Wow, this feels good.

When a brand puts its name to a cause there is always a risk that there will be backlash.  Often times these CSR initiatives can be misconstrued as paying lip service to an issue, instead of immersing themselves and becoming truly involved. It's usually the large corporations that fall foul of this trap, compromising efforts to pander to shareholder value.  Which is why it's so good to be working for an organisation that does immerse itself in local issues, wherever they are.

Our Rwandan company has just taken the extraordinary step of donating $250k towards the prevention of Ebola in Rwanda. Our wildly charismatic Chairman of LT Rwanda handed the cheque over to Rwanda’s ministry of health to supplement the government’s own prevention plan.

We hope the funds will be used in strengthening capacity through medical, social prevention and mobilisation and awareness campaigns. 

The Minister for Health, Dr Agnes Binagwaho, expressed appreciation, saying prevention is everyone’s responsibility.

In Africa, there’s plenty of opportunity for the private sector to support government efforts. I know that we have very generous stakeholders in this company who are little lauded. I know this donation is not the first from the shareholders at Liquid Telecom and am certain it will be followed by many more in the future.  I only hope that other corporations and multinationals working in Africa will follow suit, mostly because it feels good to work for a team that does this

Next time,remember to smile!

Miserable me and smiley Juanita Clark, CEO FTTH Africa

Earlier this week at the annual awards ceremony of the influential industry group Fibre To The Home (FTTH) Council Africa, I collected the “Infrastructure Innovation of the Year Award" on behalf of our retail team.

Earlier this year Liquid Telecom launched its FTTH service in Zimbabwe with Internet access of up to 100Mbps, the fastest broadband available in Africa today. We’ve also got plans to launch services Zambia, Kenya and Rwanda.

It’s great that our work in building Africa’s digital future has been recognised by our peers in the industry.

It’s great to win, but next time I must remember to smile?!

Celebrating success in Nairobi

I’ve just come back from Kenya. I always love going to Nairobi, and this time was no exception.  I was there to organise the launch of the opening of a new floor at the East Africa Data Centre (EADC), the only Tier 3 secure electronic data centre in east and central Africa.  My company has just invested Ksh 1bn (that’s almost $12m in old money) expanding rack space to meet demand. 

The data centre, which now houses Kenya’s Internet Exchange Point, has been credited by the global Internet Society as a key factor in driving down internet prices in Kenya, to among the lowest in Africa. 

Greeting ICT CS, Dr Fred Matiang'i at the entrance to the EADC, Nairobi, Kenya

The East Africa Data Centre has transformed how data traffic is handled in the region by providing a central point for interconnect services, it has reduced latency, improved data services, reduced costs and made it easier to transfer data across networks.

For almost a decade now, I’ve been arguing that by keeping African data in Africa we will reduce the costs of internet access while creating an environment that encourages innovation and entrepreneurial culture in ICT and local business.

Mind The Gap

As a marketing geek, it’s easy to believe to believe that marketing drives the business forward and creates sales and value through the organisation. My friends in finance look at marketing in a very different way – they sometimes see my work as a discretionary spend that could be cut and added straight to the bottom line. 

Finance teams are generally much more sceptical than us about a marketing teams ability to drive revenue or create new sales channels.  And we’re often unrealistically confident in our ability to transform a business.  Do marketers have an inflated sense of self worth and why the difference in perceptions about the value of marketing? 

Marketers can be blissfully ignorant of the real RoI of their budgets and sometimes are wholly unaware of how their budgets fit in with the wider commercial and operational targets.  So it’s not surprising that the eagle eyed finance departments use their own measures and metrics to asses the value of marketing.

Some stats from a recent Marketing Week report show how wide the gap is.

•    84% of marketers agree that marketing needs to grow for the business to grow, but just 47% of finance respondents agree
•    77% of marketers agree that marketing is a critical function in their business, while fewer (62% of) finance respondents agree
•    72% of marketers agree that the marketing function is becoming more important to their organization, compared to just 55% of finance respondents
•    62% of marketers agree that the marketing function takes the lead in driving innovation within the business, with only around half as many (34%) of finance respondents concurring.

Marketing departments need to work harder to build bonds with finance teams to make sure their objectives are better understood and that the extrinsic and intrinsic value of their toils are recognised, even if they can’t be measured.  

Once one of the opco's flighted a billboard with no sales promotion or expected RoI. When the finance team asked why they did it the local marketing team told how the office morale had been  feeling low, but now, driving past the new billboard gave the whole company a energising boost. How do you measure that?

Just because everyone else is, should I?

Doesn’t sound like a convincing argument to me, so no, I think that I’ll pass on blogging.  But perhaps, just praps, if I did start blogging I might actually enjoy it; and then praps give some insight into something that someone else cares about.  So maybe I should at least consider writing a blog.  Sometimes I do have a bit of time on my hands, so I could occasionally put thought to word and drop in a  short blog.

For me though, time’s to short to spend all that time smashing away at a keyboard scribing missives to the ether, so now I’m decided, I’m not going to write a blog.  

They say that if you do blog you have to “engage with your readers”. It’s advice I’ve given to my team plenty of times.  But here’s the rub, I’ve got no readers.  Now that’s a challenge isn’t it?  I like challenges.

So then I ask myself, who’s my target market?  But wait, what’s a target market anyway?  Aren’t markets places where you pay for stuff?  I don’t want anyone paying for stuff – we should get all this for free. Free, ‘cos it ain’t worth nought?

And if you’re a blogger reading this and thinking, what a great web log this chap is crafting, well then I’d urge you to spin on your heals and run, because this blogger isn’t interested in the dialogue, just in this monologue.

All that’s now needed is something interesting to say – I think I’ll save that until next time, unless you’re still reading, which means you’re finding this interesting.

So that’s it.  No-one else is reading this, just me writing so I guess it’s time to sign off.

Tom Tudor Strengthens Management Team at Liquid Telecom

The Liquid Telecom Group today announced that Tom Tudor has joined its management team as Chief Marketing Officer and will oversee the expansion of Liquid’s marketing activities across Africa.

Tom joins from African wholesale carrier Gateway Communications where he has been responsible for its marketing and communications strategy since 2005. During this time he managed the integration of the Link Africa and GS Telecom brands into Gateway and was constructive in rebranding its enterprise assets into Vodacom Business Africa.

Tom has worked closely with the international teams at Vodacom and Vodafone, as well as more recently with PCCW Global which acquired Gateway in 2012. Prior to this he worked for Energis, Cable & Wireless and Opal Telecom in a variety of product, business development and marketing roles.

Nic Rudnick, CEO of The Liquid Telecom Group, said: “We are an ambitious company which is growing fast. Tom understands our industry and his experience in African telecoms and his marketing expertise will be vital in guiding us through our expansion plans. I am truly delighted to have him on-board”.

Tom adds: “Liquid is a fantastic company with an exciting future. It’s already established a number of excellent businesses and I look forward to contributing to its future successes”.

http://www.liquidtelecom.com/blog/tom-tudor-strengthens-management-team-at-liquid-telecom-group