2015 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Business Partners
Who are our business partners?
Our business partners include suppliers, dealers and agents. We rely heavily on our partners from both an operational perspective and also in terms of our reputation. We also understand that we can play an important role in encouraging sustainable practices throughout our business ecosystem and value chain by engaging with our partners in this regard.
In terms of our suppliers, we used 994 providers and spent a total of just under KSH 89.9 billion on products and services during the reporting period. The increase in year-on-year spending can be attributed to capital investment in technology networks relating to a significant government project.
We continue to promote local suppliers where feasible and we are satisfied with the weighting towards Kenyan companies achieved during the year, with 84% of our providers being local. We categorise our suppliers based on the nature of the product or service provided and the majority of our spend during the year was on network technology-related goods and services. There were no significant changes in our supply chain during the reporting period.
We also have 85 756 M-PESA agents who support and administer M-PESA related transactions for customers. The size of our current agent network is also fairly stable and, as with our dealers, our present focus is to help individual agents achieve greater volumes and success rather than grow the network.