We continue to undertake performance evaluations of all our suppliers on a quarterly or bi-annual basis. Suppliers are measured against a variety of indicators including cost, quality, delivery, responsiveness, flexibility, value-add, health and safety. A performance score is calculated for our suppliers.

Supplier performance evaluations

We are pleased to report that there was a 69 per cent increase in the number of supplier evaluations conducted during the year, and that average supplier performance improved from 80 per cent to 82.61 per cent over the course of the year. We attribute this to positive relationships with our suppliers and heightened awareness of the purpose of our evaluations and processes, the Symfact contract management portal becoming operational towards the end of the year, and the fact that suppliers are now proactive and promptly seeking performance feedback for their own improvement purposes

Our overall engagement with our suppliers has improved during the year. We implemented the supplier recognition framework, which culminated in our inaugural Safaricom Annual Partner Awards (SAPA) in April 2019 – a recognition and awards ceremony that was received positively by our community of suppliers. The event allows us to hear supplier concerns and exchange ideas and information with them.

Prior to the awards ceremony, we conducted the Supplier Satisfaction Survey to assess their perceptions and levels of satisfaction and confidence regarding Safaricom. We use the feedback gained through the survey to adjust our processes and offerings to partners. The outcomes of the FY20 survey were an NPS of 73 and an overall satisfaction level of 91 per cent (same scores as FY19).

We launched our Women in Business (WIB) in March 2017 in recognition of the significant impact empowering women-owned businesses can have on society and reducing inequalities. As part of the WIB programme, we have set ourselves the ambitious target of spending 10 per cent of our total procurement with women-owned and women-led businesses. We continued to focus on building the capacity of WIB companies during the year, enabling them to participate in tenders and, specifically, secure sub-contracting work.

We now have 65 women-owned or led businesses actively receiving business from Safaricom (an increase from 17 in FY18) and 25 new work assignments were awarded to women-owned or led businesses during the year, compared to 16 awards in FY19. We held our annual WIB even in September 2019, which 135 WIB participants attended, and we have continued to grow our list of prequalified womenowned businesses, from 178 to 205, so that, when a specific need arises, no further research needs be undertaken and the prequalified WIB suppliers can be invited to tender.

Our dealer network remained stable during the year. Overall, our focus has remained on becoming more responsive and transparent with our dealers through the automation and digitisation of our internal processes. We are providing more detailed reports to our dealers, for instance, to enable them to plan better and identify and exploit opportunities more efficiently. We also continued to offer training programmes on basic book-keeping, shop management and life skills.

One of the new ways we delivered value to our dealers during the year was the introduction of the Safaricom Jiandikishe App. By making the subscriber registration process simpler, the app makes it easier for dealers to meet their regulatory obligations and collect KYC registrations in the field. The initiative has largely been successful, with 40 per cent of KYC registrations being collected through the app by March 2020.

How the app works – The user logs into the app and scans the customer Identification document to pick up the customer KYC. This is verified within the app. The customer then selects a number of their choice. The customer receives a notification message to provide consent for registration if this is an additional line that they are purchasing. The process takes approximately three minutes from start to finish.

We further supported dealers by making a subsidised, affordable smartphone available to enable them to take advantage of the app at a greater number of registration points. The MobiGo device has no calling functionalities and, hence, is not susceptible to theft. Payment plans have also been made available, if required. More than 6 000 devices had been purchased by the end of the year.

We enhanced our Chanua Biz promotional campaign for direct sales agents during the year. Dubbed Chanua Biz 3.0, the scheme allows transacting users to earn points, which they can redeem as airtime. Chanua Biz encourages direct sales agents to use M-PESA and Lipa Na M-PESA services to streamline collections and make them cashless. Not carrying cash makes direct sales agents safer in the field by reducing the incidents of theft and lowering insurance costs. As the table notes, the amount redeemed during FY20 was less than the previous year due to budget limitations for Chanua Biz 3.0.

In spite of the COVID-19 restrictions introduced towards the end of the year, we were able to hold 11 biannual agent forums in all six regions across the country. We held an Agent Awards event in each of the regions and awarded KSh 20 450 000 in prizes to 118 agent stores and 9 agent head offices. The principal concerns of our agents remain the ability to buy float directly to obtain line allocation and earn commissions, fraud trends and sanctions, security, and logbook availability (the elimination of transaction registers).

In response, we have increased the availability of financing to agent head offices and now have 1 600 agent head offices rotating funds of KSh 1 billion. We also increased the amount of weekend capital financing from KSh 500 million to KSh 800 million. We adjusted the parameters of automated float financing to 50:50, which allows agent head offices that have maintained a float level of KSh 20 000 in 30 per cent of their tills to apply for more tills.