Safaricom PLC headquarters in Westlands, Nairobi.
‘We take what can be taken. This is what we do,” Zec Chelovik, former resident of a Siberian gulag who had to chew off his fingers to stop the gangrene and stay alive tells Jack Reacher in the movie of the same name. The same is true of companies. None leaves revenue on the table, neither should they so long as it is within the reasonable bounds of business ethics.
The customers of Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest company, are angry nomads supposedly with their skins all rolled up, looking for an alternative forest to pitch their tents. I found this out the painful way in the last week when I tweeted that we should help it find a way to deal with competition from Starlink, the American communications company.
I have been on social media for some time and I can’t remember the last time I was beaten that relentlessly. My comment, I suppose, came from the place that I spent my working life in the media, which was totally decimated by tech, our own inability to change quickly enough and the sheer size of the competition we faced.
I tweeted after a visit to Silicon Valley and being completely awed at the sheer immensity of America’s technology sector. No company can compete with Starlink in the provision of satellite communications services. It has, in Elon Musk, a bold, brilliant and driven CEO and owner. He also owns SpaceX, competing with governments to put satellites in space. For Starlink, SpaceX has put 6,281 satellites in orbit since 2019.
I know a little bit about the Starlink business model and there is a distinct complementarity between it and our MNOs (er, mobile network operators). Starlink is a satellite internet provider, targeting the entire globe and says it will partner with governments and broadband operators to take service to under-served areas.
Question of broken trust
I see no reason for Starlink to stay out of the densely populated areas if it makes business sense and I’d be most surprised if after a couple of years it is not in fierce competition in exactly those markets. I’d guess that the issue of collaborating with governments and existing broadband providers is a market entry reality which will likely be modified by establishment of a strong global presence.
There is much for Safaricom to correct to restore its reputation and the trust of its customers. A lot of it, I suspect, is perception, but perception is reality. Here is a selection of what some Kenyans feel very strongly about. First, the belief that Safaricom has made common cause with the government. “Police and politicians can rally behind them...”
Secondly, is the question of broken trust. “TRUST is the word. I don't trust @SafaricomPLC. A good number of Kenyans feel the same.” “This is business. It thrives on simplicity, efficiency, convenience and consumer trust. Safaricom, just like any other brand, either shapes up or ships out. It's not an emotional affair.” Thirdly, is the perception that the company is running on old glory and does not innovate. “@SafaricomPLC should innovate or die like Kenya Post and Telecommunications. Do you remember they were charging us upto 40/- per minute.”
Finally is the allegation that it has abused monopoly power and unfairly exploited its customers. “The only thing @Safaricom_Care is good at is abusing it's monopoly status. But as it has been said here, they just remind us of NOKIA, KODAK & others before them. If @mutuma_mathiu loves them so much, he shd be writing the CEO's regret speech coz it will be needed soon.”
When I argued that Safaricom is ours and too big to let go, one particularly vicious blogger wrote: Are they paying you to do this Mutuma?”
Let me explain my comment that we should support not just Safaricom but all our big companies that Kenyans have built with their sweat. As a nation, we need to develop a strong identity that gives us the motivation to make sacrifices and do difficult things for it.
Syndicated disaster
A proud, successful nation has things that make it different from others. Running big, successful companies is one of those things that we do well and should continue to do well. Why?
Your personality, or id or soul or whatever you call the software that runs you, is not armour-plated. It is accessible and you can easily be programmed by being provided with communications prompts, typically in the form of the information you consume.
In propaganda, the mantra for messing with your head is inform, persuade, influence. We instinctively keep our guard up by looking out for content that might contaminate our thinking, forgetting that words are the not the most dangerous prompts, but images and actions.
President William Ruto, if he was thoughtful about communications, would not need to go kara kara kara all the time to politick. He would just need to take one appropriate action—such as doing a deal with Raila Odinga.
What would a syndicated disaster of corporate failures tell us about ourselves?
Let the big companies fix their issues but Kenyans have to make a deliberate decision to support them, too.
Mr Mathiu, a media consultant at Steward-Africa, is a former Editor-in-Chief of Nation Media Group. [email protected]
