Tag: Company News

MYtxtBOX offers you more reason to use Email messaging to interact with your customers and audience.

For as low as GHS0.008 per message, you can send emails to your customers, making MYtxtBOX Email the preferred messaging choice for businesses.

Enjoy the freedom that you deserve with MYtxtBOX Email’s pay-as-you-go service. Top up anytime, at your convenience because MYtxtBOX was created with the budgets of small businesses in mind.

We’re excited to announce that SMS Global Holdings (SMSGH) was one of a number of global business giants selected by the Stanford University in Silicon Valley, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, for its annual Stanford African Business Forum.

Co-founders of the company, Mr Alexander Adjei Bram and Mr Ernest Appenteng, along with Chief Technology Officer, Mr Kwadwo Seinti and Board Chairman took a trip out to Silicon Valley to present our work to leading entrepreneurs and change pioneers from Africa and the world on April 23, 2016.

The annual Stanford African Business Forum (SABF) is the premier networking opportunity for African business interests for the Stanford and larger Bay Area community. This year, SABF celebrated thought leaders and changemakers on the African continent with the overarching theme of reimagining development through creating local value. The theme “Creating Local Value” captured the rise of African consumers, companies and innovations, and the growth of African economies. The forum showcased how enterprising individuals and organizations across Africa are meeting the growing needs of Africans.

CEO of SMSGH, Alexander Adjei Bram, explained before his trip to Silicon Valley: “Africa is emerging as a hub of start-ups in a wide range of areas and we aspire to take this further. We want the world to see our innovation capabilities in the startup sector. At this event, a group of African businesses will showcase their innovations and forge partnerships with the vibrant American business industry.”

“Personally I think this is one of the best times to be in Africa. There’s a lot of growth. I think in the last few years there has been a lot of capital infusion into the continent, which is providing part of the much-needed seed capital to grow. It’s pretty awesome to see how the African business is developing its own mark on the world and to be a part of that,” he added.

The Stanford African Business Forum had in attendance a number of Ghanaian speakers including Patrick Awuah (Founder & President, Ashesi University College) and Eric M.K. Osiakwan (Managing Partner, Chanzo Capital).

Others from Africa and beyond include Hans Nilsson (Board Chairman, SMS Global Holdings), Paul Mfonfu (Tools and Client Engineering Team head, PayPal), Teju Ajani (Youtube, Content partnerships lead, SSA) and Jessica Vernon (Co-founder & Director, Miti Health), who spoke on topics ranging from the Future of Content Creation and Distribution in Africa, Business Models in Financial Services to Investing in Africa.

As a keynote speaker at the event itself, Alexander Adjei Bram addressed participants on the theme “Driving Business Productivity Through Technology – Enabled Platforms,” expanding on how technology can unlock value for African businesses to better serve customers, run more efficiently, make communication simpler and more affordable, and create employment opportunities.

He shared the SMSGH success story with the Stanford community and results of the technology company’s participation in the Stanford Seed Transformation Program that began in 2014.

Silicon Valley and SMSGH are both leaders in innovation. Silicon Valley, home to major technology companies, start-ups and prestigious universities, is the world’s top innovative hub. Cooperation with Valley-based companies and institutions offers exciting prospects for SMSGH, while expanding business networks for better future collaboration.

MTN Business is hosting its maiden edition of its immensely popular business Fair in Takoradi. MTN Business is the business unit of MTN Ghana responsible for providing innovative and cutting edge communication services to small-large businesses and institutions in an effort to enable and inspire growth.

This year’s event slated for the 23^rd and 24^th March at the Akroma Plaza and Takoradi Market Circle, will expose small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to smart solutions that address challenges they face in running their businesses.

One of MTN’S leading partners, SMSGH Solutions Limited, who has over the years contributed to the growth of businesses, is one of the major exhibiters at the fair. SMSGH has innovative tools and solutions for SMEs to help boost productivity, enhance customer experience and promote business growth.

If you are interested in finding out more about our business solutions, meet us at the MTN Business Fair on the 23^rd and 24^th March 2016 at the Akroma Plaza and Market Circle respectively, or go through our website. You can also send an email at [email protected]

Don’t forget to add it to your schedule.

SMSGH has launched Email Messaging on MYtxtBOX in addition to its SMS and Voice messaging. The primary aim is to give users multiple channels to engage with their audience.

MYtxtBOX is a communication tool useful for businesses and individuals to reach a large number of people through bulk messaging. The addition of email messaging is in response to the demands of customers for messaging content that promotes visual advertising.

Research shows that more than 85% of internet users use email and users have a one-stop communication tool that improves customer satisfaction, saves costs, and inevitably increases revenue.

Features

• Create your own marketing campaigns using Email messaging on MYtxtBOX
• Professionally designed email templates for different email campaigns.
• Preview to check how your emails will look like.
• About 60% cheaper than most email messaging providers
• Pay-as-you-go service

MYtxtBOX remains the most effective communication tool useful for reaching a large number of people with personalized information at the lowest costs.

Send an email on www.MYtxtBOX.com

MPower is saying welcome to its new customers in a special way this holiday season. by giving away GHS5.00 free for the first wallet top-up. This means any customer who opens an account on MPower will receive GHS5.00 upon topping up their account for the first time.

MPower is an online payments service in Ghana offering a complete end-to-end web and mobile payment transactions solution to enable consumers and businesses send, spend and receive money. The aim is to redefine payments and transactions in Ghana by empowering businesses and consumers to do more with their money conveniently.

MPower has integrated with major local ecommerce merchants to enable users buy and pay for goods online from the comfort of their homes and offices.

To cash in on this offer, users only need to create an account and top up their wallet with mobile money, bank deposit or debit card.

Creating an account on MPower takes 4 simple steps:
1. Go to www.mpower.com.gh.
2. Click Create an account to sign up.
3. Complete the form and submit
4. Activate the account with the activation code sent to your phone.

With many ways to spend money on MPower one can shop from their favorite online shop, buy airtime and pay bills from the MPower CornerShop. Fees and charges that apply per the various transactions performed are listed on the MPower Service Fees page.

The offer started on 10th December and the first 2000 users to sign up and top up will be receiving the GHS5.00 in their accounts to spend.

Visit MPower today at www.mpower.com.gh or simply dial *714*44#.
MPower is saying ‘Be MPower’ed’ this festive season!

The MTN Career Fair is an initiative by MTN Ghana to bridge the career guidance and counseling gap for graduates and final-year students and also assist them in their search for employment. Since its inception in 2013, the fair has been held annually and this year’s event took place at the National Theatre on the 9th December, 2015, from 9am to 4pm.

The event was patronized by thousands of students and unemployed graduates as well as companies from various industries in search of the best talents to occupy available positions in these firms.

The fair opened with a welcome address from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of MTN, Noel Ganson, who said it was a platform for students and young graduates to acquire the knowledge and the necessary empowerment needed to start a professional career and to meet the challenges of a dynamic corporate world.

A key highlight of the event was a presentation on career planning by Ama Benneh, Human Resource Director of MTN; registered participants received guidance on how to write compelling CVs and prepare for job interviews.

Other notable speakers present at the fair included the host of Accra-based Citi FM, Bernard Avle, seasoned speaker, Emmanuel Dei-Tumi, respected author, Comfort Ocran, and the Head of Research and Engineering at DreamOval, Henry Sampson.

Attendees also had the opportunity to meet recruitment agencies and prospective employers for job interviews during the fair.

SMSGH was present at this year’s event to interact with job seekers and to find the relevant talent to join the team.

SMSGH sought various skilled individuals to fill positions in its Technology, Sales, Marketing, and Operations departments. These roles specifically include software development, customer support, copywriting, visual designing, and event management.

Details on open positions at SMSGH can be found on the careers page on the website. Interested candidates who qualify for these roles may apply directly on the page or submit their CVs to [email protected].

MYtxtBOX has just introduced a new way to top up credits via USSD. This additional top-up option offers users an effective means of purchasing MYtxtBOX credits with mobile money specifically through MTN and Airtel mobile wallets.

MYtxtBOX offers various mobile communication options for brands, businesses, and consumers to engage with their customers and contacts via text, multimedia, and recently voice messaging options.

MYtxtBOX provides a host of options for users to top up credits on their accounts. Before now customers could top-up via 5 main options:

• Direct bank deposit
• Direct mobile money deposit
• Purchasing top-up credits vouchers
• Credit/debit cards
• Payment via MPower

With this new top-up option, users can now perform 2 key functions on the go:

1. Check their existing balance
2. Top up an amount via Airtel Money or MTN Mobile Money

The top-up process can be completed in 5 simple steps:

1. Dial *714*22#.
2. Follow the USSD prompts.
3. You will receive a payment bill prompt on your phone.
4. Enter your mobile money pin.
5. Follow the prompt to accept the payment request.

Logging in to MYtxtBOX after this process indicates the new credit balance at the top right corner of the page.

The key benefit here is the ease of the process. It can take place on nearly every phone and does not require internet connectivity. This allows for convenience and a great deal of time, money, and effort is saved. Businesses and consumers can now enjoy the comfort of directly topping up their messaging credits with their mobile devices regardless of location and timing.

“Startups are the seed corn of the future economy,” our partner Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and chairman of Case Foundation, often says.

Today, Silicon Valley is envy of the entrepreneurial world, but 50 years ago, Silicon Valley was apple orchards. Detroit, then the wealthiest city in the US in terms of median income because it was the center of the half-century’s greatest innovation (the car) has now slipped to becoming the poorest major city in the US, because it stopped innovating.

As we’ve traveled from Kenya to Ghana, we’ve seen how planting seeds in an entrepreneurial ecosystem can really mature.

The first thing to know about the Ghanaian startup ecosystem is that the Ghanaian economy is itself a startup. The country only adopted capitalism in 1992, so only one generation has lived in a free-market society.

But the new next generation is fully embracing startups and the country is on the move.

We visited SMSGH, a ten-year-old startup employing dozens of people and powering mobile transactions across East Africa; DTRT, a manufacturing factory employing hundreds of people in great working conditions; nine exciting companies pitch in the ImpactHub Accra; followed by a very fun happy hour that felt more like a beach party than a networking session.

Nairobi vs Accra

If you simply compared first impressions from Nairobi and Accra, you might have thought the startup ecosystem was really rough around the edges here in Ghana. But to me, the Kenya to Ghana transition was encouraging.

Ghana today, seems not too far away from Kenya five years ago. Back then, Erik Hersman and his team were solidifying the iHub. About 20 investment groups that are now active in Kenya were not active then, and the entrepreneurial ecosystem was fragmented.

Based on the evidence of promise we saw in Ghana today, Accra can get there.

1. Local investment is impressive

We spent several days with local investors: the Oasis Fund, the African Angels Network, and Eric Osiakwan, who has a Steve Case-like reputation in Ghana as the startup champion in the country.

One of the more difficult conversations I had to have over the years in Kenya — where the ecosystem is thriving — is with local Kenyan investors. In Kenya, successful businesspeople do not invest in startups very often. It is difficult sometimes for me to justify why we invest internationally in Kenya when successful local entrepreneurs won’t do it.

Now, that is changing. And Julian Kyula of MODE, who partnered with us on the Pitch for Impact competition in Kenya is a great example — but in Ghana, successful business people have been investing in startups for quite a while.

As a few examples: the Oasis Fund has 40% of its limited partner base in-country; the Ghanaian angels’ network has over 25 locals who have done a deal in the last two years, and Eric Osiakwan walked us around SMSGH — one of his portfolio companies — as a bigger cheerleader than the CEO.

One Ghanaian said that local self-reliance, as a relatively closed economy, was an important trait for a very long time. And in Africa, when it comes to locals investing in the next generation, Ghana may well be leading the way.

2. Culture and policy both pose challenges and opportunities.

At the same time, Ghana still has a long way to go. Unlike Kenya, where entrepreneurship is encouraged, stepping out and starting your own company isn’t in Ghana.

Whether it’s cultural or whether it’s a vestige of a socialist system that didn’t reward the free market, one entrepreneur said: “In Ghana, everyone is afraid of getting too big.”

Policy and economic conditions are difficult too. Kwami, whose company, Moringa Connect, is a great agribusiness that mentioned how difficult startup investment was to raise for one major reason—bank interest rates are 28%, and it’s difficult even for an exceptional startup to outperform that.

Yet despite these challenges, Ghana has several local conditions that make it globally competitive. The factory we visited, DTRT, can employ hundreds of people in quality working conditions and sell to major US retailers because Ghana’s port is a free trade zone (a vestige of Ghana’s exports of coffee and other cash crops), and also has an agreement with the US to not impose tariffs on imports of the 48 poorest countries in Africa.

Ghana has the ability to create 1 million manufacturing jobs, estimated our leader at DTRT—thanks to policy that supports small manufacturing businesses.

Finally, while Ghanaian culture could be a challenge, its creativity and vibrancy also have major advantages. We had a breakfast with creatives from across Ghana, which is becoming a burgeoning fashion and entertainment industry. The talk was about An African City (Ghana’s Sex in the City equivalent), where the producer joined artists, fashion designers, and more to show off Ghana’s edge in cultural leadership.

3. Great assets can make Ghana globally relevant

Despite the challenges, at a spirited dinner, businesspeople and investors were bullish on Ghana’s prospects. In discussing the entrepreneurial potential of Africa, they settled on the KINGS (Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa) as the top five highest-potential entrepreneurial ecosystems, and Ghana ended up third.

How come? Ghana had strong assets that were exportable across Africa and the world: the most educated population in Sub-Saharan Africa, an English language background, relatively good infrastructure, a good and functioning port, and more.

In the Pitch for Accra competition, we saw these assets on display. Farmerline, which delivers information to farmers over mobile — helping them to increase their income through better understanding of crop prices and more—is off to a great start in Ghana and importing to East Africa.

Flippy Campus, a mobile solution that helps schools manage information (replacing paper noticeboards), is building on Ghana’s asset of having the best educational system in Sub-Saharan Africa.

And amazingly, Bitsoko, a blockchain-powered financial services solution, that has an early customer in a food market in Detroit — helping power the entrepreneurial revolution that is rebuilding a once-great American city.

African solutions are not just solving problems in Africa, but helping around the world.

4. Africa keeps going

The winner of Pitch for Accra was Yago Baatuolku, a wonderful leader whose company, Wanjo, produces juice sourced from 250 women farmers in Ghana. Ghana is one of the leading juice consumers worldwide, and if Ghanaians only drank juice produced in Ghana, they would send US$ 250 million a year to farmers. Currently, it’s only US$ 10 million.

Yago has a wonderful business but never felt like she was ready to pitch. When Sheila Herrling of the Case Foundation encouraged her to be “fearless” and pitch, though, she brought down the house, treated the happy hour to Wanjo juice, and took home a US$25, 000 investment.

“I’m so glad I decided to show up,” she said. In a culture that doesn’t always encourage entrepreneurs, showing up is critical.

We asked the CEO of SMSGH what advice he would give — 10 years in — to a Ghanaian entrepreneur starting out. He said, “Just keep going.” He said that there would be a lot of social, cultural, and maybe even political pressure to slow down, not get too big, not get too visible, and a lot of unexpected bumps along the way. The only reason he was able to build a company was that he kept on going.

If Ghana just keeps going, and Africa just keeps going, we’ll see a transformed ecosystem and Ghana can move light years in the next five years. Who knows what we can see in the next 50 years.

Source: Ventureburn

In the 21st-century world of business communications, an organization’s chances of survival and success are heavily reliant on its ability to communicate effectively. To achieve a business’ communication objectives, be it among internal staff, partners, or customer engagement activities; speed, clarity, and relevance are three underlying tenets that need not be overlooked.

Traditional communication mediums such as face-to-face meetings, telephones, noticeboards, newspapers, mail, fax, radio, and TV are among the most effective channels in use. Yet rapid advancements in technology have improved the speed, reach, and storage capacities of newer channels like Instant Messaging (IM), email, and bulk SMS. Voice Messaging is one such channel gaining recognition as a preferred medium for broadcast marketing since it yields higher deliverability which leads to greater conversions.

With Voice Messaging the recipient does not require internet connectivity. The message is delivered in a simple fashion similar to a normal phone call. When a target recipient’s phone rings and the call is accepted, the voice clip automatically plays prompting the user for an action. Thus Voice Messaging is a faster and clearer form of communication; where done right can motivate a series of desired user actions.

SMSGH a leading Telecom Value Added Services (VAS) provider in Africa recently released a new Voice Messaging feature on MYtxtBOX; a suite of web tools for business communications.

The service is among the first of its kind open to users working with a set of Ghanaian recipients’ contacts list. The service is currently accessible on www.MYtxtBOX.com with free trial options for both new and existing users. There are limitless possibilities to the application of Voice Messaging and it is worth taking some time to explore some of its uses as it relates to the core operations of your business.

Another day, another nomination!

MPower Payments, perhaps Africa’s most comprehensive payment platform, has earned SMSGH yet another prestigious industry nomination – “Best Card Processor of the Year” for the 2015 edition of Card & ePayment Africa Awards.

Card and ePayment Africa Awards is an annual event organized by Intermarc Consulting with the main focus of showcasing innovation, achievements within the African ePayment space. The award focuses on technology development, production design and marketing. The 19-category awards night is open to Card Issuers, Processors, POS Companies, Mobile and Online Payment Companies, PTSPs, Merchant Acquirers and respective solution providers in Africa.

MPower Payments’ highly secure platform enables users to make payments through Internet, cards, SMS and now a mobile USSD application – *714*44#. The application can be clustered to handle millions of users. It contains many functionalities including an e-commerce platform, CRM functions and opportunities for branchless financing.

It is competitively priced, offering opportunities for individuals, groups, microfinance institutions, smaller banks and local telecoms to facilitate financial inclusion.

MPower Payments currently has over 80,000 users as at December, 2014, a little over 420 registered merchants, and transaction volumes to the tune of GHC500, 000 a month.

“We’re excited to be recognized as a leader in the ePayments industry with this nomination”, said George Festus Mensah, Senior Products Manager. “SMSGH is doing all it can through MPower to deliver the next generation of electronic payment solutions. Clients should be able to effect smart and seamless transactions at little or no cost without facing bureaucracies, traditional credit limits and additional accounts payable workload.”

Voting ends 7th February, 2015, and is open to the public. You can assist by promoting MPower for this award at http://www.cardandepaymentafricaawards.com/vote/.

For more information on the benefits of using MPower Payments, visit the website at www.mpowerpayments.com.

In a related development, MPower has unveiled its latest feature – a USSD application – which mirrors and simplifies the functionality of the web app, allowing a user to open and manage an offline account, top-up airtime, pay bills, shop online and more. All a user has to do is dial the USSD code – *714*44# on their mobile phone and access all the functions of a seamless payments application, in seconds.

The first-ever MTN Business annual fair in Accra ended successfully with key participating firms giving the telecommunications operator a high rating in the country for networking and allied services.

Executives of software development companies, Rancard Solutions, Teksol Limited, and SMSGH took turns to commend MTN, crediting it with world-class technology-based products and support services for businesses.

Other businesses that took advantage of the rich platform were Fidelity Bank, which had on display its SMART Account portfolio that takes only minutes to complete and is virtually deposit-free, and the Ghana Investments Promotion Centre (GIPC).

On display at the MTN Business were MTN Audio Conference; MTN Mobile Money; MTN Cloud Services; Eazifon; Car Tracking; Connectivity (including dedicated Internet, leased lines, APN solutions, bundle offers, hosted PBX and allied data and security services); and MTN Directory among others.

Speaker after speaker told of how the network, which boasts of nationwide coverage, was the only one among many they tried, could help their dream businesses materialize.

The CEO of Teksol, Mr. Louis Amenyo Adanuty, said his outfit had won a big contract with a company to deploy a technology that required the provision of a reliable and far spread network “and after wasting time and money with other networks, it was only MTN that came to the rescue.”

“We were on the verge of losing the contract, but thanks to MTN, they solved our challenge in record time.”

For the CEO of SMSGH, Mr. Alex Adjei-Bram, who predicted rather philosophically that payments would soon be a function of communication rather than banking, technology-based solutions have been made possible and cheap too as a result of the opportunities for collaboration.

The Chief Information Officer of Rancard, Ebow Bentil, whose company specialises in software solutions provision, recommended MTN as the one network to look to, in deploying technology and for support. He said network quality and spread were key for market penetration and those were qualities assured at MTN.

Mr. Michael Ghartey, Key Accounts Manager (ISP & Bulk Carriers, MTN Business), said if anyone was in doubt about MTN’s pedigree, the unsolicited testimonies should convince all that the network was serious with what it promised.

He invited businesses to test the company’s products for their reliability, value for money, and low risk, which he said were scalable to suit the needs of SMEs, small offices, large corporate bodies, and even multinationals.

Source: Ghana Web

Kokomlemle, Accra — One of Africa’s leading mobile and internet value-added service (VAS) providers, Ghana’s SMSGH is preparing to outdoor even more applications as it moves into its newly-built US$1.25 million state-of-the-art offices by the end of October 2014.

This fast-growing indigenous start-up has for nine years run on the back of its three major platforms; MYtxtBOX, Jumpfon, and MPower Payments which have grown its customers to over 25 million across four African countries – Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Kenya – with millions of mobile VAS transaction volumes on a daily basis.

The ever-growing company achieved all this by working from a relatively small space at Kokomlemle, where its offices sit about 40 employees comprising engineers/developers, platform managers, business solution experts, call center executives, and country operation directors among other staff categories.

General Manager of the company, Alex Adjei Bram reveals: “We will move into our new offices by the end of October. It’s an exciting time for the company, and even more, having this coincide with the launch of our Unity Aggregation Platform. This will mark the beginning of something entirely different in our space as it is a global first. This platform will host a plethora of innovative mobile and online-based applications to serve our teaming clients across Africa and elsewhere.”

The new SMSGH three-story building is nicely segmented into various areas, and a tour of the interior showed a bigger sales area, platform monitoring center, app development area, call center, an administrative area, a boardroom, and an anti-boardroom (a more relaxed and casual area for meetings and discussions).

Alex Adjei Bram said when the company moves into its new state-of-the-art offices, located on the same premises as the old one, “there is going to be a flood of applications and services that we will release into the market to further deepen Ghana’s position as a leading VAS community in Africa.”

SMSGH is close to finishing about 10 new tailor-made applications for specific corporate clients for promotions and other services those organizations are about to run in the country soon.

Alex Adjei Bram said “The team here at SMSGH is a very entrepreneurial one, so we measure our success by the result we give our customers. I would not say business has not been good but the financial reward is not our yardstick at SMSGH – to the extent that our customers are getting results or value, and our products are helping businesses to grow we can say we are successful.”

Regulator

He believes the regulatory environment in Ghana has been pretty responsive to the industry but things could be better if the regulations properly encompass every aspect of the VAS space with an orientation towards helping the main players, who are mainly young but skillful Ghanaian entrepreneurs, to grow.

Particularly in the area of stemming abuse of VAS services, Bram said the regulator has been largely responsive and some industry players now need to sanitize their operations to meet regulatory standards.

But he still believes “the regulator has some catching up to do with the VAS industry – we need a regulator that is not too speculative or restrictive because that could also stifle innovation,” he said.

He said “at SMSGH we have effective systems of preventing and checking abuse on our applications and have also signed on to the Code of Ethics of WASPAG (Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Ghana) for the purposes of ensuring sanity in our industry,” he said.

The government has announced that soon it would issue a license for a one-stop-shop clearinghouse for the telecom and VAS industry, and Bram thinks the clearing house is a great idea because “it will bring organization, sanity, and a fair playing field into the entire telecom industry and potentially help the local VAS space to grow.”

Source: myjoyonline.com/