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Safaricom Sustainability Report 2016
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OUR STRATEGY
During the year, we rolled out a new strategy for the organisation. We simplified our approach from seven strategic
objectives to just three: ‘Customer First’, ‘Relevant Products’ and ‘Operational Excellence’. The new strategy is a reflection of
both our growing maturity and sophistication as a company and an acknowledgement of areas of weakness.
We have entered a new, third phase as a growing communications company. The first phase was focused on the
development of the network. The second phase was centred on the creation of a plethora of interesting products
and services. In this third phase, we are refocusing our approach and, instead of starting with questions like ‘what is it
technologically possible to deliver?’, we are starting with our customers and asking ‘what do they need and want from us?’.
Bringing the customer inside the business
At the heart of our new ‘Customer First’ approach is more advanced segmentation. We have over 25 million customers of all
ages and backgrounds and so their needs are very diverse. In order to understand our customers and their different, specific
needs better, we have begun classifying and analysing them in much smaller groups or ‘segments’.
MUSIC TO OUR CUSTOMERS’ EARS: OUR NEW CUSTOMER-FOCUSED STRATEGY IS HELPING US STRENGTHEN OUR WEAKNESSES.
Designing relevant products
Instead of creating a product and then assessing which of our customers might want to use it, we have begun a process we
call ‘insighting’, through which we identify and understand the needs and challenges a specific customer segment faces,
and then we use this insight to design relevant products and services that meet those exact needs.
Removing internal barriers
These new products and services are then supported and delivered through ‘Operational Excellence’. This objective
requires us to assess every aspect of the business from the perspective of how well it is serving the customer and helping
to deliver quality experiences to them — throughout their ‘lifetime’ or journey as customers of Safaricom and through their
interactions at every one of our ‘touch points’, such as the call centre, retail shops and the website.