, 2017.

The crime is not really that we have dead voters in the register, but what people do with the dead voters’ names in the register. That is what should con-cern us most.

In a trustworthy society, election em-ployees and political agents would not bother to exploit the dead voters’ names found in election registers. 

TRUST DEFICITUnfortunately, history shows Kenya is not a trustworthy society, particularly where matters of elections are con-cerned. Because of this, we must invest millions of shillings in electronic elec-tion systems every election cycle.  We have a trust deficit that has accrued over time due to historical election ex-periences.  

Without electronic systems to support the electoral process, dead voters have been known to wake up in the evening, after the polls close, and proceed to vote for their preferred presidential candidates en masse, before quietly disappearing back into their post-elec-tion graves.

Because of these abuses, the require-ment for biometric voter identification processes was integrated into the elec-

toral process, the correct assumption here being that dead men and women do not have fingerprints and so won’t be allowed to vote.

If the biometric voter identification sys-tem works, it will not matter how many dead voters, how many fake voters, or how many duplicate voters exist in the register. All attempts at voting fraud will be nipped in the bud at the point of fin-gerprint verification.

Was this the motivation behind the ac-rimonious election amendment clause that allowed for the so-called “comple-mentary” system to be applied?

The questions about this motivation brought us to the election electronic system testing exercise that took place immediately after the audit report was launched.

TESTING THE COMPLEMENTARY SYSTEMThe system test reviewed the function-ality of the electronic voter identifica-tion and the electronic results transmis-sion and display.

Whereas each component executed and worked well, as expected, we have to remember that the test was done in a controlled, hotel environment which does not account for the actual dynam-ics that may arise in the field on polling day.

These untested dynamics may range from simple things like the presiding officers forgetting their passwords to more sophisticated things like cyberat-tacks carried out to deliberately cripple the electronic election systems.

Could this be a more valid motivation behind the amendment that brought on board the “complementary” system?

Whatever the case, it is now part of our laws and the IEBC needs to publicly test the complementary system to pro-vide assurances that it does not open up or restore opportunities for dead

voters to wake up and vote on election day.

Simulating and testing the so-called “complementary system,” which for all intents and purposes is a polite word for a “manual system,” is therefore perhaps more important than testing the elec-tronic system.

SUFFICIENT CONFIDENCEIt is safer to begin from the assumption that the electronic system will fail, and then to assure there are sufficient mit-igating measures, work backwards to investigate the impact such a failure would have on the electoral processes. 

The IEBC must therefore publicly demonstrate what the complementary system is and how it will work to pre-serve the integrity of the election re-sults.

It must also carry out voter education on the details of this complementary system with the same vigour that was expressed by sections of the political class during its enactment.

Springing the complementary system on voters on election day simply be-cause it is provided for in law will not provide sufficient confidence in the election outcome – irrespective of who wins.

Let us demystify the complementary system as part of the necessary efforts of building voter confidence and assur-ing a peaceful election – irrespective of whether we eventually use it or not.

(The article was first published in The Daily Nation. Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at Multimedia University of Kenya, Facul-ty of Computing and IT. Email: jwaluben-go@mmu.ac.ke, Twitter: @jwalu)

LAST WEEK THE ELECTORAL AGENCY MADE TWO MAJOR MOVES THAT REQUIRE REVIEW AND ANALYSIS. 

FORGET THE DEAD VOTERS. THE COMPLEMENTARY SYSTEM IS A BIGGER RISK TO ELECTION

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke6

TREND LINES

12 Africa Security Summit highlights major security concerns faced by East Africa CIOs

13 Backup software features that IT managers love and hate

14 Emerging Role of CIO

FEATURE

15 Uniting the digital enterprise

PICTORIAL

18 The Africa Security Summit at a glance

TREND LINES

19 East Africa is Ready for Digital Transformation

20 PETYA: Yet another nightmare

24 Digital workplace strategy is the way for organisations to better deliver business value

25 Samsung DeX Enables Productivity for Mobile Workers

PRODUCT REVIEW

36 Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1" 2016 Review

OPINION

38 The evolution of banking

39 Go Digital Series (3) - Mobile & Social

40 Four ways you can successfully digitise your customers’ experience

41 Customer Experience Management and Mobile Money: A Perfect Storm

Hard TALK

42 Technological schizophrenia

6 Guest Editorial8 In Brief 9 Appointments

10 Regional Round Up

Cover story:Walking the innovation journey with

Davis & Shirtliff

WOMEN & TECH

Meet Audrey Cheng, a woman accelerating high-potential individuals across Africa to become world-class software engineers

34

IT AND LEADERSHIP

From a lost job to starting a company that is awakening Kenya’s giant compa-nies through IT, meet Alfred Onyango, founder of Alttab Africa Limited

32

START UP CORNER

Yaaka Digital Network on a mission improve education in Uganda

31

26

CONTENTS JULY 2017

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 7

INFOSYS TO HIRE 10,000 IN THE U.S. AS TRUMP FOCUSES ON LOCAL HIRESINDIAN OUTSOURCER INFOSYS IS HIRING 10,000 AMERICAN WORKERS OVER THE NEXT TWO YEARS IN THE WAKE OF A REVIEW OF U.S. VISA RULES AND AN EMPHASIS ON LOCAL HIRES BY THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP.

Infosys said it would open four new “Technology and Innovation Hubs” in the U.S., focusing on cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, user experience, emerg-ing digital technologies, cloud, and big data.

The first such centre is coming up in Indiana in August and is expected to create 2,000 jobs by 2021 for American workers, be-sides boosting the state economy.

THE U.K. SEEKS TO END END-TO-END ENCRYPTIONTHE U.K. IS CONSIDERING PUTTING AN END TO END-TO-END ENCRYPTION IN SERVICES SUCH AS WHATSAPP.

The U.K. government wants telecommunications providers to help it tap their customers’ communications, removing any en-cryption the provider applied.

The government’s desires are set out in a draft of the regulations obtained by Open Rights Group (ORG), which cam-paigns for digital civil rights.

The draft of the Investigato-ry Powers (Technical Capa-bility) Regulations 2017 was circulated by government officials as part of a “target-ed consultation” of some of the organisations that would have to comply with the law.

AROUND the

WORLDTIGO INTRODUCES TRIBE CONNECT FOR THE YOUTHTIGO GHANA HAS LAUNCHED “TRIBE CONNECT” FOR CUSTOMERS, ESPECIALLY THE YOUTH, TO ENJOY FREE ACCESS TO SOCIAL MEDIA, AFFORDABLE CALL RATES TO ALL NETWORKS, AND HIGH-SPEED INTERNET SERVICE.

Tribe Connect is an enhanced version of “Tribe” which was launched last year. Key features of Tribe Connect include double value on all data packages purchased on weekends, plus bonus data that is valid for the week-end. Customers also enjoy 100 Mb data to browse the internet, 100 minutes to make calls, double bonus on voucher and e-pin top-ups, and triple bonus on Tigo Cash Top-ups.

MAINONE LAUNCHES PLAN TO BECOME LARGEST INTERNET HUB IN WEST AFRICAFOLLOWING THE PARTNERSHIP OF MAINONE’S DATA CENTER COMPANY, MDXI, WITH THE NIGERIAN INTERNET EXCHANGE (IXPN) TO IMPROVE NATIONAL TRANSIT TRAFFIC IN NIGERIA, THE COMPANY HAS RECENTLY ANNOUNCED A NEW INTERCONNECT SERVICE FOR CARRIERS, ENTERPRISES, AND ISPS CALLED “OPEN-CONNECT.”

Open-Connect is a service that facilitates improved in-terconnection, collaboration, and peering within the MDXi Lekki data centre and the Internet Exchange. The product will enable the creation of an environment that allows colocated customers to connect to multiple net-works, cloud, and content providers while significantly reducing the cost of backhaul links to various providers. It also offers competitive pricing in an open access, car-rier-neutral environment.

NEARLY 1,000 BUSINESSES HAVE SIGNED UP FOR .AFRICATRADEMARK OWNERS HAVE REGISTERED NEARLY 1,000 .AFRICA DOMAIN NAMES. IT HAS BECOME ONE OF THE TOP TEN LARGEST NUMBERS OF DOMAIN NAME RESERVATIONS DURING THE SUNRISE PHASE OF THE NEW GEOGRAPHIC TOP LEVEL DOMAIN (GTLD) ‘S LAUNCH PROCESS.

In total, .africa recorded 981 registrations by trademark owners over the first 60 days from its launch date – 4 April 2017. The ZACR-administered gTLD is supported by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the majority of African governments.

AROUND

IN BRIEF

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke8

APPOINTMENTS

Theresa Grafenstine, Inspector General of the U.S. House of Representatives, who served as vice-chairman the previous term, has been elected to lead ISACA’s board as chair-man.

Over the past 25 years, Grafenstine served in the Inspector General community in both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. Federal Government. As the Inspector General, she is responsible for planning and leading independent, non-partisan audits, advisories, and investigations of the financial and administrative functions of the U. S. House of Representa-tives.

Prior to joining the House Office of Inspector General (OIG), Grafenstine was in the Depart-ment of Defense (DoD) OIG, where she led acquisition audits of major weapon systems and was selected to respond to high-profile, Congressional audit requests.

Grafenstine has previously served on the ISACA board as vice-chairman and director. She has also contributed as an ISACA volunteer on the organisation’s Audit Committee, Finance Com-mittee, Communities Committee, and Relations Board.

She is past president of the ISACA National Capital Area Chapter. Grafenstine also serves on the board of directors of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and as the audit committee chairman of the Pentagon Federal Credit Union.

THERESA GRAFENSTINE APPOINTED AS ISACA’S BOARD CHAIR

Danie Steyn is currently the General Manager for EPG Companies. Since 1985, EPG Com-panies Inc. has designed and manufactured pollution control systems and equipment being used worldwide in various landfill, remediation, water and wastewater, and in-

dustrial applications. With over 12,000 installations, EPG has become the choice of thousands of environmental professionals.

Before joining EPG, Danie Steyn was General Manager East Africa for Intel responsible for set-ting long-term, strategic direction, business planning, and forecasting for East Africa Oper-ations. The East Africa region consists of the following emerging market countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. He was also the Intel World Ahead and Regional Business Manager for Middle East Turkey and Africa.

Between 2007 and 2009, Mr Steyn was the Regional Business Manager for Sub-Sahara Africa Intel.

DANIE STEYN APPOINTED GM FOR EPG COMPANIES

Kendi Ntwiga-Nderitu has been appointed as the Country Manager for Check Point re-sponsible for the East Africa Region.

Prior to joining Check Point, Ms Ntwiga was the Territory Lead-SSA, Intel Security, Intel Corporation, responsible for running the Intel Security (McAfee) business in Sub- Sahara Africa (SSA) and managing key accounts in the region to ensure customer satisfaction and up-sale.

She was tasked with driving channel strategy for the region and ensuring its implementation. She was also the Applications Business Manager in Kenya for Oracle, and in 2015 she was nominated as 2015 TechWomen Fellow.

KENDI NTWIGA-NDERITU COUNTRY MANAGER AT CHECK POINT

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 9

KENYA: ONLINE SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS REGISTRATION HAS REDUCED TO THREE DAYS

According to local media reports, the Online Company Registration System, under the Business Registration Service, enables users to search and secure a business name and get necessary government

documents like KRA Certificate, NSSF and NHIF in the comfort of their of-fice or home.

Acting General Director of Business Registration Service, Kenneth Gathu-ma, says the integration with e-citizen has been instrumental in reducing the time taken to register a company.

“The payments for these services are done under the Government digital pay system to ensure all payments to Government are made in a trans-parent and efficient manner,” said Gathuma, while updating the private sector on the ease of doing business in Kenya.

However, Gathuma admits the system is far from flawless, saying there are still hiccups in the system that may cause some users to experience longer than usual transaction times to register a company, the local media stated.

“Sometimes the system is down, or there is a bit of back and forth with the register of companies, which we see as birthing problems. However, in a couple of months, we should see this process reduced to two days at the most,” Gathuma says.

UGANDA: UGANDA COUNCILLORS TO GET SMARTPHONES PRICED AT UGX 300, 000

Though their proposal was denied, councillors in Mpigi District in Uganda were recently informed they would receive free smartphones in the coming financial year.

This is due to a new proposal that was endorsed by the dis-trict technical team.

The endorsement will see at least 19 district councillors, a few selected civil workers, and the district chairperson receive smartphones which are estimated to cost Shs7.2m. Each smartphone will cost at least Shs300, 000.

The money for the smartphones is reflected in the district budget for the financial year 2017/2018 that was approved late last month.

The district also allocated Shs12m to cater for Internet bun-dles annually.

The Shs23.5b budget also provides an increment in the coun-cillors’ monthly council sitting allowances from Shs250, 000 to Shs350, 000 each.

THE ADOPTION OF AN ONLINE SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS REGISTRATION HAS REDUCED THE NUMBER OF DAYS IT TAKES TO REGISTER A COMPANY TO THREE DAYS.

COUNCILLORS HAD ASKED THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER (CAO) IN THE LAST FINANCIAL YEAR TO BUY IPADS FOR THEM.

COMPILED BY JEANETTE OLOOREGIONAL ROUND-UP

In the neighbouring Kalangala District, councillors have also been pushing for iPads in the last two financial years, also without success. District authorities in the islands complained that they lack enough resources to buy the equipment.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke10

MTN Irekure is based on consumer insights and trends that show the increasing needs of customers to control how they stay in touch, paired with the flexibility of choosing a bundle that’s af-

fordable and suits their unique needs.

Speaking about the newly launched product, MTN’s acting Chief Mar-keting Officer, Gaspard Bayigane, said, “MTN Irekure are well thought out voice bundles specifically tailored for pre-paid customers based on their past usage behaviour. They are offered deals packed with lots of minutes to call, and free SMS and MBs. This enhancement is as a result of our renewed focus to drive innovation that delivers value to our cus-tomers.”

To access MTN Irekure, customers should dial *140*1# to directly access the best offers. Customers can choose between three possible voice deals that have been designed specifically for them, and purchase any one of them using airtime from their main balance. All minutes pur-chased under MTN Irekure are valid for 24 hours. To check the balance on the MTN Irekure pack, simply dials *140# and select Option “6”.

TANZANIA: AIRTEL TANZANIA AND DTBI PARTNER TO TRAIN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS COMPUTER SKILLS

Six teachers from Galway Education Centre in Ireland trained various teachers with the aim of empowering them by teaching techniques and knowledge of tech-

nology. This was done so the teachers could then teach stu-dents. These skills will enable the teachers to develop a small-er program to provide a solution for not only the students but the various needs of business and society.

The move will start with a launch of a computer lab set to open soon. It has been named “AirtelFursa Lab,” and will be an integral part of a programme which will allow youth with passion in technology to learn computer skills. It will also pro-mote creativity and facilitate the students to create solutions and design various mobile applications.

Speaking during the training, Chief Executive Officer of the Dar Teknohama (ICT) Business Incubator (DTBi) under the Commission of Science and Technology (COSTECH), George Mulamula said, “Given the existing challenges that multiple students get to use the computers for the first time when the get to the university has led to limited creativity and the use

RWANDA: MTN RWANDA INTRODUCES NEW, CUSTOMISED VOICE BUNDLES TO CATER TO CUSTOMER NEEDS

MTN RWANDA INTRODUCED MTN IREKURE, A NEW AND CUSTOMISED VOICE BUNDLES PRODUCT WHICH GIVES CUSTOMERS A BALANCE OF CHOICE, AFFORDABILITY, AND FLEXIBILITY WHEN CALLING ON THE MTN NETWORK.

AIRTEL TANZANIA HAS PARTNERED WITH INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY INCUBATOR (DTBI) TO PROVIDE TRAINING TO PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS ON BASIC COMPUTER SKILLS AS A WAY OF PASSING KNOWLEDGE TO STUDENTS.

REGIONAL ROUND-UP

of technology in entrepreneurship. We believe AirtelFursa will offer opportunities to young people to learn and discover many things while at a young age.”

The Dar Teknohama Business Incubator (DTBi), in collabora-tion with Airtel Tanzania and ATIP Company of the U.S.A, will also having a summer camp training program which will be held from 28th June to 6th July 2017 for students in grades five to seven.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 11

BY STAFF WRITERTREND LINES

The summit came at a time when Cybersecurity Ventures predicts global spending on cybersecurity products and services to exceed $1 trillion cumulatively over the

next five years – from 2017 to 2021.

“IT Security has become a big concern in Africa today, and it is important that we address this as a critical business is-sue and not just leave it to technology experts,” said Laura Chite, CEO of CIO East Africa during the summit.

In 2004, the global cybersecurity market was worth $3.5 billion, and in 2017 it is expected to be worth more than $120 billion, growing by roughly 3,500 per-cent over 13 years. Despite that, most Chief Information Officers have no idea where they should start when securing critical IT infrastructure.

Some of the lessons learnt from this year’s summit include:

Government outlook on cybersecurity One of the most popular times of year for increased cyber-criminal activities in Kenya is during election time. This was reported by Mr Robert Mugo, CEO, ICT Authority, during the summit.

“Threat landscape changes depending on different times of the year. Especial-ly now, when we have elections coming up, we tend to see a spike in activities in terms of cybercrime,” said Mr Mugo.

“With government digitising all its sys-tems, we have realised there is an in-crease in cyber-related crimes targeting government agencies. The government currently has a plan underway to invest

close to $50 million to help secure its systems.” Added Mr Mugo.

The aviation industry has something to say on cybersecurity One of the industries that IT security professionals need to look to for inspi-ration is the aviation industry and the security around airports. These systems were explored by Martin Walshaw, the Regional Coordinator of F5 Networks, during the summit.

He suggested that IT security experts should champion security models that airports have implemented by employ-ing checkpoints. Security experts argue that an organisation must implement a security solution that involves the examination of the source of an IP ad-dress, including its reputation. As this is being done, it is possible to catch any attacker even before they launch an at-tack. All security solutions must deny access to applications, websites, and networks by default.

Apparently, most organisations are spending more than 90% of their secu-rity budgets protecting networks, while only 28% percent of attacker’s target networks. This means that organisa-tions have misplaced their priorities.

How vendors should sell security to CIOs “Not all CIOs have an IT Security back-ground. We come from all manner of IT-related backgrounds like program-ming, project management, and oth-ers even from business. So, we all face different challenges,” said Catherine Muraga, Director of IT and Operations at Sidian Bank, during the summit.

We face challenges which range from “… being able to translate information security risks and solutions into lay-man’s terms, to negotiating budgets with the directors,” she added.

Muraga highlighted some of the challenges CIOs face when it comes to identifying IT security vendors. According to her, the challenges in-clude:

• Solutions and not boxes – CIOs should always focus on what is ap-propriate and fits the purpose.

• One size does not fit all – “Ven-dors should take this time to un-derstand how investment deci-sions are made by a local entity to an international entity,” she said

• Sales vs. technical teams – As a CIO, always engage on what fits the purpose by fitting a solution into the budget which is not a solu-tion to an organisation’s problem.

No or yes to regulation During this year’s event, there was also a heated debate around the recent cy-bersecurity laws passed. In May this year, the Kenya Cyber Security Bill was approved by the Cabinet and has paved the way for the proposed legislation to be debated in Parliament. A number of ICT practitioners, including lawyer and ICT professional John Freeman from Af-riledger, criticised the bill and believed it required more work before it was ready to be passed.

“There is no intent clause, and that can stifle freedom of speech,” said Freeman. He added that an intent clause could differentiate between a malicious cyber-crime and a simple mistake. He made reference to the bill’s current definition of “unauthorised access” which, he says, means that forgetting a password and being denied access to a platform could be construed as a cybercrime.

However, Evans Kahuthu, Project Man-ager of Information Security at Kenya ICT Authority, believes the bill is widely inclusive and incorporates views from industry experts.

AFRICA SECURITY SUMMIT HIGHLIGHTS MAJOR SECURITY CONCERNS FACED BY EAST AFRICA CIOS

THE SECOND AFRICA SECURITY SUMMIT TOOK PLACE ON THE 14TH AND 15TH OF JUNE AT THE FAIRMOUNT NORFOLK HOTEL IN NAIROBI KENYA. THE SUMMIT BROUGHT TOGETHER TOP

ICT EXECUTIVES FROM ACROSS THE REGION IN A BID TO SHINE A LIGHT ON THE EXISTING DANGERS OF CYBER SECURITY.

...most organisations are spending more than 90% of their security budgets protecting networks...

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke12

VEEAM BACKUP Valuable features “One of the most important features of Veeam is the excellent self-restart fea-ture. We use Veeam to provide remote backups for us as well as our customers. Many times, a communications glitch will occur that will disrupt the backup process during the offsite backup procedure. The product will automatically restart the pro-cess and continue self-monitoring and re-starting until the backup is complete, and notify our support staff of its status.”

-- George B., president & CEO at a tech services company

“Application data recovery works great in our environment, especially restoring Microsoft Exchange mailbox items. There are cases where emails or attachments [that are] more than 12 months old are needed by users.”

-- ITInfraEng436, IT infrastructure executive at an energy/utilities company

“It’s very simple to implement and very fast to learn. One backup can be done and many restorations are possible from that backup. The mature integrity within a virtualized environment has always been important.”

-- Heidar A., IT project manager at a tech company

Room for improvement “Physical backup is always where there could be room for improvement, but Vee-am has always stated they are not going in that direction. With Veeam Endpoint Backup, however, physical server backup is possible.”

-- Chris C., systems engineer at McMillan LLP

“Determining the space for the WAN ac-celeration server sometimes is hard, espe-cially if you have many source sites for the data. I would like to have a kind of storage space calculator that gives me an estimate for the size of the WAN accelerator server we are creating; give it a list of VMs to be backed up.”

-- Alberto Z., senior IT engineer at a tech services company

HPE DATA PROTECTOR Valuable features “The most valuable feature is the integra-tion with Oracle, MSSQL, and Exchange. They are the easiest to work with. Unlike some other backup solutions, the config-uration and restoration of the data is very easy. Just check it and you are done.”

-- Ailyn D., project manager at a tech services company

“The granularity of brick-level restore functionality is very valuable. We receive approximately 10 restore requests on a daily basis for your typical file/folder re-store, with the odd Exchange mailbox re-store request thrown in, just to keep me on my toes.”

-- Darren O., systems engineer at a pharma/biotech company

Room for improvement “The reporting capabilities of HPE Data Protector are very limited, and this is the main area I feel that HPE Data Protector needs to improve on. The standard report options available with the product are ad-equate for generic reporting.”

-- Darren O., systems engineer at a pharma/biotech company

“In the next release, I would like to see deeper integration with VMware and HPE Recovery Manager Center (RMC). We don’t have RMC, unfortunately, but we are planning on getting it.”

-- SystemAne574, distribution engineering specialist at an energy/utilities company

BACKUP SOFTWARE FEATURES THAT IT MANAGERS LOVE AND HATE

ALTARO VM BACKUP Valuable features “Generally, the entire program is bril-liant… [especially] the Altaro offsite backup server.”

-- Dan P.H., support technician at a tech services company

“Great backup features for all my Hyper-V machines. Excellent for offsite backup as an add-on function, Easy restore for en-tire virtual machine files and sandbox op-tion, Well-priced and Excellent support and team behind this product.”

-- Chaim Y.K., CEO at a tech services company

Room for improvement “The only issue at the moment is a lack of throttling. Our backups tend to take most of the day, and while it handles Vol-ume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) backups very well, you do notice a performance hit because it’s using all reads on the disk or transferring at maximum bandwidth.”

-- Dan P.H., support technician at a tech services company

“I want continuous Exchange backup, as this product allows you to revert the Ex-change data to almost any custom point in time as it backs up Exchange servers as soon as the transactional logs are closed. However, I just add hourly backup to Al-taro for Exchange servers.”

-- Chaim Y.K., CEO at a tech services company

BY IT CENTRAL STATION TREND LINES

With corporate data more important than ever, selecting the best data back-up and recovery software for the organization would be a career-enhancing move. According to online reviews by enterprise users in the IT Central Station community, three of the top backup and recovery products on the market are Veeam Backup, HP Enterprise’s Data Protector, and Altaro VM

Backup. What do enterprise users really think about these tools? Here, users give a shout-out for some of their favorite features, but also give the vendors a little tough love.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 13

BY PATRICK MATUTREND LINES

Managing such mobility will be a differentiator in an organiza-tion’s digital transformational goals, therefore appropriate and effective strategies will be

adopted.

Mobile device management is the soft-ware distribution, policy, inventory, security and services management for mobile devices that connect to their en-terprise infrastructure e,g BYOD

Mobile application management is a SaaS tool, designed for license, distri-bution, security and life cycle manage-ment apps for mobile device platforms, they provide integration to public apps payments and licensing models

Mobile information management is key as information across both intranet and internet needs to be monitored or cen-sored, therefore access controls based on the sensitivity and employee role has to be considered, e.g VPN. Ease of access and speed is a paramount in de-termining the best strategy.

EMERGING ROLE OF CIO

Enterprise mobility management suites will be adopted to provide policy and configuration management tools for applications and content, based on smartphone operating systems. The market has evolved from previous-gen-eration mobile device management products that lacked application and content management.

The CIO will scale up to an integral new role as outlined.

• He will be answerable to the board of directors and provide guidance and road map on digital initiatives, tech-nology adoption, advancements and advise suitable business model inno-vation, in the wake of digital transfor-mation.

• He will be responsible for technolo-gy-driven business development and innovation. He will advise evolving financial management technolo-gies such as block chain and create awareness to the CFO on new busi-ness opportunities and risks with. He will spearhead any digital merger

and acquisition or investment op-portunities to enable the

company to continue innovating.

• Re s p o n s i -ble for advanced analytics  and proprietary algo-

rithms, which is pivotal to compet-

itive advantage, disruption of entire

digital business en-vironment, identify

risks on digital tech-nology adoption, de-

velop effective miti-gation strategies. This

includes areas such as cybersecurity, data se-

curity, data privacy and legal compli-ance. He will use advanced planning techniques informed by technology, industry and socio-economic data.

• Responsible for Creation, adoption and implementation of industry-spe-cific business platform services that leverage the company’s advanced digital capabilities. These platforms will be used by marketing in acqui-sition of new markets and will be offered to other organizations as an additional revenue stream to the or-ganization.

IN THE WAKE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, ENTERPRISE MOBILITY, RESOURCES, SKILL SET SCALABILITY WILL BE A KEY DRIVERS, COMPONENTS LIKE MOBILE DEVICES,

APPLICATIONS AND INFORMATION WILL DISPLACE LEGACY INFRASTRUCTURE MODEL WHILE ADOPTING AN OPEX

BUSINESS MODEL.

• CIO will have major executives, in-cluding the head of technology oper-ations, digital business development and innovation, and information se-curity and risk reporting to the posi-tion.

• CIOs are currently responsible for helping fellow executives use tech-nology to achieve their goals, in 2030, CIOs will instead be peers who collab-orate to identify and realize a digital business vision.

• Assume higher leadership role in or-ganizations due to increasing respon-sibilities for incubating technology, information and risk management, as well as business innovation. He will be responsible for digital busi-ness strategy and constantly review the same with the management and alert in case of potential threats and opportunities brought about by en-terprise mobility.

• CIO will assist HR in deciding how to acquire, challenge, orchestrate and retain digital talent. He will also help constitute a hybrid digital workforce, which will include algorithms, robots and smart machines alongside peo-ple.

(The author is the Associate Director Control Risks East Africa)

Mobile information management is key

as information across both intranet and

internet needs to be monitored or censored

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke14

BY MICHAEL NADEAU FEATURE

The most important change was incorporating workflow with mobile. That fundamentally

changes the things I can do.

It has not been all that long since peo-ple first started using their own mo-bile devices for work. It was a big deal at the time presenting a challenge for management and IT departments.

How would they keep the network and data safe with employees introducing external mobile access points to IT in-frastructures whose security is built on the assumption of a closed system? De-nying employees their devices was not an option — in part because top execu-tives also wanted mobile access.

Now, mobile access is a given. What’s more, the tools and concepts developed to secure and enable mobile devices are now used for all devices connected to the network, including desktops. This, in effect, creates a single approach for deploying and managing access to soft-ware and data, and for provisioning systems. Today’s largely cloud-based enterprise mobility management (EMM) tools can perform those tasks more se-

curely, easily, and efficiently than could earlier systems. EMM is having a pro-found effect on business processes and the role of IT.

“BlackBerry doing email was the killer app…” that started the mobile trend, says Ojas Rege, chief strategy officer at EMM vendor MobileIron. Rege breaks the timeline for enterprise mobility into three phases. “2009 was the starting point when the first encrypted iPhone came out,” he says.

“It was the first post-BlackBerry device, and IT knew nothing about it.” During this time, IT was in a reactionary mode, focused on getting email on iOS and An-droid devices in response to requests from employees and management. BlackBerry, now a significant provider of EMM solutions, acquired EMM vendor Good Software in 2015.

It was during that first stage that mobile device management (MDM) software

came into play. MDM was a predeces-sor of EMM, and it was used primarily for administration of mobile devices in terms of providing security and user management. Today, an EMM suite typ-ically includes MDM functionality along with other robust systems for managing content, security, applications, carriers, and containers.

“Some people thought mobile was just a passing fad,” says Paul Troisi, chief customer officer the mobility solutions provider Troy Mobility. “But the early adopters said no. They saw opportuni-ties for employees to be more produc-tive in the office. Within three to four years, those early adopters were saying, ‘Great! What’s next?’ ”

That sentiment ushered in the second mobility phase which lasted from 2012 to 2015. People realised they could do more than just email on their devices – they could share files, use productivity apps, or have meetings. At the enter-prise level, users and IT experienced what Rege calls “little ‘Aha!’ moments” around the use of mobile apps. For ex-ample, salespeople could present their collateral materials on tablets. “It wasn’t transformational,” Rege says, “just sim-ple things that help drive the business.”

The third phase, which started last year according to Rege, represents mobile going from a productivity-booster to a means of completely transforming the way businesses work. “The most important change was incorporating workflow with mobile,” he says. “That fundamentally changes the things I can do.” As an example, he cites retail where every employee can now use a mobile device to scan payment cards and bar codes making fixed-place, point-of-sale systems obsolete. That frees up store employees so they can have more face time with shoppers, and it makes for a better customer experience.

It is still early in this third phase. “Com-panies are still trying to stitch together [mobile apps] with old-school process-es,” says Troisi. “But we’re seeing more processes re-engineered to be mo-bile-first versus client-server.”

“What we’re seeing is a transition in emphasis to the lines of business,” says John Herrema, senior vice president of enterprise product management at BlackBerry. “[Executives] are asking,

UNIT ING THE DIGITAL ENTERPRISE

ENTERPRISE MOBILITY MANAGEMENT IS NOT JUST FOR MOBILE DEVICES AND APPLICATIONS ANYMORE.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 15

FEATURE

‘What am I trying to accomplish with my business? How do I align with my part-ners?’ ” Those executives, he says, real-ise that they have “the fabric in place” to do more with their businesses.

By “fabric,” Herrema is referring to EMM platforms and the fact that businesses can count on their partners and cus-tomers to use mobile devices in their work. “In a B2B environment, all con-tractors, partners, and extended enter-prise workers have the same tools I do,” he says, “and that allows me to engage with them better.”

Mobile supplants desktop modelsOnce you start changing business pro-cesses to accommodate mobile appli-cations, it no longer makes sense to have separate ways for securing mobile and desktop devices, or different pro-cesses for deploying, provisioning, and managing software. The architectures of the leading mobile operating systems – Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Mi-crosoft’s Windows 10 – have inherent advantages over their desktop-oriented counterparts in terms of security and software life-cycle management.

This trend influenced virtualization software vendor VMware’s decision to acquire the AirWatch EMM platform more than two years ago. Blake Bran-non, VMware’s vice president of product marketing, recalls mobile’s transition from a messaging tool to its position in today’s IT landscape. “As the space matured, [companies asked] ‘What’s the difference between mobile and desktop?’ [EMM] delivers a unified solution that enables the digital workplace,” he says. “Software can be pushed out and updated for both mobile and desktop systems. You can only do that with EMM.”

In 2007, Apple changed that approach essentially by putting applications in a sandbox. All iOS applications had their own memory and storage isolating them from the system and other appli-cations. “Apple put a hard line between the operating system and ap-plications,” says Rege. “This is why traditional viruses don’t exist on iOS.” Apple’s approach also allows for system upgrades that don’t break applications.

Then, with the introduction of iOS 4 in 2010, Apple made some changes that paved the way for mobile to become more deeply entrenched in the enter-prise: iOS 4 allowed the creation of cryp-tographic primitives that only a single service of high privilege could access. “This provided one single-point of trust,” says Rege. “No app has the authority to take system-level action. Only IT can.”

Also built into iOS 4 was a mobile man-agement framework. Apple’s decision not to build its own enterprise manage-ment server gave rise to the EMM mar-ket as other vendors stepped in. “That’s what created MobileIron,” says Rege. This model has since been adopted by both Google in Android, and Microsoft in Windows 10.

These characteristics of mobile archi-tecture are IT-friendly, especially when combined with a strong EMM platform. IT can minimise time spent on setting up and managing security concerns. “[EMM] provides a much lighter, more agile ap-proach to security,” says Rege. “IT won’t have to touch the device as much.”

Enterprise software leader SAP has ad-opted this approach across its offerings. “Our focus is on making it simple for our customers to consume SAP content,” says Senthil Krishnapillai, global vice president and head of development for

digital experience services at SAP. The company sells its own EMM product suite under the SAP Mobile Secure brand.

EMM also enables the consumer app model regarding app delivery. Typically, users have access to a menu of secure, approved apps from which they can se-lect the app they need for their work. If they use an app for both personal and professional use – Dropbox, for example – that app can be configured in the EMM platform to keep content separate. If a user leaves the company, IT can easily cut off access to work-related content while the user retains access to any-thing personal.

“We want to give the customer the best user experience,” says Krishnapillai. “Mobile is no longer limited to [mobile] technology. It’s made a pivot. Saying mobile is like saying ‘everything.’ ” SAP has built its technology stack and prod-ucts so they can be consumed on mo-bile.

With EMM, there’s less hassle related to approval processes, data, or software integration, provisioning, or configuring for things like connectivity. Nor does IT have to worry about training users. It is all set up once, and users quickly teach themselves how to use the software. “Users are well educated, and they’re all accustomed to the mobile model,” says Rege.

The EMM model also enables IT to guard against bad user behaviour. “Risky files or messages can be blacklisted in

MobileIron,” says Rege. “If they are downloaded, the device is quaran-tined until the file is uninstalled.”

Most EMM vendors also have app stores where their customers can

download tools that are ready to work with their platforms and vetted for security. SAP, for example, puts apps through a four-week scanning process to find security issues. “Ev-

ery app has an encrypted store, single sign-on – all the things you need to do to release the app,” says Krishnapillai. Those apps might be developed by SAP

or a third party. Such app stores make it easy to find ready-made sys-

tems, relieving customers of the need to “reinvent the

wheel.”

Self-service access to apps does present a challenge

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke16

FEATURE

to IT, but it is a manageable one. The key is having good criteria for evaluat-ing which apps to make available. “The demand to build new proprietary appli-cations and expose third-party appli-cations through the [VMware] AirWatch platform continues to grow,” says Nicole O’Hagan, senior manager for digital se-curity, operations and enterprise mo-bility as Australia’s ANZ Bank. “At ANZ, we assess new demand for mobility solutions against three key tests: is the request technically feasible, is it com-mercially viable, and will it offer a great customer or employee experience? If the answer is yes on all fronts, we will continue to invest in this space.”

All this translates to lower total cost of ownership for managing enterprise soft-ware and users. Rege estimates that the mobile model costs about 80 percent less than the desktop PC management model. “With user self-service,” he says, “the load on IT is dramatically lowered.”

“We want to do to the desktop what we did for mobile. The traditional way of PC management is horrible,” says VMware’s Brannon. He estimates that it costs a company $100 to $150 to set up a sin-gle desktop PC – a process that involves installing a system image, layering in se-curity, installing antivirus software, and so on. “With EMM, one [employee] can support tens of thousands of devices,” he says.

EMM will set IT freeWhat will IT do with all that free time? The consensus is that it should build apps, delivered through an EMM plat-form, which solve problems or boost productivity. In essence, that means adding value instead of spending time on tasks that contribute to overhead costs.

The biggest challenge is making apps intuitive to use, but that is the kind of challenge that most IT developers would welcome. Indeed, at SAP, Krish-napillai says, “our developers love to build apps and distribute them to their peers.” These apps might simply dis-seminate news about SAP internally or

help arrange carpools, but developers can vet and distribute them through the EMM platform without negatively affect-ing the business as long as they follow certain policies and protocols.

“Customers customise [applications] to the nth degree,” says Krishnapillai. “We have enabled our customers to cus-tomise the user interface [and extend the business logic].” Customisation has allowed companies to fine-tune enter-prise applications to their purposes, but often at the price of creating problems during upgrades or when integrating with other applications. By managing that, customisation with proper exten-sions leaves the core code intact while achieving the same benefits.

Transformation requires a strategyChanging or improving workflow re-quires a strategy that leverages what mobile can bring to both the business and IT. Most companies have yet to adopt such a strategy, according to Rege. “If you ask if a company has a mo-bile strategy, all will say yes, but most are still just doing email,” he says.

Creating a successful mobile strategy requires executive buy-in and a sponsor – probably a line-of-business manager. “Someone has to say, ‘I can gain a com-petitive advantage if I can reinvent this process,’ ” says Rege. The strategy also needs to account for the IT competen-cies required. Specifically, the IT team needs to understand the security and application stack for the iOS, Android, and Windows 10 architectures. Com-panies that have high-security require-ments or are heavily regulated will need to have a clear understanding of what it will take for their mobile applications to be in compliance.

Execution of a strategy often requires collaboration among multiple inter-nal – and sometimes external – groups. “Mobility is not something that one team can own,” says ANZ’s O’Hagan. “The success that we have had to date in the rollout – which will continue into mid next year – is the combined efforts

of a number of people from across tech-nology teams.” She says the initiative includes people who specialise in infra-structure, platform management, archi-tecture, security, human resources (the executive sponsors), group communi-cations, digital business, and consumer digital delivery, as well as AirWatch.

O’Hagan recommends a divide-and-con-quer approach. “Breaking the project into smaller, more manageable compo-nents and then delivering those com-ponents as one team has allowed us to face what started as a difficult challenge with relative ease,” she says.

Beyond mobile and desktop devicesWhen you ask experts what other types of systems might benefit from the EMM model in terms of security, connectivity, and provisioning services and software, the answer is “the internet of things.” “EMM is just as relevant to an X-ray machine or a connected car as it is to a smartphone,” says Rege.

Troisi says another “overwhelming trend” affecting EMM adoption is the rise in the number of organisations that are embracing cloud computing. Apps are rapidly supplanting browsers as the pre-ferred means of accessing cloud-based platforms, and companies want to ensure that app-based access is confidential and secure. EMM systems provide a single point from which IT can set policies and manage access, regardless of what kinds of devices employees are using.

Brannon says that EMM can also enable the digitisation of manual processes. Take the example of processing a pa-per form. Converting a form to a digital file is easy, but creating a process that uses digital forms is not. “EMM enables the use-case to switch from a manual to digital process,” he says. “You need EMM to manage the scale.”

BlackBerry’s Herrema says that use of EMM systems can enable an organisation to truly become an extended enterprise. With EMM, he says, “internal employees can take advantage of mobility and then extend the right apps and processes to external stakeholders. EMM provides one infrastructure you can count on for all partners and customers.”

(Michael Nadeau is an analyst and writ-er in New Hampshire.)

We want to do to the desktop what we did for mobile. The traditional way of PC

management is horrible.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 17

PICTORIAL BY ARTHUR KINTU

THE AFRICA SECURITY SUMMIT AT A GLANCE:

The Second Africa Security Summit event was with over whelming success concluded on June 15, 2017. The Event which is hosted by CIO East Africa targeted the

C-suit (CEOs, CIOs and CFOs,) to create awareness on security and sight solu-tions to secure their businesses. We take you through a visionary impact on what transpired.

Catherine Muraga Director ICT and Operations Sidian Bank

Dr. Bright Gameli Mawudor Head Information Security and Risk and the Director Foresight Tech Group

Martin Walshaw Senior Systems Engineer Sub-Saharan Africa F5

One of the participants seeking clarification Raymond Mucharia Internet Solutions

Pratik Roy of VMware

(L-R) William Makatiani Seriano Ronnie Maina TBM Manikandan Natarajan Paramount and Micheal Njenga IT Manager Subaru and CIO East Africa Chairman Board of Directors Harry Hare

Teddy Kungu Regional Manager ESET East Africa

Samson Odaga Presales Manager Sophos

Joan Amanjo Technology Risk and Information Security Manager-Old Mutual

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke18

BY CHRISTINE WACHIRA TREND LINES

With cost saving prioritization being the main focus of many businesses across the globe, it has become imperative to find the right tools to better understand different business operations as well as ensure that big data delivers on customer understanding.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been po-sitioned as a tool that can promote effi-ciency through providing clearer visibil-ity of operations and flagging potential disruptions.

Vodacom Business Kenya has made signif-icant inroads in delivering services that en-able customers to measure success in an ef-fective way through the various IoT services that are offered across different business sectors - from financial services to the agri-cultural sector.

In a recent study conducted by Vodafone, 73% of respondents agreed that IoT is critical to the success of organizations in EMEA. Fur-ther to that, 89% of the respondents claimed to have increased IoT projects in their organi-zations in the 12 months prior. This shows a high level of consideration for better automa-tion of services across the region.

More customers are making enquiries regard-ing how to adopt this service and enjoy its associated benefits. Vodacom Business Ken-ya has a solution orientated team of experts who ensure that each business adopts the right solution for its particular needs.

A full suite of IT services that are required to support internet connectivity and the IoT mobility can also be delivered through this team. Vodacom Business Kenya connects thousands of multi- national organizations to East African countries, including Kenya,

Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Southern Sudan and Burundi. As a company within the Vodacom group, Vodacom Business Kenya gives access to global connectivity as well.

Internet connectivity is an em-powering tool to promote eco-nomic development and better access to education, health and productivity. A study con-ducted by Deloitte UK proves that in the long run the produc-tivity in developing countries increases by 25% (Value of con-nectivity: economic and social benefits of expanding internet access).

EAST AFRICA IS READY FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

The 4th industrial revolution has necessitat-ed that companies consider digitization at a holistic level instead of fragmented solutions across different business units. In order to leverage this current transition to digital de-ployment, CIOs need to address different IT & automation requirements in a more integrat-ed manner.

Vodacom Business Kenya facilitates the end to end solution and works with the custom-ers’ legacy issues through understanding the current architecture and ensuring better op-erational agility.

“Our aim is to ensure that we empower busi-nesses to participate in economic activity through access to the internet. With our ro-bust understanding of the local environment, we are well equipped to serve our customers in a knowledgeable manner and with deeply informed ICT implementation,” says Marika Gecaga, Country Manager Vodacom Business Kenya.

Vodacom Business Kenya’s MPLS Network reach spans across Africa with on-the-ground presence in over 16 countries and a network footprint which provides reliable connectivi-ty to over 42. Wherever your business oper-ates, with Vodacom your communication is seamless, efficient and productive.

We use a robust core network which ensures service stability as we have invested in reli-able backhaul connections via three subma-rine cables; SEACOM, TEAMS (north-bound) and EASSY (south-bound), ensuring maxi-mum uptime on the MPLS backbone, internet capacity through the fiber optic gateways and VSAT technology. The access network is built on diverse fibre networks to enhance service levels as well as ensure stability of the links with redundancy on the international backbone.

Many global organizations have regional of-fices and sites across the African continent, each with their own performance challenges and budgetary limitations. No matter how rural the landscape, our massive footprint and unique solutions can connect any office across Africa.

(The author is a Sales Specialist at Vodacom Business Africa- Kenya)

19 www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA

BY TEDDY NJOROGETREND LINES

It all begins with the MS17-010 ExploitThe EternalBlue Exploit, otherwise known as MS17-010, developed by the NSA and pilfered by the Shadow Bro-kers continues to open opportunities for malicious malware authors as fresh ransomware attacks continue to ravage Europe while spreading through the globe at an alarming pace. Notably, it has become evident that in the realm of cybersecurity, the adage of once bitten, twice shy, seldom applies as unpatched computer systems have been utilised for a second time by cybercriminals to achieve exponential infection rates, reminiscent of the WannaCry nightmare that the globe experienced only two months ago.

NotPetyaThe malicious software has been iden-tified as a modified version of a previ-ously known ransomware, called Petya or Petrwrap, that has been substantially altered, prompting a debate among re-searchers over whether it is new mal-ware. Due to its unique characteristics, it has been dubbed as NotPetya and ExPetya, which is currently detected by ESET as Win32/Diskcoder.C Trojan. If it successfully infects the MBR (Master Boot Record), it will encrypt the whole drive itself. Otherwise, it encrypts all files, like Mischa.

How does NotPetya replicate?In many ways, NotPetya can be termed as a worm, which can self-replicate across multiple networks. Petya uses two primary methods to spread across networks. These include:

Execution across network shares: It attempts to spread to the target computers by copying itself to [COM-PUTER NAME]\\admin$ using the acquired credentials. It is then exe-cuted remotely using either PsExec or the Windows Management Instru-mentation Command-line (WMIC) tool. Both are legitimate tools.SMB exploits: It attempts to spread using variations of the EternalBlue and EternalRomance exploits.

Crucially, NotPetya seeks to gain ad-ministrator access on a machine and then leverages that power to comman-deer other computers on the network: it takes advantage of the fact that far too many organizations employ flat net-works in which an administrator on one endpoint can control other machines, or sniff domain admin credentials pres-ent in memory, until total control over the Windows network is achieved. It achieves primary access through using

phishing techniques to trick administra-tors into running the malware with high privileges.

What institutions have been adversely affected?The most severe damage is being re-ported by Ukrainian businesses, with systems compromised at Ukraine’s cen-tral bank, state telecom, municipal met-ro, and Kiev’s Boryspil Airport. Systems were also compromised at Ukraine’s Ukrenego electricity supplier, although a spokesperson said the power supply was unaffected by the attack. The at-tack has even affected operations at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which has switched to manual radiation moni-toring as a result of the attack. Infections have also been reported in more isolated devices like point-of-sale terminals and ATMs. The virus has also spread internationally. The Danish ship-ping company Maersk has also reported systems down across multiple sites, in-cluding the company’s Russian logistics arm Damco. The virus also reached serv-ers for the Russian oil company Rosneft, although it’s unclear how much damage was incurred. There have also been sev-eral recorded cases in the United States, including the pharmaceutical company Merck, a Pittsburgh-area hospital, and the US offices of law firm DLA Piper.The attacks have been indiscriminate across every vulnerable vertical as in-stitution after institution falls short against the unique threat posed by Not-Petya.

Why Africans should be concerned about the current global ransomware trendThe current global ransomware trend, of utilising the EternalBlue Exploit in or-der to take advantage of the vast use of the Windows Operating System should send chills down the spines of any exec-utive worth his salt in the African Digital

Market for the following reasons.Firstly, more than 80% of enterprise servers and endpoints in the African Digital Economy run on the Windows Operating System, thus exposing major-ity of our organisations to the next-gen-erational strains of ransomware being designed by savvy malware authors. Moreover, a significant percentage of these Windows systems are run on leg-acy platforms such as XP and Windows Vista which exponentially increase the probability that these systems are prob-ably unpatched.Secondly, there is an astounding num-ber of citizens who are unaware of the cybersecurity risks present within their daily lives. Kenya, serves as a key ex-ample to the plight of the African dig-ital economy. With an 85.3% internet penetration rate, Kenya boasts a wealth of 37.7m netizens, actively contribut-ing to their digital ecosystem. More-over, due to the proliferation of mobile banking, internet banking continues to rise within the region. However, con-trary to logical perception, about 90% of Kenya’s netizens remain unaware of the increased cyber risks within their digital market. This poses a unique and advanced risk as ransomware’s primary source of entry is through AIn conclusion, new strains of ransom-ware seem to tactically replicate across networks utilising unpatched Windows systems and untrained company per-sonnel through phishing e-mails to wreak havoc across targeted networks. The African Digital Economy is especial-ly vulnerable to these risks as they ex-ploit our unique weaknesses.

Our recommendations:• Invest in new-school cybersecurity

awareness training.• Deploy reputable endpoint protec-

tion.• Strengthen your business continuity

capabilities.• Evaluate and Patch Installed Soft-

ware.• Monitor access rights

(Teddy Njoroge, Country Manager ESET East Africa)

PETYA: Yet another nightmare

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke20

W When the world wide web was first invented over 25 years ago, no one could have predicted

it would have such enormous social, technological and economical impact, attracting over 3.5 billion users today. Certainly, nobody envisioned the internet ever being used to connect toasters, egg trays and dog collars.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the logical next step for our increasingly connected society. IoT focuses on embedding connectivity and intelligence in devices, enabling businesses to collect vast volumes of data in near real-time. Using new levels of data and intelligence, businesses are then able to reinvent business models and transform customer experiences.

The IoT ecosystem is rapidly taking shape. According to Gartner, there are already an estimated 8.4 billion connected things in use worldwide in 2017, which is set to reach an astonishing 20.4 billion by 2020.

Furthermore, the analyst firm believes IoT will reach mainstream adoption in the next two to five years in Africa, where it is expected to have a “transformational impact” on local businesses.

Growing use cases The use cases for IoT across a range of industry verticals is potentially limitless.

Smart city projects are emerging across the globe, which share a vision to connect key infrastructure such as transport, energy, waste and healthcare, in an attempt to create a more efficient and safe

public environment. Industries such as oil, gas and mining are under pressure to improve efficiencies and drive profitability, leading many organisations to pursue greater automation and deploy IoT.

Compelling use cases for IoT are also emerging across Africa. In agriculture, remote sensors are being used to monitor crops, generating valuable information for farmers on water and soil moisture levels. IoT is widely tipped to transform farming and food production in the future. According to some estimates, agricultural IoT deployments will increase food production by 70% and be feeding up to 9.6 billion people by 2050.

IoT technology is being used to improve water monitoring, paving the way for new methods to conserve water, monitor usage and ensure communities are supplied with clean water.

With an estimated one million hand pumps that supply water to over 200 million rural water users across Africa, IoT can also play a crucial role in the maintenance of this equipment.

In Africa, IoT has also been used for animal conservation, where special networks have been deployed to accurately monitor endangered species and improve operations at national parks.

Barriers to adoption While IoT presents exciting new opportunities for businesses, there are also significant challenges to overcome. Cybersecurity has become of global concern as high-profile attacks have

LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITY FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS

To access the full IoT report, visit: www.liquidtelecom.com

dominated media headlines, raising awareness and fear of data breaches amongst consumers and businesses alike.

The increase in connected devices potentially offers more entry points for hackers. While consumers are experiencing significant benefits from smart home applications – such as reduced energy consumption and a lower electricity bill – it can also leave their homes more prone to a cyberattack. IoT also presents an extension of existing privacy concerns for consumers - as more of their life becomes connected, how do they know which data is off limit to the rest of the world?

Equally, industry can also leave itself vulnerable in the migration to IoT. Think about the potential consequences of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as power grids and water plants.

As the business case for IoT grows, more enterprises will turn to vendors, telecoms providers and systems integrators to help them on their journey. Increasing collaboration will help iron out technical complexities and drive down cost. A new report from Liquid Telecom will be available in July that explores some of these themes further and assesses how the appetite for IoT applications is developing across the region. AfriCAN IoT Report 2017 will take an in-depth look at some of the key industries pioneering the way and the IoT strategies needed for a successful future.

The Internet of Things (IoT) market is fast gaining traction across Africa, where increasing internet access is presenting new opportunities to connect a range of industries, goods, products and everyday objects.

CIO Advertorial July 17 AH EDIT.indd 1 19/06/2017 11:36

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 21

We can help grow world-class business out of Africa.

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Liquid African General DPS CIO v2 July17.indd 1 19/06/2017 10:58

We can help grow world-class business out of Africa.

We believe in the ambition and potential of African business. It’s why we’ve built Africa’s largest fibre infrastructure and provide an award-winning satellite network, capable of keeping any enterprise connected, protected and competitive at all times. Because we are not just a telecoms company.

We are your technology partner.

AFRICAN.

Building Africa’s digital futurewww.liquidtelecom.com

Liquid African General DPS CIO v2 July17.indd 1 19/06/2017 10:58

BY JEANETTE OLOOTREND LINES

Looking at one of Deloitte’s report titled “The digital workplace: Think, share, do – Transform your employee experience,” I decid-ed to investigate what has really

changed in the workplace environment.

The report started off by stating that the workplace is no longer merely a physi-cal space employees occupy during reg-ular office hours.

“To accurately reflect their staff’s changing work experience, leading or-ganizations have begun to implement an entirely new working environment – the digital workplace. By integrating the technologies that employees use (from e-mail, instant messaging and enterprise social media tools to HR ap-plications and virtual meeting tools), the digital workplace breaks down com-munication barriers, positioning you to transform the employee experience by fostering efficiency, innovation and growth. The key to success, however, lies in the effective implementation of a digital workplace strategy capable of driving true cultural change,”

This, in turn, begs the question what the digital workplace actually means and according to the report, the digital workplace can best be considered the natural evolution of the physical work-place. It is comprised of your employ-ees’ technology-based working envi-ronment.

The digital workplace encompasses all the technologies people use to get

DIGITAL WORKPLACE STRATEGY IS THE WAY FOR ORGANISATIONS TO BETTER

DELIVER BUSINESS VALUEA LOT HAS BEEN SAID, RESEARCHED, AND WRITTEN ABOUT THE NEED FOR DIGITAL

WORKPLACE TRANSFORMATION, DELOITTE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ON THE FOREFRONT OF THIS ISSUE WITH THEIR RESEARCH.

work done in today’s workplace – both the ones in operation and the ones yet to be implemented. Teams across time zones and countries can work remotely while staying connected via Skype, VoIP, email, and cloud-stored files. 

The report emphasised the need for each organisation heading the digital way to adopt a digital workplace strat-egy with clearly defined business objec-tives and technology priorities. Strive to understand what you want to accom-plish with your digital workplace ini-tiative and how it will deliver business value.

The report further states that organ-isations need to put in place a digital workplace framework. While there are no hard-and-fast rules governing the design of a digital workplace, leading practices do exist.

The following digital workplace frame-work, for instance, provides organisa-tions with a tool to understand their current digital workplace and identify areas of opportunity to support a better way of doing business by helping you think holistically about the tools you use in your workplace.

The digital workplace framework in-cludes four layers covering the follow-ing components:

USE: COLLABORATE, COMMUNICATE, CONNECT The digital workplace is all about the employees’ ability to do their job by col-

laborating, communicating, and con-necting with others. The goal is to forge productive business relationships with-in and beyond natural work groups and to enable knowledge sharing across the organisation.

TECHNOLOGY: THE DIGITAL TOOLBOX Technology enables the digital work-place. Each organization already has a digital workplace toolbox with dif-ferent tools. Depending on your in-dustry and business needs, the tools needed to support your digital work-place will vary. The key is to adopt the right tools for your employees to do their jobs.

CONTROL: GOVERNANCE, RISK AND COMPLIANCE The effective use of technology in the digital workplace is underpinned by appropriate controls. This means you must support the digital workplace with appropriate governance structures and management processes. Information flow and use must also comply with your organization’s policies and indus-try regulations.

BUSINESS DRIVERS: MEASURABLE BUSINESS VALUE As with any core initiative, it is essen-tial for business needs to drive the dig-ital workplace. To deliver the necessary benefits, the direction of your organiza-tion should guide the direction of your digital workplace.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke24

BY RYAN MULE TREND LINES

The ability to use today’s mobile devices to work on the move re-mains a high requirement for the modern mobile professional per-son who needs to respond to in-

formation in real time and also create content in real time without having to always rely on bulky laptops when on the move.

Samsung DEX is a smartphone docking solution that expands the usability of the new Galaxy S8/S8+ for more busi-ness and productivity oriented users. It provides a PC like experience straight from the smartphone.

To get started, users simply insert their Samsung smartphone into the DeX Sta-tion, which connects the smartphone to multiple ports including 2 USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, HDMI port and USB type C port that provides fast charging to the device while docked. These ports allow for peripherals such as a Key-board, Mouse, PC Monitor or TV screen and Ethernet cable to be attached to the Galaxy S8/S8+.

The DEX station also has its own inbuilt cooling fan to keep the S8/S8+ cool over prolonged use. More importantly, once connected to the dock, the DEX station renders a PC like User interface directly onto the screen of your choice.

A desktop is rendered complete with task bar allowing you to access apps, files and settings on the device through PC like contextual menus. Users can

also open and interact with multiple windows just as they would on a desk-top PC or laptop thus opening up wider multi-tasking capabilities beyond what a regular phablet or tablet can offer.

With the combination of a PC style UI and peripherals connected via the dock, the S8 is effectively transformed into a mobile PC allowing you to work more effectively from your smartphone while on the move.

The DEX station can benefit corporate users in multiple scenarios. For example an employees traveling to subsidiaries in other countries can simply carry their Galaxy S8/S8+ and DEX station with them and upon arrival at the subsidiary office they can simply connect to the available peripherals on site. Further-more, If the user’s IT department has provisioned the services of Virtual desk-top solutions, then extended usabili-ty can be achieved as the DEX station can be used for easier remote desktop access to their office PC/laptop back in their main office.

As the DEX station allows for connec-tion to HDMI compatible hardware, it can also be used to conduct presenta-tions without the need for projectors or laptops where screens are already on site. A travelling corporate user can also work comfortably from their hotel room as they would simply connect the DEX station to the Hotel room TV via the HDMI port and plug in their portable keyboard and mouse peripherals.

While connected to the DEX station, the S8/S8+ is still able to receive messages, app notifications and calls, all of which can still be interacted with via the PC interface rendered on screen by the DEX station. Moreover, employees with flexi-ble hours can also work more effectively from home using the DEX station.

To make the most out of the DEX station the Samsung Galaxy App store features a special section dedicated to applica-tions optimized for the DEX station. The Samsung DEX station is compatible with Samsung Galaxy S8 & S8+ smartphones and will soon be available at the Sam-sung experience store located at ICEA building, Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi, CBD.

(Ryan Mule is the Product Manager at Samsung Electronics East Africa Sam-sung Electronics East Africa)

SAMSUNG DEX ENABLES PRODUCTIVITY FOR MOBILE WORKERS

ADVANCEMENTS IN MOBILE TECHNOLOGY HAVE ALLOWED FOR MOBILE DEVICES TO TRANSCEND BEYOND BASIC

COMMUNICATION, WITH TODAY’S SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS BECOMING PRODUCTIVITY AND BUSINESS POWERHOUSES.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 25

BY LILIAN MUTEGICOVER STORY

Davis & Shirtliff Walking the innovation journey with

WATER AND ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROVIDER DAVIS & SHIRTLIFF MARKED A MAJOR MILESTONE LAST YEAR, ITS 70TH ANNIVERSARY. THIS IS AN ACHIEVEMENT THAT IS NOT

BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR ANY ORGANIZATION, ESPECIALLY ONE THAT HAS THE SAME FAMILY SHAREHOLDING AND ESSENTIALLY THE SAME MARKET FOCUS SINCE ITS FOUNDING.

The company credits this success to its commercial focus, manageable ambition and, most importantly, living the values of quality, Integri-ty and ‘Altiora Peto’, a Latin phrase

that translates to embracing continu-ous change.  

The company has leveraged technolo-gy as a key enabler to drive its revenue and growth. Emphasis has been placed

on infrastructure investment and a ful-ly integrated ICT network to manage its large product portfolio and spare parts stocks.  The robust ICT infrastructure supports the over 500 staff with their day-to-day operations.

While speaking to Mr. Joab Mak’Ongul, Head of IT, at Davis & Shirtliff, to best understand how the company was mak-ing use of technology,  it was apparent

that innovation was key in everything the company did. He told us that most of the innovations were customized in-house, making it easy for them to up-grade the systems whenever there was a need to. 

To further explain his role as a head of IT , Mr. Mak’Ongul said, he was respon-sible for overseeing the IT function in the business which include software,

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke26

COVER STORY

SynchroTeam is a cloud based mobile workforce management solution we have deployed in our

Service division for our technicians...

solutions help us get first hand notifi-cation alerts on equipment at various remote sites and address issues our customers’ equipment might be going through real time. Sometimes the cus-tomer gets updates real time and direct-ly from the system, for instance a bore-hole failure,” he added.

IT communicating to the business’ overall strategy The Davis & Shirtliff Group mission and vision reports: “The Davis & Shirtliff as-pires to become a  World Class organi-zation comparable in every way to the best international standards by demon-strating exceptional levels of corporate performance, professionalism and in-tegrity and must set the example that an indigenous African organization can compete at the highest level in its se-lected field of activity.”

To achive this vision, Mr. Mak’Ongul is certain that IT has to play a significant role. “With a total of 57 branches across 8 countries, you cannot manage all

these branches manually. We have a management accounts reporting sys-tem that generates the required output information and sent to the target offi-cers by the second day of the month. IT here plays a major role as it ensures the management gets the right reports ac-curately and on time, our customers are informed and our staff work efficiently.”. 

The company has also adopted a shared services model most of the common business functions such as finance, sup-ply chain management, manufacturing and human resource. For the business to run efficiently on this shared services model IT systems need to have high availability and dependable. “Our role is to make sure the business systems are available to enable our internal cus-tomers operate efficiently and facilitate growth,” he continued.

Some of the on-going projectsSynchro Team: Currently Davis & Shirtliff has implemented a workforce management system known as the SynchroTeam. The system helps moni-tor and manage the work assignment, movement and reporting of technicians.  

“SynchroTeam is a cloud based mobile workforce management solution we have deployed in our service division for our technicians and is integrated with our core systems,” explained Mr. Mak’Ongul. 

He added that since its implementation the system has increased work order com-pletion rate by 50% and reduced travel and overtime costs and more importantly the solution has improved the company’s after-sales service levels and service con-tract management for customers.

The system also undercuts the manual initiation of jobs and tasks assignments on physical boards to a much more so-phisticated Interactive Online Service Planning and Scheduling Management facility which is easily and securely ac-cessible from anywhere at any time and through any device - mobile phone, tab-let, iPad or PC.  

systems and IT infrastructure. “On the resource management side my prime focus is on innovations and systems,” he added. 

Mak’Ongul’s vision as a the head of IT is mainly driven by sourcing and im-plementing solutions that support the growth of the business and achieve its stated objectives.

“We are very clear about the role of IT in the organization and its our belief that any business that runs without IT is doomed,” Mak’Ongul said. “So we have to ensure we have IT Systems in place that drive us to the next level,” he con-tinued. 

So how does Davis & Shirtliff use IT to enhance service delivery? Besides the entire Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) which revolves around Finance Management, Supply, Service and Human Resource management, the company uses IT to manage the man-ufacturing and distribution side of the business. This is in line with their focus to deliver high quality products and de-livered efficiently to their customers.  

“We have a service division where we implement solutions that help us com-municate effectively with our custom-ers. A good example is our iDayliff and Service Management solutions. The

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 27

COVER STORY

Features include a drag-and-Drop Job booking app, a map and GPS tracking which helps know where technicians are, Jobs allocation and monitoring feature, this helps lookup jobs done in the past and allocate jobs far into the future. 

The system also has a mobile app and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that pulls all customer informa-tion from ERP in one place. The system is also customizable (APIs included) to help enhance the business processes and offers great support from the ven-dor. 

“All of these are without breaking the bank – extremely affordable and very cost-effective through monthly subscrip-tion payments. This has become the de facto standard for our Field Service man-agement,” added Mr. Mak’Ongul.

iDAYLIFF: This is a high specification internet-based system remote monitor-ing and control of equipment Internet of Things (IoT) solution that was de-

veloped in-house. The product is fitted with sensors which helps monitor the performance of Dayliff equipment real time from the site. If there is a problem it communicates to the service manager and service team and if customers have subscribed to it, it updates them as well.

It is available as an option with any DAY-LIFF pump, generator, solar and water treatment installation and provides us-ers with specific information regarding the operation of their equipment. The iDAYLIFF system is built on modern in-frastructure to ensure reliability, speed and accuracy of information.

Daily Report: The Company also man-ages its accounts through what is re-ferred to as a daily operations platform. The platform generates daily reports across all branches which are then au-tomatically scheduled and sent to the Managers on a daily basis.

Staff Appraisal: For continuous review of staff performance and motivation as-pects, the company has implemented a

simple but efficient in-house developed solution based on SharePoint platform which is accessed online by all staff and managers across the group.

Some of Projects in the pipeline The past twelve months have seen a huge rise in the deployment of cloud solutions in the region with most of the companies moving their office productivity tools and applications to the cloud. The drive has been mainly as a result of the cost savings on the subscription model that comes with most cloud deployments and the busi-ness-anywhere promise. Cloud and mo-bility are inseperably!

According to Mak’Ongul, this is a jour-ney they are prepared to travel. “We are moving some of our systems to the cloud and are exploring a Hybrid Cloud model since not everything will move to the cloud in big bang,” he said. “Our approach is to implement cloud-based solutions in phases; Skype for Business application will be moved to cloud as it was initially implemented and host-ed on premise. We use Skype for Busi-ness to enhance our staff collaboration through communication, training and meetings. We have successfully part-nered with Microsoft to deploy Office 365 and moved all our emails to the cloud,” he continued.” The company has also deployed SharePoint to man-age documents and automate process-es and are currently reviewing our se-curity systems with a view of upgrading the existing systems. 

The cloud business model is what is Mak’Ongul considers to be most dis-ruptive. “Cloud computing is exciting because of how it is done; we do not have to own a datacenter. Initially we had to buy a lot of datacenter equip-ment but due to the OPEX model now we are able to cut down on CAPEX. This lowers the technology acquisition costs and moves your investment to deployment of systems and applica-tions,” concluded.

“The other exciting technology is IoT and how it helps us manage borehole pumping equipment from wherever they are and serving our customers better,” said Mak’Ongul.  The compa-ny uses IoT to manage, bill and main-tain borehole equipment leased to

Our approach is to implement cloud-based solutions in phases; Skype for Business application

will be moved to cloud as it was initially implemented and hosted on premise.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke28

COVER STORY

customers. The company supplies the equipment but the equipment is not owned by the customer, so they pay on a monthly subscription. “With IoT, we can monitor the equipment and man-age the data we get effectively. With this comes the system integration interfaces to ensure seamless linking to our core ERP and CRM applications and custom-er facing digital business applications,” he continued.

“On digital transformation, E-commerce is another platform that we are invest-ing in to ensure that we readily enhance and competitively serve our customers and collaborate with all stakeholders better. With the integration, though comes the security issues which must continuously be addressed and this still remains as one of my biggest challenge. The fact is that we have to keep on opening and checking the systems to in-tegrate with MPESA, banks and suppli-

ers, both the data and systems security is critical at all ends” he added. 

Milestones: “One is we never used to have virtual-ization, and now we are in a fully virtu-alized infrastructure. We used to have quite a number of physical boxes in our server room. We have established a highly efficient datacenter, having progressively upgraded and replaced equipment and currently running on Simplivity, which is a Hyper-conver-gence Solution,” he said, “We chose Simplivity because of its power and ef-fectiveness; it is currently part of HPE. We have a primary data center and as well an offsite with real-time data and applications replication and backups. Since its installation we have had less downtime, a lot of saving because it re-duces the physical devices we have at our datacenter.” 

The company is named after its two founders. The Davis & Shirtliff History reports: “The

company was founded in 1946 by EC (Eddie) Davis and FR (Dick) Shirtliff, Mr Davis having left the army with a gratuity which he spent buying a stake in a small plumbing business he had worked with as a contractor. Mr Shirtliff soon joined him and the ini-tial expertise was provided by Italian ex-prisoners of war.  

Notable early projects included the water supply for Karen Estates, the en-tire water supply infrastructure until the mid-60’s being installed by D&S. Also other estates supplies including Gigiri, Kitisuru, Kibagare, Rosslyn and later Runda were also D&S projects. 

In the 50s the company added swim-ming pools as part of its activities, both residential and commercial, and many were built that are still in use to-day including Limuru Girls School, Lo-reto Convent, Kenya High School and the YMCA as well as many residential pools.  

The company also installed water treatment plants at all the Kengen Tana River hydro power stations. In 1970 partner Dick Shirtliff retired and his shareholding was purchased by a long serving staff member, Devji Shin-gadia. He and Eddie Davis then ran the

company, retiring CEO Alec Davis join-ing in 1976. 

Eddie Davis passed away in 1982 at the age of 79 and Alec then assumed his shareholding, in 1990 purchasing Shingadia’s shareholding as well. The ‘70s and ‘80s saw slow but steady growth as the country grappled with various economic and political prob-lems, though there was a particular focus on building the pump business, notably Grundfos and Davey that were introduced in the mid-1960s. 

Since the Millennium growth has great-ly accelerated, revenue increasing many times to KShs 7Bn since then. Ma-jor initiatives have included a complete re-development of the Industrial Area

site and the expansion into adjacent plots, the opening of subsidiaries and associate companies in Rwanda and Zambia, Ethiopia and South Sudan. 

The company has since introduced the Dayliff pump range as well as several new international suppliers including Lorentz, Kohler and DAB and a huge expansion of the product range. Staff-ing has also grown correspondingly and the group now employs over 500 permanent staff operating from 49 branches. 

Current CEO for Davis & Shirtliff is Da-vid Gatende. The company is also for-tunate that the third generation Davis, Edward and Henry, have joined the business as well. “ 

Dick Shirtliff Eddie Davis

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 29

COVER STORY

Other milestones pointed out includ-ed; upgrade of the company’s Core ERP System, actually to Microsoft Dynamics NAV that has been upgraded twice in 2009 and in 2013 from earlier versions. The current system is web enabled, so it can be securely accessed online from anywhere.  

“Deployment of CRM System which is also under Microsoft Dynamics. We

started the cloud journey 2012 by mi-grating our emails and documents from local drives to the cloud through the use of Office 365 platform enhancing staff collaboration and productivity. We have done a lot of value-add customizations on our share-point platform as well,” he added. 

Parting shot.......... “The job of a CIO is quite challenging because traditionally, IT was more of a cost center so sometimes when you want to implement solutions, justify-ing the spending normally takes a lot of time to get through approval stag-es. The evaluation process has to be thorough on both the solution and costing proposals and comparisons. It may not be possible to feel the im-mediate benefits of proposed and re-quired solutions. My advice is simple, persistence, be persistent when sell-ing an idea to the board and let them see the benefit in it. Secondly, out-sourcing is key to get the right solu-tions,” he concluded. 

Mr. Joab Mak’Ongul hails from Gem, Siaya County. He went to Mombasa High School for

Physically Handicapped and later joined Egerton University and gradu-ated in 1995, with second class upper honors in Science, Computer Science option. He has a back ground in soft-ware systems development.  

His first job as a junior software de-veloper was at Diamond Systems. He left to join Kenya Micro Computers where he worked till 1997. He later joined Carl Bro East Africa, IT division as a Software Developer. After the management buy-out of Carl Bro’s IT business where it changed to AkiliAf-rica, in 2000, he was later posted to Uganda in 2002 as a Projects Manag-er, where he worked until early 2009 having risen to Technical Manager role and also as a Country Director in acting capacity.  

He joined Davis & Shirtliff in 2009 and this marks his 8th year at the or-ganization. While in Uganda, he un-dertook an MBA degree course from Eastern and Southern African Man-agement Institute (ESAMI) University and holds another Master Certificate in Leadership and Management from Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business Executive Educa-tion Program

During his free time, Mr. Mak’Ongul is a football fanatic. He is actually a die-hard Liverpool fan. 

We started the cloud journey 2012 by migrating our emails and documents from local drives to

the cloud through the use of Office 365 platform enhancing staff collaboration and productivity.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke30

BY BARAKA JEFWA STARTUP CORNER

UNESCO’s prediction for Uganda achieving universal primary and secondary education is grim. The country is not predicted to achieve universal primary educa-

tion before 2090 and universal second-ary education before 2100.

While the government introduced a Universal Primary Education program in 1997, there are many factors work-ing against the enrolment of children in schools. The inadequate payment of teachers and the burden of huge fees from private schools are among the bottlenecks that can be ameliorated by adopting digital learning.

Digital learning is certainly one of the methods Uganda could adopt to try and beat the timelines predicted by UNES-CO. The country is well placed to adopt this method of learning because accord-ing to statistics by internet world stats, as of 31 March 2017, Uganda was rated 15th in Africa in terms of internet usage with over 31.3% of the population using the internet.

YAAKA DIGITAL NETWORK ON A MISSION TO IMPROVE

EDUCATION IN UGANDA

Yaaka Digital Network, a startup in Uganda, is trying to help the govern-ment achieve its goals for sustainable education by offering online and offline learning materials. During an interview with one of the startup’s representa-tives, Hindu Nabulumba, she compared the company to the likes of Coursera, Khan Academy, Udemy, and EDX.org.

“Yaaka Digital Network is a learning and training platform offering online and offline learning materials input and access, interactions, as well as a set of tools for digital learning and training. In addition to offering locally relevant academic content and interactions, we built Yaaka as a 4-in-1 product for digitalising learning and teaching,” ex-plained Nabulumba.

Yaaka offers a wide variety of services to its customers including online aca-demic materials, online classes – where any registered teacher can set up, offer or charge for classes, including metered access – formation of groups and fo-rums, and the selling of products or ser-vices through classified listings.

“Our business model consists of: selling academic material downloads avail-able under www.yaaka.cc/shop, selling Yaaka tablet computers at $340, selling Yaaka offline app for $200, selling Yaaka Plus for education institutions. We earn a percentage (40%) of academic materi-al sales on the network (owned by other institutions/teachers), 40% of member-ship subscriptions, and charge publish-ers and other companies $50 to list. We also provide online learning consultan-cy and receive some government and donor support,” Nabulumba comment-ed on how the startup makes money.

According to Nabulumba, the uptake of Yaaka’s products has been good, espe-cially from the middle class within the country. She added that the support has thus far enabled them to market their product.

“People in the rural areas want the product but don’t have the capacity to buy. So now we must try and make this accessible to them,” she continued.

Nabulumba sighted the lack of capital and limited support from the govern-ment as one of the major problems hin-dering the startup’s growth in Uganda. The company though isn’t letting such hindrances stop their progress as they are aiming to be available in 21 African countries, with four million people ac-tively using the platform.

In trying to make strides towards the rest of Africa, the company recently par-ticipated in this year’s Royal Academy of Engineering Award where they emerged as runners-up, winning £10,000 in a com-petition that included startups from the entire continent. Nabulumba described the feat as: “fulfilling and incredible!

“Such competitions enable you to meet other like-minded people and learn from each other. Sometimes you get tips that will enable your business to grow. With the award money, we are planning to pilot Yaaka in more schools in Ugan-da and market our product more broad-ly.” She concluded.

REMARKABLE PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE TOWARDS ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL, BASIC, QUALITY EDUCATION IN

UGANDA. ALTHOUGH THE PROGRESS TOWARDS ACHIEVING THIS HAS BEEN IMPRESSIVE, SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGES

REMAIN IN THE COUNTRY WHICH MUST BE OVERCOME TO MEET THE GOAL OF ACHIEVING A BETTER EDUCATION.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 31

IT AND LEADERSHIP

So, on this Friday as we manoeuvred through the Nairobi Traffic, I was sure that we would run late for this interview and chances of even be-ing turned down were quite high.

However, we made it to the interview ( fifteen minutes late), and one thing I no-ticed as we entered the Alttab Offices lo-cated on Argwings Kodhek Road in the Nairobi Hurligham area was how serene the place was. As we were ushered into the office of Mr Alfred Onyango’s, CEO and Founder Alttab Africa, we apologised for keeping him waiting. To our surprise, he calmly told us that he understood, and all that mattered was we made it for the interview.

We set up our tools of trade to start off the business of the day in his office, which was quite impressive. It had magnificent blue walls with large wooden cabinets and a couple of trophies displayed on the far left-hand side end.

“Ours was a long journey; you see we did not start here. Our journey to reach here started close to two decades ago when I lost my job,” Mr Onyango said when our photographer paused to take some test shots from of his office.

“We started off in a tiny office given to us by a friend a few blocks from here. We were a group of five people then, and we all shared a single room and had maize for breakfast. My story, as an entrepreneur, is a story of persistence, humility, and fo-cus,”he told us.

We were now done with our set-up, and we were curious to know how, as a found-er, he picked the company’s name. “In the year 2001, we started a project at Kenya Ports Authority installing SAP systems. I was working with Indra Africa then.When the project ended, I lost my job with the company. Together with a team

FROM A LOST JOB TO STARTING A COMPANY THAT IS AWAKENING KENYA’S GIANT COMPANIES THROUGH IT, MEET

ALFRED ONYANGO, FOUNDER OF ALTTAB AFRICA LIMITED

BY LILIAN MUTEGI

of just a few people, we decided we need-ed to move on and see what we can do for our country. We picked a few names to register our project. As the discussions went on, we realised as we shared notes we kept shifting between Alt and Tab Keys of the computer keyboard, and that is how the name came to be. In 2003, Alt-tab was born.”

After being an “old boy” of Aquinas High School, unlike most IT leaders who have started off in IT-related fields, Mr Otieno, had to go through a couple of careers be-fore he could settle on computer science.

After his A-levels, he pursued a career in teaching and got employed for a year. He later moved to India to further his stud-ies. While in India, he told us that there was one thing that kept driving his career path. “I wanted to serve people. I was looking at a situation in which career I could get into to best serve people. I fi-nally settled on a banking career,” he said.

He further stated, “I enrolled in Sukhadia University in India and got my undergrad-uate degree in Economics, then my Masters in Bank Management. I later on earned a higher diploma in Bank Management and

ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN TO NAIROBI WILL TELL YOU HOW CRAZY THE TRAFFIC GETS ON FRIDAYS, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS THE LAST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke32

IT AND LEADERSHIP

then also a higher diploma in Computer Science. That was in the late 90s.”

“I moved back home in 1996 and started pursuing opportunities in banks, but that was a hard task back then. Every time I tried an opportunity, I ended up with a regret letter,” he chuckled.

For Mr Onyango, ‘giving up’ is a not a term that exists in his dictionary. He lat-er on pursued an opportunity with Indra Africa, a consulting and technology solu-tions provider company who was then one of the first SAP Implementers.

“During this time, my gears had to change, and that’s how my journey into IT started. My first project was with KPLC, to implement an SAP Solution. I was taken to Spain for training on project management. I came back and was sent to South Africa for SAP Certification in the finance department,” said Mr Otieno.

He added, “My career changed, but my vision of serving people remained. After KPLC, we implemented more SAP Systems for Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and KEN-GEN. We also implemented a system for Bamburi Cement in Uganda as well. I later on moved back to Kenya, and joined KPA for three years to implement a system.”

“In 2003, I lost my job at KPA, and that’s how I ended up starting Alttab. Funny enough, my first project was with KPA through Indra Africa. My journey spans almost 21 years now,” he added.

After KPA, Mr Onyango wanted to start something that would build up Kenya and help in the growth of the younger genera-tions. His vision for this company was to be part of the growth of this nation and to ensure that the company engaged as much as it could with young generations.

“Every year we get young people who graduate and join this market. We want to ensure that we help those who pick up the mantle as we reach for our walking sticks. We would like to be recognised as

one of the key companies in terms of ICT Growth in this nation,” said Mr Onyango.

From only five employees when the com-pany started to over forty employees cur-rently, Alttab Africa has grown to become one of the biggest SAP implementers hav-ing worked on large projects including the implementation SAP at Kenya Reve-nue Authority’s iSupport System.

Being an SAP Gold Channel Partner, the company seeks to provide software, hard-ware, management, and business enter-prising solutions that cover all the various areas of activities that represent some of the economy’s most dynamic sectors. These include Information Technology, Internet Services, Management Consult-ing, Quality Assurance, and Empower-ment of Support Centres.

“In this day and age, the key to attaining success in business is being able to ac-cess timely and accurate information that can be used to plan and make decisions governing the progressive improvement of your business entity. Organisations around the globe are optimising effi-ciency in their day-to-day operations by acquiring such solutions to facilitate per-sonalization and collaboration within the workplace and the marketplace,” said Mr Onyango.

When asked to what does he attribute the success of his company, he said, “Our success comes from our commitments to Alttab Africa LTD values, which are reflected in every project we undertake. These values include a commitment to our clients, creating a proven track record,

leveraging our international experience, delivery of quality solutions on time, use of well-defined project management tech-niques and business processes, maintain-ing strong technical and functional teams that are responsible for performance, providing strong implementers, adopting continuous innovation and up-to-date technologies.

Alttab Africa LTD’s consultants have been extensively involved in SAP implementa-tions and support in a number of local and international companies. Their clients in-clude names like Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), Kenya Electricity Gen-erating Company (KENGEN), Bamburi Cement, PTA Bank, Kenya Ports Authority, Nation Group, Hima Cement (Uganda), and ARAMCO Oil (Saudi Arabia).

The consultants have also been involved in other enterprise solutions involv-ing various programming languages for KPLC, KENGEN, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA, Zimbabwe), DEORSA and DEORCA (Guatemala,) and RELI SACCO.

Other clients also include New Kenya Co-operative Creameries, Kenya Pipe-line Company, Kenya Revenue Authority, Mumias Sugar, Standard Media Group, Unga Group Limited, Sony Sugar, … the list goes on and on.

In 2010, Alttab was recognised at the SAP Africa Partner Awards 2010 and Qual-ity Awards 2011 ceremonies following the implementation of a SAP System for the New Kenya Co-operative Creamer-ies Project. In 2015, Alttab was also rec-ognised as SAP’s best reseller in East and Central Africa.

In his parting shot, Mr Onyango added, “Humility is what drives me as a leader. I wouldn’t want to emphasise the pride of being the CEO because, without the sup-port of the staff, we wouldn’t be this far. I like to operate in the background as being as low key as I can get. Focus is also key. Focus works like fuel that propels you to success. Now you understand why I did not turn you down when you came in late. As a leader, you need to also understand and know how to best approach people.”

“To the young entrepreneurs, as an entre-preneur myself with key lessons learnt, I say it is normally a painful journey, but never be in a rush. Take your time and let the company grow at its own pace. Have a vision for your company and stick to it. I cannot five enough stress to the word hu-mility as well,” he concluded.

I wouldn’t want to emphasise the pride of being

the CEO because, without the support of the staff, we

wouldn’t be this far.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 33

WOMEN IN TECH BY LILIAN MUTEGI

She is a woman in technology in-spiring high-potential individuals across Africa to become world-class software engineers. Grad-uating from Northwestern Uni-

versity with a Journalism and Global Health degree, she found a love of pro-gramming as a scalable and effective way to change the world for the better.

“I grew up and spent time in Ohio in the U.S.A. Growing up, I wanted to do some-thing big to contribute to society, and I didn’t know what it was. In high school, I started organisations that were most-ly focused on how to create positive change and impact,” she started shar-ing in an interview.

“I ended up going to Northwestern Uni-versity in Chicago to pursue a degree in Journalism and Global Health. The good part about this was I love writing, but the hard part was there are very few jobs in journalism in the U.S.A., and

there is always a lot of turnover,” she added.

“My job then was like your job,” she chuckled,” I wanted to tell stories, but at the end of the day, I came to realise instead of writing about problems from the day-to-day turnaround of events, I wanted to be part of the solution.”

It was then that she started exploring areas around entrepreneurship. “I am one person who did not have much pro-gramming background knowledge back then, so I ended up going to Chicago and attended to a couple of workshops such as 1871, which is Chicago’s largest incubator or working space, and I was actually the first intern.”

She added, “Back then the Chicago en-trepreneurship scene was building up. I was working at 1871 and being in that environment surrounded by all that pas-sion and excitement, I realised that was

MEET AUDREY CHENG, A WOMAN ACCELERATING HIGH-POTENTIAL INDIVIDUALS ACROSS

AFRICA TO BECOME WORLD-CLASS SOFTWARE ENGINEERS

the kind of space I wanted to be in.“I had that part, and then there was the glob-al health part from school. We learnt a lot on how non-profits and NGOs often times raise money that is used to serve the people they are supposed to serve. The number one thing I learnt from 1871 was that start-up life is such that if you do not address the needs of the people you want to serve in your market, you will die as a company,” she added.

Around the same time, Cheng said that she paired the two together and thought of how cool it would be to bring 1871 to markets that do not have the privilege to have such a resource. It was at the same time that she learnt about Savannah Fund, a leading technology seed fund and accelerator in Africa. She joined them. It was at the same time that she came to Kenya to support en-trepreneurs, and during this time she realised, the biggest problem is not the lack of entrepreneur spirit or passion, it is a lack of skills.

“Even the entrepreneurs we were in-vesting in at Savannah Fund would say the biggest problem they experienced was to find highly skilled people that could join their team and push their product forward.“I realised could not find software developers and I was not the only one who was experienc-ing this problem.  The first step was to go to universities in Kenya and attend training programs, sitting in classes and learning about how the schools are taught. It made me realise that a lot of content was outdated, and also the way the skills were taught was not enticing enough,” she added.

She went on to say, “We realised that that was the problem, and unless we solved the skills problem first, we would

YOU MIGHT HAVE COME ACROSS HER NAME AS A TOP FEMALE INNOVATOR IN AFRICA AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM 2016 OR EVEN IN THE FORBES LIST AS ONE OF THE TOP 30

UNDER 30 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS 2016. AUDREY CHENG, THE FOUNDER AND CEO OF MORINGA SCHOOL, IS NOT A NEW NAME IN THE INDUSTRY.

The number one thing I learnt from 1871 was

that start-up life is such that if you do not address the needs of the people

you want to serve in your market, you will die as a

company

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke34

WOMEN IN TECH

not be able to solve the innovation en-trepreneurship problem, and that is how we the concept of Moringa School was born.”

Founded in April 2014, Moringa School plays a crucial role in developing and nurturing high-potential individuals who are passionate about technology and want to take a lead role in mobile and web development by equipping them with lifelong skills. The school first partnered with Hack Reactor, a top U.S.-based code school, to establish a da-ta-driven curriculum on Android, Ruby on Rails, and UI/UX skills.

“Moringa is actually a Kenyan plant that has medicinal benefits attached to it, and we thought that education is sim-ilar because it can solve a big part of human problems. Through education, we will be relieving a major pain point in society as well. And that is what really inspired us,” she added.

Three years down the line, Ms Cheng stated that the journey has not been easy but has been quite rewarding. When they got started she thought of how they were going to solve this prob-

lem, after identifying it, how they would get the right partners that have the right expertise to build the right team.

“So we started off by building the team and coming up with the right content, and in January 2015, we started our first class. It took us a couple of months since we wanted a strong foundation to start us off. Our first class was intense in terms of getting students. We had five students but had interviewed over 120 people. By the end of 2017, we will have graduated close to 300 students from our courses including both Morin-ga Core and Moringa Prep,” added Ms Cheng’.

Moringa School curriculum consists of two major courses Moringa Prep and Moringa Core. Moringa Prep is a 5-week, full-time (8:30am-6:00pm) or 10-week, part-time (class three times per week + homework) Introduction to Programming Course. This course is for beginners to learn the fundamentals of programming or more established de-velopers looking to sharpen their base of frontend skills.

After completing this course, a student should be able to build basic web pag-es and understand programming fun-damentals. No coding experience is required, but computer proficiency is necessary.

Moringa Core. on the other hand, is a 19-weeks, full-time course of instruc-tion, and four weeks of a group project and professional development. This course is for beginners to learn more ad-

vanced development skills. The course consists of different pathways that branch into a Ruby and Rails based development path and a Java and Android development-based path where students choose one track.

LESSONS LEARNT “Patience is really important. I think as much as we try to brush through things and be effective to grow a company, what I realised is that it all takes time and you cannot rush your growth. Another thing is Moringa school has not

raised any extra capital to this date and what I tell other entre-preneurs who come for mentor-ship is do not raise money so ear-

ly. I think in reality if you want to

build a product, build what the market wants, and what they want to pay for because they see the value. I think that is more meaningful than getting inves-tors on board,” she said.

PHILOSOPHY “Focus is key. When I came to Kenya the first thing I learnt was when you are looking into investing in companies, there are entrepreneurs that would run three to four companies at the same time, and I realised that when you do that you lose your focus. But if you focus on one product, you could imagine how far you can go. So to me, focus is key in terms of how we stay focused on our values and goals, and we do not get dis-tracted by ‘shiny objects,’ ” she added.

One woman she looks up to is, “…our CTO Savannah Kunovsky. I admire all the women I work with. I admire as well Kanini Mutooni, Director of Investments of East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, and,” she added with a quick smile, “also a Board Member of Moringa School.”

PARTING SHOT“Be kind. I know in the tech scene peo-ple can really be ruthless as they com-pete against each other. Let us support each other and push each other up-wards. Sometimes we women have a tendency of pulling each other down, but instead of doing that, let us create a community to hold each other’s hands. The more kind we become in terms of giving, the more we receive in return,” she concluded.

Having a journalistic background, Audrey loves reading. She is currently reading a book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. Born to Run, as it is commonly known, is a 2009 best-selling ethnography written by the American author and journalist Christopher McDougall. The book talks about members of the  Tarahumara, a Native Mexican tribe. After being repeatedly injured as a runner himself, McDougall mar-vels at the tribe’s ability to run ultra distances (over 100 miles) at in-credible speeds without getting the routine injuries of most American runners. Ms Cheng says she loves reading random things, especially science fiction and biographies.

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 35

BY BARAKA JEFWAPRODUCT REVIEW

SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB A 10.1" 2016 REVIEW I GOT A CHANCE TO SPEND A COUPLE OF WEEKS WITH THE SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 10.1” 2016. THE TABLET COMES IN TWO VERSIONS: THE ORIGINAL TAB A 10.1 HAS 2GB OF RAM, THE NEW VERSION OF THE TABLET HAS 3GB OF RAM AND COMES WITH AN S PEN AND THE PRESSURE-SENSITIVE SCREEN TO USE IT. MY COMPANION FOR THE TWO WEEKS WAS THE NEWER, S PEN VERSION.

Design and buildAt first contact, the device feels heavier than some of its competition with the same screen size. The device weighs in at about 544 grammes, is 0.32” thick. Compare this to Samsung’s own Tab 3 which weighs in at 316 grammes. The thickness may take away the feeling of slickness from the device, but it is de-signed like that to host it’s 7300 mAh battery.

The front of the device is mostly screen, surrounded by monochrome bezels (I had the device in black, so the bezels were black as well). There is only one physical button on the front of the de-

vice, the home button flanked by two virtual ones.

On its sides, the device has the volume buttons, a power button, SD and sim card slots – all located on the right. The Tab 10.1’s speakers are located at the bottom of the device where the S Pen slot is located as well. The cameras are located at the front and at the rear.

The device clearly isn’t built for style, but what it lacks in fashion sense it more than makes up for in robustness and durability.

36

PRODUCT REVIEW

Display The device’s display, at 10.1”, has a reso-lution of 1920 x 1200, which means that the images appear clear and bright on the large screen whether you are view-ing still photos, watching HD videos or even reading text from web pages. This display makes it a nice experience and easy on the eyes.

The screen, though, has its shortcom-ings when it comes to viewing outdoors during a sunny day. Direct sunlight makes it hard to view what is on the screen.

PerformanceThe Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 runs An-droid 6.0 Marshmallow on a 1.6 GHz oc-ta-core Exynos 7870 processor. The Tab A 10.1 is reasonably fast when running applications and programs whether si-multaneously or one at a time. The de-vise’s chip is designed for light to medi-um demand, so the tab becomes slower when running much more complex ap-plications, especially at the same time.

The device, for its large size, only has a 16GB of built-in storage, a shortcoming that can be overlooked because of its

• OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow• Processor: Exynos 7870 1.6GHz

Octa-Core• Memory:• 2GB RAM, 16GB ROM• microSD up to 256GB• Display:• 10.1 inches• 1920×1200 (WUXGA)• Wireless:• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz

+5.0GHz, VHT80• Bluetooth v4.2• Camera:• 8.0MP AF w/ flash and F1.9• 2.0MP and F2.2• Video recording: 1080P@30fps• Dimensions:• 10.0 x 6.11 x 0.32 inches• 1.16 lbs• Battery: Li-Ion 7,300mAh

microSD card slot which supports up to 256GB of additional capacity.

Kid’s ModeWith enterprise mobility becoming more and more a reality in the modern workplace, the device comes equipped with a kid’s mode where you can setup up to six accounts and configure what apps are available to which. This helps you keep your business life away from your kids and helps protect your work data.

S PenThe newer version of Samsung’s Tab A 10.1 comes with an S Pen which you can use to do various things which include writing, drawing, editing, taking screenshots, and jotting down quick notes without unlocking your screen.

The stylus is not available on the older version of the device as they don’t come with a screen

that is touch-sensitive.

CameraThe tablet has an 8MP rear camera with a LED flash and a 2MP front camera and supports recording video up to full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) at 30fps. Even with

the flash, however, the image quality is poor.

PriceThe Galaxy Tab A 10.1” comes in two colours: black and white. The device retails for Ksh 40, 000 at Samsung expe-rience stores as well as other retail out-lets across the country.

Pros: The device is cheap at the price point of Ksh. 40, 000. The Tab A 10.1” 2016 handles day-to-day tasks seam-lessly. Finally, even though the device is mainly plastic, the material seems very durable.

Cons: I really had my eye set on using the camera only to be disappointed by the poor quality of the images. The Tab 10.1” is also very heavy and not com-fortable to carry around.

VerdictThe device is a “budget” tablet from Samsung and at Ksh. 40, 000 it is more than capable of helping you carry on with your day-to-day tasks with ease. The S Pen is also a good accessory and fun to use.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 Specs

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 37

In today’s digital age we have seen a major transformation in the financial services industry. What was for many

decades a largely unchanging industry is now constantly evolving with many banks battling to keep up.How has technology changed the way we bank, and where is digital transfor-mation taking us? Let’s go back to the very beginning and see how financial services got to where it is today.The practice of safe-keeping dates back to 2,000 BC. Ancient cultures had ways of depositing and storing wealth. They fund-ed this through lending fees and taxes. Currency grew out of taxation. In the early days of the ancient empires, healthy pigs would be used to pay tax. As empires grew, this was no longer suitable, so coins were introduced. These coins needed to be kept in a safe place, so wealthy people held them in accounts in their temples. Modern banking and the practice of is-suing banknotes emerged in the 17th century. In 1695 the Bank of England was the first bank to issue permanent banknotes.

Enter technology… Developments in communications al-lowed banks to dramatically increase in size and geographical spread. With the rise of computers came credit and debit cards, making cheques irrelevant. The first version of a credit card was is-sued by oil companies and department stores. The first bank card was intro-duced in 1946 by a New York bank called Biggins’ Bank. General purpose credit cards were born in 1966 when credit-is-suing banks joined together to create two interbank associations, MasterCard and Visa. In 1969, the first automatic teller machine (ATM) made an appear-ance in New York at Chemical Bank.

THE CONCEPT OF BANKING HAS BEEN AROUND FOR CENTURIES AND HAS HAD TO EVOLVE WITH CHANGING HUMAN NEEDS.

THE EVOLUTION OF BANKING

With the rise of the internet came elec-tronic fund transfers and internet bank-ing. Online banking was officially intro-duced by mainstream banks in 1994. In the 2000s, online banking became mainstream thanks to e-commerce. Today, over 99% of payments are made electronically. The 2000s also saw the rise of online money transfer systems, like PayPal, which is a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites, and other com-mercial users.

The unbanked Mobile technology gave rise to mobile payments which allowed people to pay for services and products using their mobile device rather than using cash or credit cards. This has been particularly popular in Africa and the Middle East.

A look to the bank of the future The bank of the future is one that offers a secure banking environment as well as flexible and personalised banking services for its customers. Banks are replacing pin numbers and passwords with biometric authentica-tion, allowing customers to check bal-ances and access investments securely via mobile devices. To stay competitive and to keep up with customer expectations, banks are also turning to new technologies such as machine learning and data analytics.

Reimaging the customer experience for a digital world Financial institutions are working hard to deliver more value through insights and relevant offers that data-driven technologies can provide. The Dutch online bank Knab is present-ing all of a customer’s financial infor-

mation on one dashboard – even if this information is held with another bank. This gives customers a much clearer view of their overall financial situation.

Banks already have a great deal of data on their customers. The challenge is knowing what to do with that data. Customer relationship and analytics technologies, like Microsoft Dynamics and Cortana Intelligence Suite, allow banks to mine actionable insights from the data they already have in a way that respects privacy and compliance and enables them to provide new services, like the Knab dashboard, that win and retain customers.

Additionally, tools like Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM are offering bank employees a 360-degree view of their customers’ financial details, allow-ing them to anticipate customer needs and predict additional services that they may require in the future.

What’s next? If banks want to remain relevant and successfully grow in this digital world, they must innovate in the way they en-gage with customers, collaborate with colleagues, and operate.

We already see the potential of disrup-tive technologies, like blockchain, to revolutionise how businesses and peo-ple transact with each other – the next step in the evolution process.

Embracing new technologies will en-able banks to disrupt their own busi-ness models by turning data into in-sight, transforming ideas into action, and creating opportunities by embrac-ing change.

(Kunle Awosika is Microsoft Kenya’s Country Manager, a position he has held since July 2013.)

OPINION

BY: KUNLE AWOSIKA

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke38

GO DIGITAL SERIES (3) - MOBILE & SOCIALTHE FUSION OF MOBILE AND SOCIAL

OPINION

BY MARTIN MIRERO

The magic sauce that makes this blend such a winner is the supe-rior attention gravity it possesses.

A familiar story: you whip out your phone one random evening and hit Facebook to catch up on messages and check out the latest feeds and before you know it, you’re tumbling down a rabbit hole with no end in sight. And if some streaks of daylight are piercing the curtains, oh no! Worry not, you’re not alone.

This stickiness is every business’ nirva-na. You want your customer’s attention and loyalty woven into that same magic sauce so it translates to a needs fulfil-ment and money in the bank. The sta-tistics warrant some attention:

As of 2016, daily social media usage of global internet users amount-ed to 118 minutes per day. Global social networking audiences  sur-passed two billion users in 2016, this according to www.statista.com.

A report from SimplyMeasured.com from mid-last-year states that 80% of users’ mobile time is spent in three apps, and the three that currently dominate usage are Face-book, WhatsApp, and Chrome, with others like Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WeChat growing in significance.

Underlining these alarming sta-tistics is a statement from www.smartinsights.com: “The implica-tions are clear - if you’re not able to reach your audience through mobile search or display, or you’re not pro-viding a satisfactory mobile experi-ence, you will miss out compared to your competitors who are.”

Closer homeMoving closer to our regional context, a report from wearesocial.com titled

WHILE MOBILE AND SOCIAL ARE POWERFUL TECHNOLOGIES IN THEIR OWN RIGHT, THE COMBINATION OF THE TWO IN A BLENDED STRATEGY PRESENTS A TRULY FORMIDABLE PLATFORM THAT ORGANISATIONS CAN LEVERAGE ON THEIR DIGITAL-ADOPTION JOURNEY TO TRANSFORM THEIR BUSINESS.

“Digital in 2017: Global Overview,” stat-ed that mobile social media use in Af-rica increased by nearly 50% in 2016, although at just 12% penetration across the region there’s still plenty more room to grow.

In Kenya, various reports on mobile in-ternet statistics indicate that Kenyans are using social media, search, email, and video almost exclusively on smart-phones

According to Google’s Consumer Ba-rometer” “[…of the] most popular ac-tivities by smartphone users in Kenya on a weekly basis, social media domi-nates with 58%.

Quite simply, a mobile-social playbook is a strategic requirement for every company, particularly consumer-facing businesses. In fact, since all businesses have an end user, or at the very least an audience, the imperative to have one is industry-wide.

The remainder of this article looks at mobile as it seems to be the ideal han-dle to shape the conversation around the mobile-social arena for organisa-tions. In navigating this mobile-first strategy for an organisation’s product design and development, there are a few ground rules that can guide this journey and ensure rapid and sustain-able value realisation. The perspective this is posed from is an organisational one with employees as the end users, but the salient points apply equally well to public. consumer-facing mobile strat-egies as well.

Ground Rule #1: mobile is a requirement, not an add-onCIOs, mobile app developers, and busi-ness leaders should look at mobile as an integral part of their organisation and overall strategy, and not a bolt-on or third wheel. Organisations need to

leverage the convenience, effective-ness, and flexibility this affords the customers and build an environment to securely and seamlessly support this.

Ground Rule #2: applications must be built-for-mobile, not simply portedMany organisations have legacy en-terprise applications. User experience wasn’t a core requirement in many cases, and there were few if any, con-text-specific aspects to app design since they were largely used in a desktop con-text. The rules of desktop user interfaces and user experiences are orthogonal to mobile devices and translate to smart-phones particularly poorly. Whether re-built as native apps, HTML 5 apps with native wrapping, or purely web apps optimised for mobile, a redesign will be absolutely required. Remember that you are mobilising the business pro-cess, not necessarily the existing app.

Ground Rule #3: mobile apps need to be co-developed with end usersTo truly harness the potential of mobile, IT and app developers need to be tight-ly integrated with the end-user environ-ment and the business functions they need to execute. If IT cannot provide solutions that meet those needs, users and managers will source their own tools in the form of third-party apps and public cloud services. The only sustain-able way to navigate this successfully is to have IT and developers essential-ly get immersed into each line of busi-ness/customer segment, understand its needs and attributes, and collaborate to meet these needs effectively.

(Martin Mirero is the current CIO for Huduma Kenya)

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 39

OPINION

THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY OF LEADERS OF MANY COMPANIES ACROSS VARIOUS INDUSTRIES IS IMPROVING THEIR CUSTOMERS’ EXPERIENCE. AS A RESULT, MOST ORGANISATIONS, LARGE AND SMALL, PRIVATE AND GOVERNMENT, ARE AGGRESSIVELY LAUNCHING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INITIATIVES.

FOUR WAYS YOU CAN SUCCESSFULLY DIGITISE YOUR CUSTOMERS’ EXPERIENCE

BY BEN MANN

According to a new study, howev-er, not all consumers are enthusi-astic about many of these digital

transformations. It’s not as simple as introducing new digital ways to engage with consumers and expecting them to readily embrace it. Failing to get the transformation right can put compa-nies’ investments in digital at risk.

A new study from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), “The Experience Revolution - Digital Disappointment: Why Some Consumers Aren’t Fans,” surveyed more than 600 executives worldwide from a variety of industries that are currently introducing new dig-ital customer tools and services. The IBV also surveyed more than 6,000 con-sumers, whose answers were compared with the executives’ responses to gauge their alignment.

The study found that while executives believe customers want to try new and novel digital customer experience ini-tiatives, consumers are more concerned with getting quick, convenient, and af-fordable results. In other words, there’s a disconnect between what executives think consumers want and what con-sumers actually want.

Of those survey respondents who said they tried to explore products by using virtual reality, using interactive digital displays in a company’s physical store, or interacting with a device or comput-er via voice command, about 70% said they were disappointed. As a result, they decided not to use these digital ini-tiatives regularly.

The IBV study also found that execu-tives are severely underestimating the

role generational differences play in consumer adoption of new digital expe-riences.

When asked if customers’ age would determine how quickly they’d adopt digital new customer experiences, only 38% of executives said they thought age would make a difference. The IBV study asked consumers a series of questions about specific types of digital customer experience initiatives being implement-ed by companies and found there were numerous instances when Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers re-sponded differently.

As a result of the study’s findings, the IBV study recommends four steps for companies to take when designing a new digital customer experience. They are:

1) Design digital experiences to meet customer expectations: Use a digital transformation as an opportunity to eliminate difficulties that customers have with the existing systems and rein-vent the customer experience from the customers’ points of view.

2) Analyse customers’ motivations: While it is important to recognise gen-erational differences among consum-ers, companies should not stereotype individuals simply based on their age. By applying advanced analytics and cognitive technologies to comprehend both structured and unstructured cus-tomer data from a variety of sources, companies can build detailed custom-er profiles that will help determine the most successful customer experience initiatives.

3) Make it easier for customers to in-teract with your brand: One of the core values of any digital customer ex-perience transformation should be ease of use and simplicity. Executives should conduct thorough research to under-stand what these expectations are and then test their new digital experience with customers to make sure it is simple to use and gives customers the flexibili-ty they want.

4) Design marketing strategies to ad-dress specific needs of your custom-ers: When launching a digital customer experience initiative, it is vital to clearly promote the benefits that customers value, such as time savings, conve-nience and faster results. Segmentation and personalization can also be used to attract those customers who aren’t especially motivated to try a new digi-tal customer experience by giving them additional incentives to try it out.

Re-imagining the experience, however, is only part of the solution. Companies also need to bring their innovations to market by clearly highlighting benefits that resonate with customers, which may require a roll-out strategy that in-cludes plans for different customer seg-ments. Otherwise, they risk putting into jeopardy not only their investment in a new digital customer experience but also their brand’s image in the market-place.

It seems, therefore, that the key to dig-ital transformation is not to transform for your customers – but to transform with them.

(The author is the Chief Operating Offi-cer - IBM East Africa)

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke40

THE DIGITAL PAYMENTS INDUSTRY IS EXPECTED TO GROW TO USD $500 BILLION BY 2020, WHICH IS TEN TIMES THE CURRENT LEVELS. THIS GROWTH IS EXPECTED TO COME FROM PERSON TO MERCHANT (P2M) TRANSACTIONS DRIVEN BY DIGITAL PAYMENTS AT PHYSICAL POINT OF SALE, FOLLOWED BY BUSINESS TO BUSINESS (B2B) AND PEER TO PEER (P2P) TRANSACTIONS.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT AND MOBILE MONEY: A PERFECT STORM

OPINION

BY AMIT SANYAL

This takes us to the all-important question: How can we ensure that the digital payments industry

realizes its full potential? The answer: Improve mobile money usage from the current low of 21.2%. Low usage rate points to several problems. It means that the existing subscriber base is not incentivized enough to use mobile mon-ey more often. Without the proper in-sights into customer behavior, the cus-tomer experience is subdued. And thus, over a period of time, the disengaged subscriber base loses interest and fi-nally discontinues the service. All of this leads to depressed revenues.

In order to increase usage, it is import-ant to make a clear distinction - Mobile money is a service, not a product. Since services are intangible, the customer’s perception of the service is critical to in-creasing usage or bringing new custom-ers into the fold through word of mouth promotion. A happy customer will use the service or at least promote it to his friends or family. So how can we ensure that the customer’s perception of the service is positive at all touchpoints? The answer lies in forming a proper un-derstanding of customer behavior by studying interaction at various touch-points and leveraging that knowledge to provide relevant, contextual and timely information with the intention of driving further use.

With exciting times ahead for payments space, the key participants - banks, op-erators and even the retailers - will have to respond digitally in order to address real customer needs. Even now, the in-

dustry is going through a state of flux-what with the fast growing adoption of digital payments and the rising impor-tance of “contextuality” and better user experience.

Equally fluid, then, are the challenges facing mobile money operators. To-day, every operator who wants to stay in the game is focusing on minimizing customer churn and ensuring frequent and optimal service usage. So, this, in a nutshell, is where customer experience management (CXM) comes to the res-cue.

Traditionally, ensuring consistency and ease of interaction are the first rules of any operator’s CXM handbook. It be-comes trickier with services like mo-bile money-which have, hitherto, never been subject to the rules (or world) of CXM.

Hence a multi-pronged CXM strategy for mobile money would do wonders for customer retention and service uptake. It is easier said than done of course, es-pecially since there are no forerunners (none that hit home, at least) in this space. The need of the hour, therefore, is a tool or solution that would help op-erators to leverage their mobile money services to the fullest-not to mention, fill the existing white space!

Permit me to add my two cents. In this case, a CXM tool or solution ought to be a one-stop shop for all things mobile money. It should ideally perform multi-ple functions that include (but obvious-ly aren’t limited to) educating custom-ers about the service, offering rewards

“frills” to customers that stay put, en-hancing engagement levels, growing the existing mobile money ecosystem, et all.

It does not stop here. Agents should be provided with incentives in order to encourage them to drive even higher levels of customer activity. Just like it is important to strike the iron when it is hot, it is important that agent incen-tives should be relevant, contextual and of course timely. Here, it is important to leverage the micro-moments (which is the 5-10 sec window after the transac-tion takes place) with agent incentives (which can be in the form of loyalty points or mMoney). Of course the pro-gram should be contextualized in order for it to be more effective.

It doesn’t end there, of course. Analyt-ics ought to function at the heart of the solution, which, needless to say, would help mobile money operators move several steps closer to what their cus-tomers really want. A powerful analyt-ics program aligns marketing activities with subscriber lifecycle, generating incremental revenues at every stage by providing increased upsell and cross sell opportunities, improving transac-tion frequency which will help to yield maximum customer lifecycle value.

In short, there is very little doubt that CXM (if leveraged properly) is poised to replicate its success in this space.

(The author is the Business Head for the Consumer Value Solutions business at Mahindra Comviva, a business fo-cused on Customer Value)

www.cio.co.ke | JULY 2017 | CIO EAST AFRICA 41

HARD TALK BY ROBERT YAWE

TECHNOLOGICAL SCHIZO-PHRENIA

In the technology space in Kenya, many of us are suffering from this condition and are delusional to the reality which is that

we are very far off from becoming a knowl-edge economy, and least of all a technology destination.

“Hallucinations are seeing or hearing things that aren’t there. Delusions are the belief in something that isn’t true. People who have delusions will continue with their delusions even when shown evidence that contradicts the delusion.”

For a while, I believed that what we suffered from was just a phobia for technology in our lives as is seen with IT experts whose appli-cation of technology ends at their desks, but over time it has become clear that I was hal-lucinating as it actually ends on their CV.

This condition shockingly has gone airborne and has become contagious as can be seen from the statements made by politicians and the media on how technologically advanced Kenya is compared to others (…too painful to list).

What happens in this fast-spreading condi-tion is that we take the minute success of usually a single organisation and then ex-trapolate its mild success to astronomical levels and apply the same to the nation.

During the 2013 election, we attempted to carry out an electronic voter verification pro-cess and even stretched out a little beyond our comfort zone to have the results trans-mitted from the polling stations electronical-ly. We all know what happened to that tech-nological misadventure.

After the results of the presidential elections were announced, the loser rushed to court, and one of the bases of his complaint was that since the winning party’s servers and those of the electoral commission, were housed in the same data centre, one was able to influence the other. The ICT commu-nity remained mum.

The fact that such an argument actually got past a team of technology experts who en-dorsed it, even though the evidence to that happening was clearly hard coded on the wall, was stretched beyond belief when they actually stood up in court to defend the as-sertion – delusion or what?

One of the requirements of the proposed election results transmission system is that the returning officer, as well as all the agents of the candidates present at a polling sta-tion, would take a photograph of forms 33, 34A, and 34B, after which the returning offi-cer is to transmit this electronically to the na-tional tallying center and the IEBC website.

The vitriol that has been poured on this pro-cess makes the assertion that the earth is round seem like a 3-year old’s tea party with the dolls. It has been suggested by highly educated and presumably knowledgeable individuals that the transmissions, plus the copies in the various agents’ phones, could be tampered with in transit.

I know the Russian hackers are good, but even this is likely to be beyond their Siberi-an abilities, in addition, this implies that our cellular networks are all compromised and so too are all the phones in the country.

I wonder if they would feel more secure if we installed a wireline to each polling station and provide the returning officer with a telex or fax machine. Note that the person making the statement has total faith in the smart-phone they are holding in their hands.

When the members of the national assembly in the country that is said to be the leading destination for technology in the continent makes me wonder if this is not a case of hal-lucination. Maybe since similar assertions have been made in the US with no response from the tech industry players, this schizo-phrenic condition must be reaching epidem-ic proportions.

We are yet again at that point, an election whose date was enshrined in the constitu-tion, yet we did not start the process of pro-curing a new voter verification and result transmission system until only nine months to the election. We then delude ourselves that we shall have a technologically credible and fair election process.

It is interesting that none of us in the ICT space have seen it necessary to raise a red flag at this and instead continue to hallu-cinate about a seamless, electoral process come the 8th of August. As I write this, it is three months to the election, and there is still a back and forth about the application of technology to a largely manual process.

Schizophrenia is a condition which is characterised by having both hallucinations and delusions and is difficult to treat as the sufferer is fully convinced of what they believe.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JULY 2017 | www.cio.co.ke42

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