2019 Sustainable Business Report

SAFARICOM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 2019 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT CONCLUDING REMARKS 47 INNOVATION We continously challenge ourselves to extend our innovative approach to problem-solving and meeting the needs of our customers and society at large. In FY19, we focused on learning more about our customers’ needs, by assessing how we can leverage the capabilities required to create products and services that meet them. Data gathering has proved far more reliable than experiential or anecdotal reporting in identifying new markets. Now we use analytics to scope out new business and markets and design bespoke solutions to fit the market, taking care to ensure our focus groups, market visits and surveys are representative of the customers we aim to serve. MONITORING AND MANAGING INNOVATION Innovation is a multi-dimensional topic. At a strategic level, we manage and monitor this aspect of our business using several sets of indicators, including: • Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Brand Consideration (BC) score (tracking customer satisfaction with, among other things, our new products and services) • Mobile data usage and revenue (tracking how well data-related product and service innovations are being adopted and used) • M-PESA usage and revenue (tracking whether new products and services are helping to deepen financial inclusion) • Users of/subscribers to technology for development (T4D) products (gauging the impact and success of social innovations through active users/subscribers). A NEW STRUCTURE FOR STRATEGY AND INNOVATION In FY19, we created the new role of Chief Business Development Officer and restructured our Strategy and Innovation Division. Now known as the Business Development Division, this includes five teams: • Strategy • Innovation • Big Data and Analytics • Market Research and Consumer Insights • Regional Expansion Key SDGs “We continously challenge ourselves to extend our innovative approach to problem- solving and meeting the needs of our customers and society at large.”