We are now getting very excited about the arrival of the various undersea fibre-optic communications cables in Kenya, are we not?
I certainly am, probably more than most. The internet is a great tool for me: it is the medium through which I communicate most often; where I conduct most of the research I need to do for my work; where increasingly I keep abreast of what is happening in the world; and where I interact with people with the same manic interests as mine.
But the internet has also been one of the biggest sources of stress in my life for the past decade. A great productivity-enhancing tool? Yeah, right. Not at our speeds. If I counted up all the hours I have spent staring at a screen waiting for a page to load or a bulky e-mail to appear, I wonder what proportion of my life has been lost just gaping. All because we did not have the foresight to see the need for good, inexpensive bandwidth in the country until very late in the day.
Let’s put all that behind us, though, and focus on what’s now about to happen. I will of course be one of the first to sign up for secure broadband, with the first company to deliver it properly. In the business world, excitement is growing about the possibilities. We are excited that the world will now open up for Kenya; that we will be able to communicate better and more cheaply; and that we will be able to promote, market and sell our goods and services more effectively.
But wait just a minute. There’s something no one seems to talk about at all. That pipe we’re so excited about moves things in both directions. It’s a two-way thing. If we are going to do business with the world more easily, the world is also going to do business with us more easily. If we are going to sell stuff, the world is also going to try to sell us stuff. And if I were in some of our businesses as they currently are, I would be feeling a little shiver down my spine.
Anyone in any doubt on this matter should pick up ‘The World is Flat’, by Thomas Friedman. That famous book outlines the profound effects the internet has had on world business, and how it has enabled so many emerging countries to use their human capital to provide cost-effective business solutions to rich markets. So far so good: we are an emerging nation, and we have great human capital too, right? Maybe – but the problem is with our competitiveness.
Too many of our services and professions have become fat and complacent, because they have never felt the chill wind of competition from all directions. If I was a Kenyan lawyer, for example, I would be more than a little concerned. All that boilerplate stuff – mundane, requiring no real value-add – that lawyers here sell for inflated fees, may become cheaply available from lawyers operating from abroad.
If I was a Kenyan accounting practice, I would also start to worry about the true value I add. If all I do is basic number-crunching and book management, well, some Indian firm is soon going to offer that at a fraction the Kenyan price – and possibly do it all much better.
The truth is, the Indians, Chinese, Koreans and many others are way ahead of us when it comes to doing business across the internet. They use their highly educated human capital to great effect, persuading western countries to outsource huge swathes of routine work to them – using the big pipe that is the internet to send the work back and forth. Our education provision is woeful compared to theirs, and they already have a head-start. And I think many of them are going to take a good look at the cushy way in which many services are sold in Kenya – legal, financial, IT support, medical, to name just a few – and see that there’s money to be made shaking up this market.
Are we ready for the shaking? This is what true connectivity does: it connects everyone to everything, affordably. After that only the most efficient providers are left standing. Many of our Internet Service Providers are going to fall by the wayside in this battle. Mere connectivity will soon be the most basic of commodities. The bandwidth-provision game will be over. Now, the battleground will shift most emphatically to service and added value – and that’s a different game.
If you are a Kenyan business with Kenyan customers you want to retain, it’s time to think very hard about what value you add to those customers’ lives. If all you do is replicable at a lower cost – it soon will be. Let’s rejoice about the undersea link, certainly – but let’s also look hard at our bonds with our customers, and the true quality of what we do. We have to play in a bigger field now.
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12 Responses:
June 8th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Nice article sunny.I got one question though,you have any idea as to when we will be able to use these fibre optic cables in our homes? I was hoping by july everything will be set & ready.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:13 am
great observations, i have my own observation on the same subject. – is see pitfalls and opportunities. the people in the forefront the connected people now will probably miss the opportuniteis because there focus is outwards.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Andrew:
Agreed – our educational system produces ‘parrots’ who have ‘read’, not ‘wizz-kids’ who can ‘think and do’.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:38 am
LOL, I hope it will not be said of Kenya and Kenyan business that “we fought the good fight, we ran the good race” e.t.c. e.t.c.
Its so sad that while the market will open up, the explosion of new services will nor be to the benefit of Kenyans. It does seem that the 8-4-4 system truly is equal to 0 because it has left us with nothing.
How will kenya’s “whizzes” and technology “leaders” compete if their preparation was Cramming for exams and buying degrees from a rigid education system?
who will have a spoon when the “porridge” rains?
April 12th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Kamau:
A nicely made point about ‘cake’ and ‘icing’. Agreed!
I do utterly agree that we need to ensure a certain social base for all – education, health, food security, access – before economic growth can happen. That is the problem with Vision 2030 – it assumes a great business explosion that will haul everyone out of poverty. Well, history suggests that things don’t happen like that. All the Asian Tigers implemented great social reforms alongside infrastructural development.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Sunny,
I definitely agree with your point on the long term.
And since Kenya has no long term planning except continually constructing political coalitions, I would argue that e-biz will be just another area of the general failure.
Whiz-kids are rare and they would need to come out of the total population. The pool of rich kids is not big enough. And the masses are not enjoying an education which cultivates them to become innovative entrepeneurs.
The fibre-optic is like having the icing for the cake. The big question is: Where is the cake?
The Maslow pyramid will be applicable here too.
There is a Swedish proverb which says: “When it rains porridge from heaven, the poor has no spoon.”
As long as the masses are not fed and truly educated, not only singing ma-me-mi-mo-mu in chorus, nothing will help.
April 11th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Kamau:
You are correct in your observation about the nature of Kenya’s economic structure – the immediate impact of fibre will not be meaningful.
But bear in mind that our future development and prosperity hinges not on the industries and occupations of the past, but in embracing high-technology and value-adding services. For that, proper broadband is vital. What we need is the business nous and entrepreneurial energy to propel us to that future.
April 11th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Very insightful! Everyone keep saying the fibre is coming but no one talks about what could happen in the negative as well. I hope businesses are ready for a global onslaught of high quality and cost effective online service providers.
April 11th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Somebody called Kenya a country of 32 billionaires and 32 million poor.
Right now 30% are starving.
Another 30% struggle to put one meal a day on the table.
Bandwidth will only be relevant to a tiny privileged group, out of which most are consumers and not producers.
I expect very little impact from the cable.
April 5th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Hi Sunny
It’s unfortunate that Kenyan politicians will remain unaffected by the arrival of the big pipe.
They desperately need competition.
April 5th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Sunny,
this is great stuff, in very simple words, you have made the big story of the fibre optic digestable and understandable to the ordinary Kenyan, Its very clear what this means to our businesses, market and general environment…….great stuff