Archives for September 2011

Using StarCraft to Boost Your Tours & Travel Business

September 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

No idea if this can work but…..

Let me paint you a picture. Imagine your organization at the centre of an exciting online event that generates passionate conversation all over the Internet: on news websites, on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube, and on other websites. Imagine your organization featuring prominently on YouTube videos viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. Imagine reaching up to 15 million people through one marketing campaign. Now imagine these people passionately applauding your organization.

What am I talking about? Too good to be true – you say?

StarCraft 2 is a computer game published by Blizzard Entertainment and which is played primarily online by millions of players. StarCraft is one of the best-selling computer games in history. In South Korea, it is a national sport whose matches are televised and whose players are national celebrities.

StarCraft 2 has spawned immensely popular online tournaments throughout the world. The tournaments are followed by millions of people worldwide. The companies that sponsor these tournaments include: Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia, Samsung and many others – and this is just a selection of the biggest names. Needless to say, these companies benefit greatly for tapping into an exploding “e sports” industry. How exactly do they benefit?

  1. Tournaments are almost entirely played online and so they generate passionate activity and discussion from fans on many websites including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Tournament sponsors are usually prominent in these discussions.
  2. Tournament videos are created and posted to YouTube and similar websites. They are often viewed by hundreds of thousands of people during the tournament itself and by many others afterwards. These videos usually prominently feature tournament sponsors.
  3. E sports is relatively new. As such, video game players are very appreciative of anyone who supports it.
  4. Everything that is put on the Internet is still going to be there years later.

Now, we all know that there are probably hundreds of Kenyan tours and travel businesses out there. Indeed, with the Internet it is extremely easy to start such a business. But how easy is it to profit from one? I put it to you that actually making a decent amount is much more difficult than most people think it is. In my opinion, this is mostly due to two reasons:

  • There is a great amount of competition
  • How does a small Kenyan company market to Europeans, Americans, etc in a cost-effective way?

StarCraft 2 and “e sports” can make the second problem go away. I see this as an incredibly accessible marketing channel. How so? What if your organisation organised (or partnered with these guys) a successful StarCraft 2 online tournament? What would you get out of it?

  1. You would get your name out there amongst possibly hundreds of thousands potential tourists
  2. Your investment would reap continual benefits as long as you exist – two years from now, people will still be able to watch YouTube videos of the tournament in which you featured

I do not know about you, but I think that this is something worth thinking about…

Filed Under: Lazyweb

Things Stronger Than The Kenyan Shilling

September 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Perhaps as a shock, #ThingsStrongerThanTheKenyaShilling is currently trending GLOBALLY on Twitter!!!

A trending topic is a word, phrase or topic that is posted (tweeted) multiple times on the social networking and microblogging service Twitter.

thingsstrongerthanthkenyanshilling trending on twitter

#thingsstrongerthanthkenyanshilling

I think this points to Kenya being an important part of the Internet, ama aje? Sure, the trending topic is for the wrong reasons but still nice to see. Here are a few interesting tweets:

Filed Under: Internet Culture

Market research vs. Responding to customers

September 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Is there a difference between market research and responding to customer needs? Some interrelate the two and obviously there is a difference.

Market research means you the entrepreneur goes out there and source data about your customers needs and wants. At this stage you are not yet responding to a need, you are merely finding out if indeed there is a need. How many Kenyan entrepreneurs can say with a serious face that they have carried out their market research and that is why they are in fact offering the service or product that they are?

Responding to a customer need means provide the customer with a solution for an issue that they have brought out to you the business person. Are you able to respond to your customers need at the right time or do you do it when it suits you best?

The importance of carrying out market research will actually help you know and understand your customer, you will actually be able to meet their needs easily, you’d ordinarily be better prepared.

You normally find that a brand such as Bata has done its market research when it comes to its line of Marie Claire shoes for women. The shoes are classy, they are affordable, comfortable and Bata actually change the range every now and then so a shoe you buy in this month will be replaced by a different design in a month or so. The brand has really worked hard to get itself back to where it once was. The average Kenyan lady wants to look good and these shoes do that. Don’t fret, Bata didn’t pay for this, I am simply speaking my mind.

Responding to customer needs is difficult because sometimes you simply are not sure how to respond or for that matter how much it will cost you to respond. Mobile phone operators in Kenya really had to respond to the customer needs by reducing their costs, remember the tariff battle of 2010. Well perhaps not the best example since there were many other factors that preempted the changes. Responding to a customers need could range from simply producing an additional report for your client to reducing a transaction cost for your client.

Have you done your market research or are you continually finding yourself trying to catchup to your customers needs?

Naomi Kinyanjui is an aspiring entrepreneur, a Procurement Specialist by profession with a passion for life, writing and making a difference. Follow her on Procurement Mentality 101 blog where the talk is all about supply chain and procurement and maintaining professionalism in such a controversial field.

Filed Under: Small Business

Kenya’s Economy and Government Spending

September 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As the economies of many African nations fall back into bad habits, Kenya’s government has decided to fight back. Kenya has become the first African nation to publish detailed government spending plans on the Web in an effort to fight persistent corruption. East Africa’s foremost economy, which intends to be a center for information and technology innovation, anticipates the data to improve financial transparency for citizens, lenders and investors.

“It will be particularly useful to policy makers and business persons who require timely and accurate information in formulating policies and making business decisions,” President Mwai Kibaki said, upon launching the site www.opendata.go.ke.

“I also call upon Kenyans to use this government portal to enhance accountability and improve governance in our country. Reliable and timely data is the basis for determining whether government is delivering services effectively and accountably.”

According to Kibaki, the country’s information, communication and technology sector is expanding at about 20% annually. The web site will offer information ranging from the national census to government budgets. Graphs and maps will show, for example, how much is apportioned to education and health facilities around the country, allowing for easy examination and evaluations between regions. Such financial information about the government was not as easily accessible before now. In a process hindered by bureaucracy, those seeking the information had to get approval from authorities or buy it from the government printer.

“This is the first open government portal in Africa, making Kenya one of the world’s leading exemplars of open data … better enhancing transparency and accountability in government operations,” said Johannes Zutt, World Bank country director for Kenya.

The data is taken from key sectors including planning, education, health, finance and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics on population. Kenya fell down the grades of Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index last year, falling to 154 out of 178 countries. The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) has said graft and misappropriation of government funds consume up to 40% of gross domestic product. Several departments have been involved in corruption scandals, with some ministers facing graft charges, but none have been convicted so far.

This transparency is all well and good, however, reflecting policy misperception and investors’ receding confidence, four prominent regional currencies – Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania’s shillings and Ghana’s cedi – have all hit record lows against the dollar this year. By contrast, South Africa’s rand, a deeply traded emerging market currency rather than a more exotic “frontier” unit, is at a four-year high. With an election impending next year, the central bank has undervalued the impact of soaring world fuel and food prices, even cutting interest rates in January in the face of accelerating inflation. It has since overturned the change, but the damage has been done. Together with its selling of shillings to build reserves, investors’ already slim trust in the currency has vanished.

“Africa now is an international attraction. If we do not continue to develop our skills, we could well find someone asleep at the wheel,” said Roy Daniels, head of trading for Africa at Rand Merchant Bank in Johannesburg.

Author Bio:
Kate Croston is a freelance writer, holds a bachelors degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She writes guest posts for different sites and loves contributing high speed internet service related topics. Questions or comments can be sent to: katecroston.croston09 @ gmail.com.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Write A Business Plan That Is Not Boring

September 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A business plan is any plan that works for a business to look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for problems and opportunities.

Here’s how to write one without boring the life out of its readers: Don’t Make My Eyes Bleed

Filed Under: Small Business

MedAfrica

September 19, 2011 by 1 Comment

Here’s a very interesting presentation on MedAfrica which a very ambitious Kenyan company seeking to solve very real and appropriate healthcare related problems.

They look pretty good, don’t they?

Filed Under: Internet Culture

The Long Grind Before You Become an Overnight Success

September 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I read Seth Godin’s “The Dip: The Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit and When to Stick” over the weekend.

It has some interesting approaches to life and work. Let me paraphrase:

If you (or your company) want to be “the best in the world” at something…you need to work through the beginning phase of development and be able to hang on and evolve through the long development phase, which he calls “the dip”…and you need to drop any distracting investments of time and money for which you do not have adequate advantage to make it through “the dip” — this is called “intelligent quitting”.

The long development phase, which can get progressively more difficult, might be a “dip” with success at the end of the tunnel, or a “cul-de-sac”—a place where you can work forever and never get the rainbow. And you have to learn to discern the difference…

There are big advantages that accrue to those who are “best in the world”.

The Dip is a very interesting and inspiring book which I encourage everyone to read. You can take a lot of meaning from its pages but to me, the book’s main idea is that usually “overnight success” is not actually overnight. For you to become really, really successful you often have to go through an extended period of time where you work VERY hard yet you don’t actually feel like you are making any progress.

This article describes this situation perfectly: The Long Grind Before You Become an Overnight Success.

The lesson here is that if you are working on a new idea, a new business, a new product…a new anything then you should be prepared for the long and hard-fought “dip” which you very probably will go through on your way to success.

Filed Under: Small Business