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Sokotele is DEAD!

A reliable fly on the wall says that this venture from Kencell/Celtel/Whatever is drawing its last breath. I guess they had it coming considering the business model they took. 

One of my favourite business books "An Innovator's Solution" says that the key to successful products is to find out what job consumers are trying to get done, and develop a product that gets that job done. Hate them or love them, thats what M-PESA did, and what Sokotele failed to do, and now they will be punished for it.

I believe Sokoteles biggest mistake was tying-in the service to K-Rep (although I hear that this was because the service was actually a K-Rep idea!), and making the service simply about money transfer instead of the more job-I'm-trying-to-get-done 'liquid money storage' service that M-PESA is.

Oh well, lets see if a rejuvenated Telkom can create some waves with their own moribund money-transfer service (any body know what its called) under an Orange brand.
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Comments

bankelele said…
sad another great product poorly marketed from celtel. still am sure they are as ambitious as m-pesa and will re-launch it in some format
September 11, 2008 9:38 AM
Godfrey said…
Zain just never seems to miss opportunities for fouling up yet again. For some reason, Celtel-Zain is simply unable to connect with Kenyans. They have failed to identify with the aspirations of the people and hence, their marketing strategies fail to hit the mark. Unless they realize this and act, their brand will irredeemably get damaged.
September 11, 2008 11:34 AM
Harry Karanja said…
Orange have decided if you can't beat them, join them. That's right, you can now send m-pesa from Safaricom to someone on the Orange network and they withdraw it. I'm told soon even someone on Orange will be able to deposit and send money.
August 10, 2009 9:15 PM
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