Decision Making | EDEL Technology Consulting

03 Jul 2016

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How Is Technology Influencing Youth Activism and Accountable Governance

Sticky Post By ethelcofie On July 3, 2016

“How Is Technology Influencing Youth Activism and Accountable Governance”

written form delivery at the IMANI Africa Youth Forum

Technology and Youth Activism from Ethel Delali Cofie

Introduction
It’s glaring to every critical observer that countries with fast and consistent growth rates, enviable democracies, accountable governance and buoyant positive youth activism, have a common factor which is the effective appreciation and employment of technological innovations and versatility to their pursuits. Whilst accountable governance is the fundamental need of every human society today, youth activism can also be identified as a major policing catalyst to achieve this reality today.
Obviously the youth being the major part of the productive populace in every society, are the most affected by the kind of governance at play in the society.

It is important to note that the youth however are the major influencers in every society’s democratic process and governance where their voices are heard and they are likewise privy to resourceful information. In this light, a society without positive youthful activism is deprived of the opportunity to have a more refined democracy and accountable governance.
* Common factors which have a history of frustrating the existence and growth of youth activism include press censorship, bureaucracy and also manhunt in some cases.

In an age where Information communication technology plays a major role to expose flaws in budgetary allocations, exposing malpractices, putting the real issues on the table and pushing for change in policies and decision making, Governments must not overlook these contributions made by the youth and must provide an enabling environment where active youth activism promotes good and accountable governance in a tech savvy society.

Technology offers the youths with innovative and multi-faceted ways to:
1. Voice out their opinions on government policies and issues of concern to their target audience through multifaceted social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs etc. Good examples would be the “Bring back out Girls campaign” and many others.
2. Test government efficacy by making all elements and information associated to governance and government decisions. accessible to both the government and citizenry such as figures and technical related to public projects

3. Facilitate accountable governance in data collection and record keeping through data management systems

4. Simplify and make all elements and information associated to governance and government decisions accessible to both the government and citizenry through interactive websites and mobile applications.

Examples of How Technology is Influencing Youth Activism and Accountable Governance in Africa
BudgIT – Facilitating Social change and Development by using Technology to simplify a Country’s State/Regional and National Budget.
yourbudgit.com (Subsites for other countries Ghana: http://budgitghana.com , Sierra Leone: http://budgitsl.com ) The website targets the urban youth, Civil Society Organizations and government institutions to:
1. Track Government approved Projects, eliminate corruption and also identify cases of abandoned government projects within their States.
2. Present abridged State and National budgets in the form of infographics, interactive application, Videos and quick data access on all government projects to enable a citizen to ask clear and relevant questions pertaining to Government spending.
3. Publish bi-annual policy document that for improving budget processes, institutions and encouraging transparency.

Social Media Tools
Using dynamism to effect Social and Political change, a lot of African Youth are resorting to Facebook, Twitter etc… to mobilize and create awareness on issues. The most popular approach to attracting attention is the use of the Hashtag, campaign creation of specific issues pertaining to the freedom of individuals and the call to address issues

Co Author’s

Jessica Agbanu : Marketing and Product Manager EDEL Technology Consulting

Ethel Cofie : CEO EDEL Technology Consulting

23 May 2016

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EDEL Technology Picks Up IT Consulting Firm of the Year Award

Sticky Post By ethelcofie On May 23, 2016

Last Saturday EDEL Technology consulting (www.edelitconsult.com ) was adjudged this year’s Ghana Information Technology and Telecom Awards (GITTA), “IT consulting firm of the year”.

EDEL Technology Consulting is a Global brand that uses the combination of modern project management techniques, Standard software engineering and industrial strength architecture to deliver technology solutions to its clients, with projects delivered in West Africa and UK.
EDEL prides itself as one of the best in the IT industry in Africa.

The GITTA awards is the only awards in Ghana which recognizes the excellence in the ICT industry. It is the most respected awards that celebrates excellence in innovation, product development and service delivery.

EDEL Technology has array of past and current clients like the World Bank, Dalex Finance (6th Company on the Ghana Cub 100 list and Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) Non-Bank Financial Institute of 2014 and Clean Team Ghana (a project funded by the Unilever)

EDEL is currently funded by USADF (United States Africa development fund) to build a micro working platform (M-ablode www.mablode.com ) to help shape the future of work across Africa

According to the CEO of EDEL Technology Consulting, Ethel Cofie, “winning throws a challenge to us keep being the best and to improve on our services delivered to our clients”.

EDEL Technology was also recently judged one of the top 100 globally competitive companies in Ghana .

Find out how we can become a technology partner for your organization at www.edelitconsult.com and also request a free consultation from the EDEL Team here http://edelitconsult.com/request-a-call/

22 Apr 2016

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Cross-country mobile money usage in Africa

Sticky Post By ethelcofie On April 22, 2016

Some few years back cross-boundary/country remittances/ payment did not exist in any of the African countries. But currently, according to Christabel Ligami a journalist for East African Newspaper, countries such as Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and South Sudan have adopted the cross-country money transfer via mobile money which was introduced by their central banks and communication commissions to help boost trading.

This initiative has seen some telcos already partnering in the move but at a higher rate which are likely to come down because other telcos are moving into the industry as well.

Vodaphone which owns 40% of Safaricom, signed a deal in April 2015 which gives M-Pesa customers access to seven African countries for mobile money transfers.

Earlier 2015, London-based Vodafone Group and South Africa’s MTN Group had also signed a deal that allowed their customers in East and Central Africa to transfer money to each other.

Millicom also announced it would allow its customers in Tanzania and Rwanda to send money to one another, says Christabel Ligami.

Also according to News Ghana, MTN Rwanda has also pioneered cross-border mobile money remittances service between Rwanda and Kenya

Meanwhile, MTN Group partnered with other money transfer platforms to help their customers transfer money directly to their Mobile Money Wallets in Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia.

Alix Murphy, Senior Mobile Analyst at WorldRemit says “For diaspora members sending money to friends and family back home in Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia, Mobile Money is a real game-changer. In Uganda, Mobile Money has already overtaken cash pick-up and bank deposits as the preferred method to receive money. We expect this trend to continue as MTN’s Mobile Money services reach millions of people without bank accounts, giving them access to a variety of life-enhancing financial services including savings and insurance schemes.”

Tigo customers in Rwanda now receive and send money via Tigo cash in Congo and vice versa to help make transfer easier for their customers. This is a partnership between Tigo Rwanda and Tigo DRC.

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10 Dec 2015

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How EDEL Technology Consulting practices Lean StartUp Methodology in Product Development

Sticky Post By ethelcofie On December 10, 2015

How EDEL Technology Consulting practices Lean StartUp Methodology in Product Development

EDEL Technology Consulting and how we practice it in product development from Ethel Delali Cofie

03 Jun 2015

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Strategy and Technology to make your Organization More Revenue

Sticky Post By ethelcofie On June 3, 2015

Are your current revenue streams plateauing? Are you looking to build additional revenue streams Have you reached highest revenue limits with your current clients looking to build an additional revenue stream?

In a world full of continuing business uncertainty and tough economic challenges, what would you give for a predictable, growing revenue stream that creates loyal customers and helps sell product?

Are you a Business looking to bring your business into the Digital Era?

Do you want to digitize your services to provide increased and additional revenue stream?

If any of these questions keep you up at night as a business owner or CEO then talk to us as Edel Technology Consulting.

EDEL Technology Consulting was built on the tenet: organizations all over the world need to align strategy and technology to ensure that they survive, innovate and beat their competition.

Let us a give you a quick example

Case Study

Setting the Scene

A legal firm (RF and Partners) have being in business for the last 10 years. They serve small to medium size companies and have being successful so far. RF and Partners have noticed that they have stagnated in terms of profits and unless a the company strategically transforms itself and come up with innovative products, the RF and Partners might be gradually heading to closure as they might not be able maintain the current cost of running the firm – an indication from their financial projections..

EDEL Technology Consulting is contracted to bring synergies in strategy and technology to enable RF and Partners’ growth.

Phase 1

Strategy and alignment meeting

EDEL Technology Consulting’s initially setup strategy sessions with the RF and Partners’ team to understand their business and by so doing establish key points:

Unmet needs of customer

What strategies to employ to address them

The evolution of the market or industry, and strategies to adopt to remain relevant to industry evolutions

These questions help define strategies and direction of RF and Partners and how EDEL Technology Consulting can align technology to new revenue channels, revised products or redefinition of business models.

Phase 2

Design Workshop

Design thinking process first defines the problem and then implements the solutions, always with the needs of the user demographic at the core of concept development. This process focuses on need finding, understanding, creating, thinking, and doing. At the core of this process is a bias towards action and creation: by creating and testing something, you can continue to learn and improve upon your initial ideas.

In the Design thinking workshop a problem space emerged

Problem Space

There was class of SME’s that RF & Partners were not serving and these were startups and individuals who need quick simple legal services without having to pay huge retainer fees.

Worldwide, there are about 300 million persons trying to start about 150 million businesses. About one third will be launched, so you can assume 50 million new firm births per year. Or about 137,000 per day. As firm birth and death rates are about equal, the same number of active firms, say 120,000 probably terminate trading each day–world wide

These startups cannot afford the high legal fees or retention costs charged by the traditional firms, but are still in need of legal services

There were a large number of solution s to offer services to these client in way the was price sensitive and yet provided RF and Partners good margins.

Solution One

On demand Online Platform in which startups would enter and answer a number of questions and a set of tailored documents would be generated automatically. There would be little human intervention and startup would be able to access template legal documents at on demand price.

We create a prototype to test viability of product (minimum viable product for testing without actually building out the whole platform?)

We quickly put together a one page Google form. ( it takes 10 minutes to create)
In the Form we included a mobile money number to which amount was to be paid (clients base is in the emerging markets where mobile money is prevalent)
On receipt of payment paralegal with supervision of second year lawyer would compile legal document startup needs to preset template

We market the product through online mediums

(We increases cost by 10% each week and document volume of sales at each price point- This is to find the maximum price at which clients will pay for the service). Edel Technology Consulting runs the product experiment for a month.

How do we test this product and what are the Key success factors

The Key Success factors here was the volume of sales and how many people clicked to view the of the Google forms

Solution Two

On demand service in which organization who can request, an online conference with a legal practitioner and pay for a set time .In that time legal practitioner and can review and give advice. The user can pay based on experience and seniority of legal practioner.

How do we create a prototype (minimum viable product for testing without actually building out the whole platform)

We create a landing page for users to request the service ( request can be done via landing page or the via email)
The user can pay for service using mobile money ( clients base is in the emerging markets where mobile money is prevalent)
On receipt of payment paralegal schedules a Skype call with user for the time paid for with Lawyer

We market the product through online/sms marketing

(We increases cost by 10% each week and document volume of sales at each price point- This is to find the maximum price at which clients will pay for the service). Edel Technology Consulting runs the product experiment for a month.

How do we test this product and what are the Key success factors

The Key Success factors here was the volume of sales and how many people clicked to view the of the Google forms

At the end of the month the revenue generated and feedback from client who bought the service is used to make the decision on digital product to build for RF & Partners.

We build Digital Product
Create Product go to market strategy
Choreograph product launch

EDEL Technology Consulting has provided RF Partners a digitized service that will increase revenue flow year on year 20%.

We would love to bring these expertise to your organisation , please contact us at services@edelitconsult.com

26 Feb 2015

Sticky Post By ethelcofie Posted in Autopost, Blog Permalink

Is Your Social Media Manager Lying to you – Edel Technology at Social Media Week Lagos

Sticky Post By ethelcofie On February 26, 2015

CEOs (and almost C levels decision makers) need to ask certain high-level but tough questions of their digital marketing team and agency. This can be a hard task when new digital programs involve something they may not have direct experience with or when the language employed is often a tangle of acronyms and terms for which they have no context. So, on behalf of all the CEO’s out there – here is a starting primer on what you might ask your teams responsible for digital strategy and execution:

Why should you approve that budget for the social media campaign ?

Don’t be bamboozled by meaningless vanity metrics such as the number of Facebook likes or Twitter followers (those can be cheaply purchased). Instead We will give you the tools to be able to suss and and ask the right questions to make sure you are not throwing Money Away!!

Please See Presentation below

Is Your Social Media Manager Lying to You ( Social Media Week Lagos) from Ethel Delali Cofie

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