Safaricom - 2020 Sustainable Business Report

SAFARICOM 2020 | SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 54 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS OUR STAKEHOLDERS CONCLUDING REMARKS Partnering to accelerate the roll-out of cloud services Cloud services allow businesses to innovate faster, scale quicker and take advantage of the very latest technologies without having to buy, maintain and upgrade expensive physical data centres and servers. In February 2020, we became the first Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advance Consulting Partner in East Africa. Our AWS partnership means that we can replace end-of-life hardware and software so that our customers can have reliable and stable services to improve SLA/NPS. We upgraded the Cloud to automate provisioning so that we can reduce order fulfilment SLAs. We can now retain, defend and expand our cloud business in the SME and Large Enterprises markets. We have a talent pool of 130 AWS accredited employees and 35 AWS certified professionals able to design and optimise cloud computing solutions that provide businesses of all sizes with the ability to access the infrastructure and services they require cost-effectively and to harness the power of emerging technologies like Big data, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. We currently have 553 customers taking advantage of our cloud computing expertise. Partnerships to digitize our customers In April 2019 we launched phase 3 of the Maisha ni Digital campaign, aimed at supporting more of our customers with feature phones, transition to smart devices and enabling them access a whole new digital experience. The campaign, which is in partnership with Google, aims to provide affordable devices such as the Neon Ray (4G ) and Neon Storm (3G) priced at KSh 3 999 and KSh3 499 respectively. We also partnered with M-Kopa Solar which enables our customers to acquire high- end devices through a check off system. The system allows a customer to win a high- end device through instalments of KSh 40 per day. These initiatives have resulted in a significant increase in the number of devices on our network. In FY20, the number of smart phones connected to the network increased by 23% to 15 million and 4G enabled smartphones increased by 91% to 6.1 million. Digitizing the customer FY20 FY19 FY18 FY17 Smart phones connected to the network (million) 15 12.2 10.9 11.5 4G enabled smartphones (millions) 6.1 3.2 2.2 1.8 Partnership for digital postal services In recent years, due to technology, less people have been using the Post Office. This partnership was aimed at helping to digitise the Post Office service offering. MPost is an innovative solution that provides customers with a digital Post Office Box linked to their mobile phone number. Once registered, customers use their mobile phone number as their PO Box address and choose a Post Office branch from which to collect their letters and parcels. Customers receive a convenient SMS notification when there is post waiting for them. Digital travel booking service During the period under review, we partnered with BuuPass, the innovative online bus, shuttle and train booking service to allow passengers to pay for their tickets using M-PESA. Customers can access the service by dialling *877# or visiting buupass.com and payments for tickets are accepted through M-PESA. Through BuuPass, customers can select a bus operator, preferred travel date and time, and reserve specific seat numbers. Customers can also reserve seats for multiple travellers, with tickets printed at the bus station after presentation of the confirmation SMS. Fuliza In FY19, we launched Fuliza a data insight-driven product that allows our customers to complete transactions even with insufficient balances in their M-PESA wallets. The traction that the popular facility had from its launch in January 2019 continued through the period under review, with strong growth in both numbers of customers and volumes of disbursements.