Adekanmbi: Innovative Apps Will Enhance Technology Driven Businesses
Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer of MTN Nigeria, Bayo Adekanmbi, spoke with Journalists on the telecoms company’s plan to further deepen the way Nigerians use technology to enhance their businesses and lifestyles, through innovative apps. Emma Okonji
MTN introduced what it called the MTN APPtitude movement. What is it all about? MTN APPtitude is a first-of-its-kind revolutionary move to give all Nigerians the platform to enjoy the limitless possibilities and opportunities that the Internet provides. APPtitude is a portmanteau of two words – “App” and “Attitude”. “App” is a short form of “Applications”, which are the small icons we see on our phone screen and tablets, which give us direct links to the Internet. “Apps” are thus a short-cut, which makes Internet experience faster and better and eliminate the barriers of using traditional website addresses. You will agree with me that quite a lot of Nigerians recognise the importance of Internet in their lives; from learning, shopping, entertainment, social relationship, professional networking, banking payment among others. However, the challenge of people having to type long winding web addresses like www. chukwudiadeolaauduandsonslimited.com can be a nightmare for many. You cannot remember many of these website addresses and when you miss just one single letter, it results in an error message. In some instances, you are not even sure whether the website ends with .com, .org, .net or .com.ng. You know there are even more top level domains like .biz, .tv, .info, among others. It is now becoming more complex every day. We need easier and smarter access to make it attractive for current users and many new users, whether they are literate or not. Today, a lot of people who use the Internet are people who have access to mobile devices and not large screen computers. However, there is a challenge, the screens of mobile phones are smaller when compared to our desktop computers and it is cumbersome opening many browsers at the same time. We felt that the best way to enable this is to change the rule and promote a short cut access via an app, where customers do not need to remember website addresses, but only need to click on the icons of their favourite websites and get instant online access. What about the attitude that is attached to the coined word, APPtitude? The “attitude” dimension is the fact that every Nigerian of all ages, gender and culture, has got certain interests, preferences, and passions, which can be better expressed or lived through the everyday enablement of the relevant and applicable applications. For example, if you are a follower of a football club, there are many apps out there that give you real-time access to what is happening at your club. If you are a knowledge-driven individual, there are relevant apps from fact file, latest trends, current affairs etc. that can enrich your knowledge without the stress of undue searching or typing URLs of websites that you often forget. In essence, the APPtitude movement is a drive to educate Nigerians about multiple apps that exist, give access to their apps free of charge by simplifying how to get them through curated gateways and encourage Internet consumption behavior with a view to helping all Nigerians to maximize the huge value of the Internet for socioeconomic development and self enhancement. For us, this movement is about how we can democratize access to the Internet, starting with our over 61 million customers.
This movement also provides a lot of opportunities to many Nigerians, banks, industries who have apps that people don’t know about, to join this revolution of getting people to see apps as the alternative to access the Internet such that as a nation, we can get more people to use the power of the Internet to become better at what they do, which speaks to our philosophy of BetterMe. For businesses, the cost of running a business is reduced because customers can self-serve themselves via an app, make enquiries, check updates and even co-create with each other. Why did MTN decide to make the app free to download? I think what is most important to us, as a business, is that we are a business that is concerned about the lives of our customers. You will recall that our positioning as a business is to make the lives of our customers brighter by leading the delivery of a bold new digital world. The only way to lead that delivery is to empower our customers with the right tools to be able to enjoy the best of the digital world. We understand that “apps” would be the access point and that is the reason why we want to make sure that we get those apps into the hands of as many people as possible.
If you look at the overall macroeconomic and socioeconomic impact of apps, it is huge. Internet access has a commensurate impact on the social and economic well-being of a nation. It is as simple, as someone who would have to be in traffic for many hours, if you have an app, which tracks traffic and crowd sources traffic information like giditraffic or trafficbutter in Nigeria, you will know where to go and where not to go. For people who are looking for best bargains on shopping, the power of the apps like Pricecheck allows them to know where to go get the best bargains. Even for Nigerians who are very spiritual, there are so many apps that can get their Bible and Quran downloaded on their phones. Some even have voice enablement, which means you click on it and it automatically reads for you. We now have Igbo, Yoruba and Urhobo audio Bible as an app, which means the oldest grandmother in the village can connect with her spiritual essence, even when she cannot read or write. The APPtitude revolution expands the opportunity beyond the current illiteracy level. If you look at those in the educational sphere, there are many homework apps and even ones covering current affairs or continuous self-improvement. In Nigeria today, ccHub promoted Efiko, a Nigerian-made app that allows students in primary and secondary schools to perform studies based on the Nigerian curriculum on their basic feature phones, I mean phones that sell for N3,000 and less.
We understand the overall macroeconomic implications and the well-being dimension of the Internet as a driver of total economic value. This is why MTN remains fully committed to the socio-economic development of Nigeria, as we see the spiral effect of this initiative on our customers and the larger world, even as we change the game in the way people access the Internet. How does this initiative key into MTN’s philosophy? MTN has set itself as an essential enabler of the modern and progressive rhythm of life. We believe that if we are able to provide the right solutions and the right services at every critical milestone in the lives of our customers, we are giving them the power to enjoy their rhythm of life. Whether it is shopping, banking, security, whatever makes your life go round as a business, MTN will be there for you and make it better. I would like to use an example of an app that a lot of people do not know about called TruCaller. Nigerians are concerned and worried when an unknown number calls them, but today there is an app that allows you to know the identity of your caller if that person has a registered name on the global platform of TruCaller. All you need to do is download it. This is just an example of the many apps that provide simple and useful solutions in our lives. For us at MTN, being an essential enabler is giving access, democratizing access and getting more people to know about and understand what apps can do for them on a daily basis. In past interviews, you had spoken about this lofty idea which you have for the mobile ecosystem. How robust do you see the ecosystem at this point? At MTN, our ecosystem is not just people who have direct relationship with our business. Our ecosystem includes all the service providers that provide services to our customers every day. As such, if our customer has an account with a bank, we see that bank as part of our ecosystem because our channel will be used by our customer to access the services of the bank. We consider it to be our responsibility to enable daily engagements that enrich the way our customers work, live and play. Following on from this example, many banks currently have apps, but sadly many Nigerian customers don’t have these apps on their phones. As an enabler who understands the dynamics of the ecosystem, our role is to ensure that our customers can get those apps downloaded from their respective banks so that their banking transaction can be made easier, and they do not need to queue up to use banking services. We are therefore taking the bull by the horns and we will provide the free gateway for this download in the month of APPtitude. The whole theory of the ecosystem for us is an ever evolving understanding of every single entity that captures the life of a customer. We ask ourselves about a day in the life of a customer - what are the major touch points and how can we, at MTN, partner with every single entity that touches our customers’ lives and make sure that we enrich those moments and make it as memorable as possible for them. That is our concept of an ecosystem