Utilising ICT to benefit Zimbabwe and avoiding unscrupulous IT companies

By Elijah Mangwengwende

“Muzukuru ndigadzirirewo ka Website yangu my business is not doing well so am sure with a website I will prosper”, I said how much are you prepared to pay me for my work, there goes the reply “unoti zvauri ku London worasa tsika, kubhadharisa ini sekuru vako, chingogadzira website chete.”

Of course I laughed but after a lengthy discussion with him decided to share with others how people are being duped by IT companies in Zimbabwe, and I will try to unlock the myth behind ICT usage and “business growth” promises.

The world is currently under an Information technology revolution, almost 95% of business transactions are done through information technology, it looks easy when one receive his or her parcel from eBay or Amazon, these are well established organisations with all the resources to make things happen within seconds utilising Information technology tools.

My first job in the Diaspora was at Amazon somewhere in Milton Keynes, I experienced everything from the floor operations up to their IT rooms so what I am saying is through experience not hearsay.

Not everyone is bound to benefit from using information technology, something those companies will never tell you, all they want is money, of course you can’t blame them, and they are into business so they cannot de-campaign themselves.

I have noticed the mushrooming of IT companies just like the sprouting churches with the aim of fleecing unsuspecting people like my uncle. I saw many adverts about successful web development companies, domain registrations, lost items tracking, PC repairs, web hosting and software development etc.

I took my time to check what they accomplished; save for online newspapers, the business side is fraudulent and uninspiring at all.

Logistics behind IT business

I urge everyone willing to utilise IT for business growth to do a though research on what is required to succeed before wasting money on developing websites, databases or buying hardware.

Venturing into online business doesn’t mean eliminating the manual side of doing things, it’s actually adding extra costs, consider the warehouse where goods received and dispatched, it means extra employees for sorting parcels, packaging, postage etc vehicles needed for delivering those items, drivers are required means extra wages, what about vehicle maintenance.

That’s the physical side, if one now consider online logistics and costs, web hosting costs, database updates, online transaction, online queries etc it gain top up business running costs.

I believe it is important to consider the costs of running an online business before spending hard earned cash paying companies which are not honest enough to expose the truth to their customers.

The Myths behind online business: Zimbabwe scenario

IT infrastructure: Econet is doing a great job laying down the fibre optic cables from Mozambique, but it is not enough, more players are needed to improve IT infrastructure, PTC is now a white elephant, erratic power supplies from ZESA, poor roads, without proper infrastructure to improve efficiency it is going to be difficult for ordinary business people to realise any profits from online business.

The truth is that, if a customer in Mexico cant complete an online transaction for a beautiful Zimbabwean sculpture within 3 minutes, do you think the customer is going to wait for that, No, I tried to buy some goods online from Harare, it took me 2 months to receive my goods, i couldn’t even have the option to complain online, I had to phone day and night.

The bottom line is that Zimbabwe as a country is not yet ready to compete with other nations in terms of online business.

Improved sales and more profits: I browsed several websites developed by those companies i mention before, I cannot name them otherwise I will be sued. I wonder how someone is expected to sell more items online when the website doesn’t have option for customers to pay for items, they are just static websites, no difference to advertising fliers used by Djs or music promoters.

Besides that the websites won’t be found anywhere near first 5 pages on Google, why, it’s because the web designers sold a doodle to customers, no optimisation/marketing tools are used, so how do you expect customers to know about your goods online without advertising your site online?

So if someone charges you 50 dollars for web design then run away, any meaningful or beneficial site costs more than that, demand to know how customers are going to know about the existence of your site online.

Nowadays it is no longer an issue of just designing a site, that phase has passed 10 years ago, it’s a era of marketing strategies online and there are many marketing tools.

Warehouse/databases and websites: Just like a physical warehouse, where employees sort all items, a proper website must be able to mirror the physical operations; just like in a shop the shop keeper will pick the goods for you! So who does do the picking for a customer online? Your website warehouse is the database.

So most of the websites just have few pictures on front page, no shopping carts etc why because the IT companies are short-changing customers, they are not telling the truth about the actual requirements for a successful online business operations. So if they can’t design a database and link it with a website, that’s stealing from unsuspecting customers.

Online transactions: On several occasions am asked for my credit card to pay for goods online because many of the sites doesn’t have that option, some have no security features at all, it’s expensive to use security companies like PayPal.

No one will use credit cards on a dodgy site without proper security protocols, so it is important to demand security features for your websites and authentic ones too.

Hope not lost

Information Technology can be useful even without a website, its unfortunate some people think IT means website, I laughed when Tobaiwa Mudede said he can’t update voter’s roll because the national website is being constructed somewhere.

It is very possible to improve efficiency without a website at all, not all operations require a site, for example in Mudede’s case it is very possible to do database update without even internet connection. I recently developed a database for AIDs Charity in rural Uganda, all AIDs patients no longer need to travel to collect their medication in towns or nearby hospitals.

Only one person collects for everyone. Why because the database enables all their medical needs to be updated accordingly daily by a local headmaster, print out and send one person, they only visit for medical examination.

For example in Zimbabwe why can’t we have a national database linking all birth certificates, national Ids and passports to eliminate long and unnecessary night queues, a single birth certificate number can be used to retrieve all records, the number can be stored at birth, when the person turns 16 an ID request can be generated automatically only a photo will be required then same details can be used for passports applications.

Why moving from one office to another for 10 hours.

Next week I will be talking real technology issues and how they can be implemented in most cases “Do it Your Self” scenarios.

Elijah Mangwengwende loves technology and is an avid IT programmer, highly skilled in internet and business security and a certified Ethical hacker.