44
LOCAL MEETS GLOBAL
EMB
Compete
on cost.
transport sector is largely considered
unreliable. Charges and services for
bus and cab rides are unpredictable and
depend on weather, traffic or the general
mood of the provider. It gets worse when
one needs a taxi in the dead of the night.
Magdalene Anyango, an advertising
executive, is a regular Little rider.
She moves a lot around the city and says
that using the service has cut down her
monthly travel costs by half and has
removed a lot of the uncertainty around
travel. When she hails a Little cab,
she knows exactly how far away it is from
her location and how much she will be
charged. Recalling her previous experi-
ences with ordinary taxis, Anyango told
us: “There was no way of telling what your
cab guy would charge you. One day you’d
pay 15 dollars, the next day you’d pay 30
dollars over the same distance just because
you needed to catch a flight at 3am.”
Another added benefit of Little for
corporates is that it eliminates employee
fraud. An employee can’t use Little and
falsify the claims, because every time an
employee uses the service, an e-invoice
is generated.
In many ways, what Craft Silicon and
Safaricom are doing for companies like
Magdalene Anyango’s is not just saving
them money, but also helping them to
manage their time, and perhaps even
boost their productivity.
Identify
voids and
fill them.
Look after
your workers.
Embrace
both offline
and digital.
Keep it
simple.
Educate the
market.
Find a
partner with
resources
and shared
vision.
Offer
additional
services.
E
T L
T
L I
Focus on
reliability.
S
O N
S
S
L E
Engage with
government.
SEEK GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
It has not all been rosy though. Like every
new concept, we have faced significant
challenges along the way. Entering the
market backed only by a few Kenyan
innovators and taking on a company
wit h global experience like Uber was no
mean task.
It has taken us a lot of vigorous and
strategic marketing initiatives to create
our own brand identity and clearly
demonstrate how unique we are next
to our competitors.
HOW LITTLE CAME TO LIFE
1. Identified
market need.
3. Developed application
in line with idea.
2. Developed creative
idea to address it.
EMERGING MARKETS BUSINESS
SUMMER 2017
5. Recruited drivers
and tested app.
4. Approached Safaricom
for partnership.
ISSUE NO. 3
45
6. Official launch
in Nairobi.
We saw an opportunity to capitalize on [Uber’s] gaps, entrench
Little as a homegrown solution to the industry’s issues and make
drivers feel like part of the company.
People were skeptical at first and there
was resistance from existing taxi opera-
tors. We had cases of riders being bullied
and lobby groups protesting against our
style of business since it seemed to
quickly take away business from existing
operators. Gladly, we have overcome
these with the help of Kenyan government
agencies who helped provide security for
our riders while we educated existing taxi
companies on the benefits of embracing
technology for business growth. beauty of Little is that even those without
their own smartphones can still benefit
from the service.
Jeremy Kipruto is, by choice, not part
of the 67 percent. “I just don’t like them,”
he said recently about smart phones.
“I see my son spending all day looking
and playing with his phone. They take too
much of someone’s time.” Yet, by using
USSD Mr. Kipruto still manages to enjoy
some of the benefits and can call for the
taxi anytime, just like his son does.
EMBRACE SMARTPHONE
AND DIGITAL GROWTH KEEP IT SIMPLE
Speaking of growth, we are now planning
to take over the transportation business
in African capitals, one download at
a time, and Nigeria is most likely to be
our next stop.
As Africa’s most populous country,
Nigeria is ranked 10th on the list of the
world’s top internet users, according to
New York-based market research company,
eMarketer, with 57.7 million users at the
end of 2014. That number is predicted to
rise to 84.3 million by 2018.
The second ranked African country on
the list is Egypt, in 17th. The North African
nation was predicted to be home to 36 million
internet users at the close of 2016. For its
part, South Africa, like her tech-forward
counterparts, has also seen internet usage
grow tremendously, from 20.1 million users
at the end of 2013, to 22.7 million at the end
of 2014. That figure is expected to reach
30.9 million by end of 2018. This impressive
growth has been driven by increasing
mobile penetration, which has afforded
more people access to the internet.
According to Kenya’s communication
authority, the country has 67 percent
smartphone penetration attributed to
a growing middle class. However, the
Indeed, while the Internet is critical to
our success, it’s not all down to rising
smart phone penetration. It can also be
attributed to the simplicity of the concept.
With Little, you are free to select pre-
ferred drivers, or schedule rides so that
you don’t have to keep remembering to
do so. And above all, if you don’t have a
smartphone you can access the service
by dialing a USSD code and you are on
your way to your destination.
From simplicity of the concept, to
offering additional services and investing
in driver development, we believe we will
reach the one million rides milestone in
the next six months. All we have to do is
differentiate ourselves as a homegrown
taxi app confident of delivering distinctive
experiences for our customers.
It remains to be seen, however,
whether the service will help rid Nairobi
of its most pressing problem: traffic.
According to IBM Research, Nairobi loses
US$600,000 as a result of congestion on
the roads every day, and this has been one
of the challenges for Little. Nevertheless,
for some drivers like Gad Omboyi, Little
means more clients, more trips and more
money. And, as he says, “that can never
be a bad thing.”
LITTLE
DIFFERENTIATES
ITSELF BY:
PRIORITIZING DRIVER NEEDS
Competitive pay and
professional development
give Little the edge when it
comes to attracting drivers.
DIVERSIFYING ITS OFFERING
By enabling drivers to double
up as Safaricom agents,
Little opens up new revenue
streams and provides
a range of useful services
to attract customers.
FACTORING GENDER
INTO THE EQUATION
Offering a women-only
platform combats some of the
gender-specific challenges
faced by both drivers and
riders, thereby attracting
both female drivers and
customers to the company.
KAMAL BUDHABHATTI
is the founder and CEO of
Craft Silicon, the Kenyan
software company behind
Little Cab.
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