Dear All,
Two years ago we started a crusade of exploring the opportunities of knowledge exports of services by the exploiting the superhighway of the internet.Under our association of SMEs engaged in IT called Uganda ICT Outsourcing Services Association(UICTOSA) we have been running two pilots one for online book-keeping services whereby work has been sent by Canadian companies, processed in Uganda and sent back to Canada and another one on telemarketing in call centres.Both pilots have been promising and we are now looking forward to rolling out into commercial activities.
We see this as an opportunity to give employment especially to our youth who would become global workers without having to leave Uganda let alone getting humiliated as they try to get visas to USA or Europe to go and look for jobs.
This is an effort in which we would request our fellow Ugandans in the diaspora to get interested and support by getting us companies that can contract our people to render internet-based services to them.
Regards
Vincent Musubire
Chairman, Uganda ICT Outsourcing Services Association,
Vincent K.Musubire(MIPR)
Senior Partner
ML 2000 Ltd.
P.O.Box 10078, Kampala,Uganda
Tel. 256-41-230385
Mobile: 075-646653
Fax:256-41-232716/255288
>From: Maggie Atieno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: ugnet_: Uganda: E-Business Takes Off With Young Innovators
>Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 13:44:09 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>
>Saidi Doka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>Uganda: E-Business Takes Off With Young Innovators
>by Teresa Nannozi
>
>
>Kampala, Mar 28, 2002 -- At 11 p.m. on Monday,
>Kampala is just going to bed. But at
>Dastur Street in a single-room, second floor suite on
>Radio One Building,
>the day is just beginning for the young, night-shift
>sales team at Globenet
>Internet Cafe.
>
>As the town wakes up at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, and the
>company's daytime workers
>arrive, the night shift will be going to sleep.
>
>This has been going on since the second week of
>February, when Farid Jingo,
>31, proprietor of Globenet Ltd as the company is
>called, signed a contract
>with an agent of the American telecommunications giant
>AT&T.
>
> >From its base in Kampala, Globenet markets AT&T
>telephone packages to
>potential clients in the US states of New York and New
>Jersey.
>
>AT&T sends a list of prospective clients - about 7,000
>every two weeks.
>Globenet calls to convince them to subscribe to AT&T.
>The Americans never
>even know that the person at the other end of the line
>is working out of an
>Internet cafe in Uganda, a whole time zone away.
>
>On Nkrumah Road, in a small single-room office of the
>Old UCB Building,
>another pioneer in this new-age line of exports is
>Cayman Consult Ltd, a
>data entry and book keeping operation that, for about
>the same time, has
>been working for Wall & Associates of Canada.
>
>"The client sends his work in the evening as he goes
>to sleep," Cayman's
>young Chief Executive Officer, Abubakar Luwaga, 28,
>told an E-Business
>conference organized by the Uganda Investment
>Authority at Sheraton Hotel
>last week.
>
>"We promise that by the time he wakes up, it will be
>done."
>
>Luwaga has no computers in his office, so he and his
>team work night shifts
>out of Internet cafes, including Globenet.
>
>Accounting documents such as cheques, bills, invoices
>and bank statements
>are scanned in Canada by Wall & Associates, and sent
>to Uganda via the
>Internet.
>
>The data is entered and organized by Ugandan operators
>using a specialized
>software package and sent back to Wall & Associates
>accountants, who then
>prepare financial statements and analyses for their
>clients.
>
>E-Business. Smart, young professionals are turning
>Internet-based service
>exports into one of the most potent growth areas for
>cash-strapped, well
>educated, and innovative people in young economies
>like Uganda.
>
>Forget flowers, vanilla and fish, newfound investment
>areas of the 1990s.
>While they are still referred to as "non-traditional"
>exports, the latest
>innovation by Ugandan entrepreneurs in Internet
>Communications Technology
>make them look traditional.
>
>In comparison even the fierce cotton-processing AGOA
>(African Growth and
>Opportunities Act) campaign looks ordinary.
>
>And there are as many opportunities as takers.
>
>Cayman and Globenet are pioneers in a field that has
>been embraced by
>economic planners in government, and investors in
>telecommunications
>technology, as one of the eight most strategic areas
>of investment and
>growth in Uganda.
>
>Championing E-Business as a new area of low-capital,
>professional
>investment, UIA hosted the seminar last week for all
>investors in IT and
>telecommunications.
>
>A 2001 survey by the Canadian consultancy firm, Perwit
>International,
>commissioned by government, projected that the sector
>will earn up to US $9m
>in 2003 alone, with 400 new jobs. Earnings will rise
>to US $45m in 2006.
>
>Finally, a solution for unemployed graduates and
>university students. Not
>just in data and call centers, but also in online
>tutoring of school
>children, where Perwit projected 100,000 jobs; in
>computerizing old American
>medical records; in monitoring security.
>
>Perwit warned however that Ugandans have to move very
>fast. Countries like
>India, Malaysia and Ghana, have carved themselves
>thriving niche industries
>exporting similar services, and Ugandans will be
>out-competed if they are
>slow.
>
>The question that begs an answer is, what attracts a
>North American company
>to hire Ugandans to handle its American data and
>clients?
>
>True, Luwaga and Jingo warn that while not enough to
>dampen their
>enthusiasm, the challenges they have faced since the
>minute they opened
>business have been nearly as numerous as the
>opportunities.
>
>Globenet started with 8 employees, but lost six of
>them in the first two
>days, for crimes ranging from sloppy work, diminished
>productivity, poor
>telephone manners and customer relations, etc.
>
>"People would fall asleep half-way through the night
>when we had a lot of
>work still undone," said Jingo.
>
>And with Globenet marketing directly to American
>consumers, Jingo is
>fighting stiff battles vanquishing heavy
>Ugandan/African accents, which he
>says are a disincentive to buyers in a heavily
>competitive market.
>
>Cayman has suffered similar problems. The first batch
>of work, which was
>supposed to be completed in ten days, took three
>months because of low
>keyboard speeds of staff, and mistakes that caused
>large amounts of work to
>be repeated several times.
>
>Part of the problem has been a poor work ethic common
>in Uganda - disrespect
>for accuracy, deadlines, contracts, confidentiality,
>etc.
>
>Yet Vincent Musubire, chairman of the Uganda ICT
>Outsourcing Association,
>formed by 17 pioneer companies to exploit this sector,
>says the advantages
>far outweigh the shortcomings.
>
>The first is geographical, placing Uganda 8 hours
>behind the US. As a US
>company closes at the end of the day, its Ugandan
>counterpart is waking up,
>meaning their data will all be processed by the next
>morning.
>
>For Globenet, working at night when most people are
>asleep frees large
>volumes of redundant bandwidth, making connections
>easier and cheaper.
>
>The second is Uganda's cheap labour, which
>dramatically cuts down the cost
>of doing the same piece of work in the United States.
>A US company can pay
>Ugandans below its domestic the minimum wage (of about
>US $8 an hour) for
>the same piece of work, and leave Ugandans feeling
>overpaid.
>
>The other advantage is that most Ugandans speak
>"reasonably good English",
>the predominant language of business in North America.
>This will be boon for
>university students seeking part-time work, and
>unemployed, educated people.
>
>Uganda's early entry into Internet connectivity is
>another plus. With close
>to 100 Internet cafes and a good number of service
>providers operating in
>Kampala, Musubire says companies can use their
>computers at night, requiring
>little investment apart from expertise.
>
>Jingo said Globenet has signed a deal with Uganda
>Telecom Ltd that gives it
>cheaper call rates and a fully-equipped calling
>facility to work from,
>including expertise. Cayman has partnered with IT
>services provider
>Metrocomia and an auditing company.
>
>At the stakeholders' conference last week, service
>providers like MTN Uganda
>and Afsat say they are ready to invest in expanded
>bandwidth and guarantee
>the confidentiality needed for transmission of
>high-speed and sensitive
>data.
>
>A law to govern Internet technology was a problem,
>until President Museveni
>met Perwit President Jacques Rostenne last year, after
>which he asked the
>prime minister to review the monopoly licenses on
>international traffic held
>by MTN and UTL, to share them with the new E-Business
>investors.
>
>Last week Minister of State for Trade, Abel Rwendeire,
>said the law had
>already been approved by cabinet and will soon be in
>parliament, setting up
>structures to help Ugandans exploit the new
>opportunities, and addressing
>such issues as confidentiality of business information
>and copyright.
>
>The agreements however, particularly the one with UTL,
>which controls
>Uganda's largest data transmission and storage network
>and still has three
>years to expire, will be negotiated privately with
>government.
>
>Training staff to the standard desired by North
>American companies will take
>a lot of work. Globenet and Cayman are already
>training their staff in the
>specific skills required by their clients.
>
>Cayman is designing a comprehensive professional
>course for bookkeeping and
>data entry with Enterprise Uganda.
>
>However according to UIA Executive Director, Maggie
>Kigozi, institutions
>like Makerere, Uganda Management Institute, APTECH and
>others must adjust
>their curricula to incorporate the new skill
>requirements into what they
>teach their students.
>
>SOURCE: DigAfrica -- DigAfrica analyzes, informs and
>updates on Internet & Telecommunications activities
>and progress in Africa as-they-unfold.
>© Copyright DigAfrica 2001 --
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigAfrica
>
>
>
>
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