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March 2021 Implementation Planner

Initiative

What was released last month? (Feb)

What is planned for release/pilot/rollout over the next month? (March)

General Updates on Key Projects

Blockers

(Issues getting

in the way or slowing things down)

Initiative

What was released last month? (Feb)

What is planned for release/pilot/rollout over the next month? (March)

General Updates on Key Projects

Blockers

(Issues getting

in the way or slowing things down)

HW Value Proposition

@Peter Kossakowski (Unlicensed)

 

 

HW Competition

  • Data collection (desktop research) ongoing

  • Local purchase of key competitors from KE, RW, DRC ongoing

  • Final Report expect end of March (depending on

HW Value Proposition (Naming, redesign, packaging)

  • We need feedback from NGUs - Please contact Peter K

    • PV Panel design (mounting kit, cable length (survey will be sent)

    • light cable set design (survey will be sent)

    • packaging and user guides (survey will be sent)

 

Appliances

@Peter Kossakowski (Unlicensed)

 

Dimmable Light: Rwanda - Pilot of 100 dimmable light bulb will start by 8th March

Dimmable light - Sample orders

  • 3 samples to be added in the next container going to Bboxx DRC.

  • NGU’s can order 2-3 samples for testing for free, to be shipped in next sea freight. Contact Claudine/PeterK to confirm sample order.

Phone Charger

  • Reworking the phone charger design.

  • First samples are being tested in Kenya and Rwanda, test report to be shared by mid-March 2021.

32”TV

Pilot Stage

  • Customers and staff feedback have been collected.

  • Share pilot report by Mid March.

  • Next steps: confirm product for mass production in March depending on pilot report

Orders from NGUs

  • 500 TVs left China and will be expected to arrive in Kenya by end March

New Orders

  • Can be placed once pilot report was shared

  • Important: Price increase due to raw material changes in China (to be communicated separately) will be effective 1st April

Parabolic Antenna

  • 1,000 pcs are being produced for the shipment by end of April to DRC

  • Kenya has received a sample

  • DRC Orange will get a sample once a product is ready

  • NGU’s can order samples (contact Claudine/PeterK)

Subwoofer

  • Waiting for V2 sample (with improvements) from supplier

  • SC will produce 500 of the subwoofer V1 to be send to Kenya

  • DRC will get two samples of subwoofer V1 by end of March

  • RW have 100 v1 units clearing customs

Torch:

  • Working on updated design, waiting for final product sample

  • Placed trial order of 130pcs to Rwanda (trial order will depend on the above task)

Radio v5 :

  • Updated sample has been produced and sent to Kigali for user feedback

  • Feedback collected and sent back to sourcing team

  • Ongoing discussion to take a decision between V4 and V5

Stoves

  • First order of standard stoves still being shipped

  • Quotations and samples for new basic and premium stoves in progress

Cylinders + accessories

  • Certification for cylinders in progess

  • Production for 6kg cylinder started

  • Production for 12kg cylinder waiting for cavagna valve

  • Hosepipes already produced

  • Regulators in production

 

bP3-12/Taal Phase 2

@Peter Kossakowski (Unlicensed)

 

 

  • bP3 and bP12 samples are being tested in Rwanda to get customers, sales agents, staff and repair technicians feedback.

  • bP3 and bP12 samples are being tested in China → Ongoing QA testing to determine final supplier selection

  • Top 3 of bP3 and bP12 will arrived Noibi by 2rd March to get MDs'feedback.

Next Steps:

  • Finalize supplier selection

 

bP20-10 / Taal Phase 1

@Peter Kossakowski (Unlicensed)

 

bPower20

Togo: Rollout planned 1st March

bPower20

  • roll out progressing well in all NGU’s

bPower10

  • March - working on trial order/assembly trial

  • NGU to place order in April

  • Price point $8 lower FOB (CU/battery/panel) than bPower20

 

bPower50 and Redesigned bPower100 (Teide)

@Juma Stephen (Unlicensed)

bPower50 Lithium (13.2 Ah)

  • bPower50 lithium pilot is on going in Rwanda Rwanda.

bPower50 Lithium (13.2 Ah)

  • Commercial pilot in DRC to start on March 8

bPower50 Lithium (13.2 Ah)

  • Pilot on going in Rwanda with 40 customers

  • First report to be released next week

  • 5 CUs have been sent to DRC for the pilot

bPower50 Lithium (9.9Ah)

  • Development on going. Engineering has approved the battery specification

  • Product should be available in June 2021

  • Product Specs:

    • 9.9Ah @12.8V

    • 90% DOD = 114Wh usable energy

Teide

  • A meeting with MDs to review use cases, product prices and ARPU

  • Development is on going and on track

  • Sign off all the requirements next week

 

Cook LPG

@Paul Büttner (Unlicensed)

 

Payment service integration in DRC being rolled out

Upgrade:

  • DRC: Current portfolio - 144

  • Kenya: Old sales team was dismissed and new sales team was recruited and trained, market storms happen but still low traction with only 5 paying customers

PAYC:

  • DRC: Contract negotiation with PAYGO E completed, system is being set up to launch in March

  • Kenya: 7 sales, still underperforming but over 200 leads, sales process is being optimized to increase the conversion rate

Upfront:

  • DRC: PAYGO E platform will be set up to include Upfront sales

PAYGO E integration:

  • Development on PAYGO E platform integration with Pulse Payment service has started

Business planning (B2B/B2C):

  • First draft of volume based BP for Kenya completed

Trafigura relationship:

  • Workshop to discuss Ghana happened

Low traction in Kenya (missing sales objectives for retail team in Kenya)

Pulse 2.0

@Andrew Kent (Unlicensed)

Behind the scenes, dev team has completed:

  • Sales process

  • Basic PAYG (ability to add convert a payment into credit and extend an expiry date)

But no front-end work yet, so it’s not possible to demo yet unless you can read code

We will be working on the following work behind the scenes:

  • Fulfillment - ability to issue goods to customer and register serial number

  • Begin product config development

 

Cannot do field visits due to travel restrictions, so hard to test our designs with NGUs

Managing Field Staff

@Jacques Kagabo (Unlicensed)

@Ruairi McLoughlin (Unlicensed)

Call Centre Actions to Pulse

What is it: Call Centre has been given access to Pulse where they will be able to do certain shop actions and other Call Centre actions.

Why is it important: It’s one step to moving Call Centre to Pulse where they won’t need to login to ERP to do their job.

Sign-up new customers through Pulse

What is it: Pulse users with the right permissions will be able to create new customers without needing the ERP or Agent App.

Why is it important: This reduce the call centre workload and call queue as lead calls won’t be going to Call Centre again because SM and RS will be able to do that for their teams.

Help Article

 

Free Stock Assignment

Design work complete and stories are in development, expected to be ready for UAT in 2-4 weeks. Deployment expected in 6-8 weeks.

Serial Number Tracking @ Shop

Design work complete and stories are in development, expected to be ready for UAT in 2-4 weeks. Deployment expected in 6-8 weeks.

Technician Scheduling

Postponed until following work advanced/completed:

  • Free stock assignment

  • Serial number tracking

  • Product Configuration design (Pulse 2.0)

  • Product Variants design (Pulse 2.0)

  • Fulfilment design (Pulse 2.0)

New Agent app with New format:

Development is ongoing and stories required for the first release have been prioritized.

High workload, including focus on Pulse 2.0

 

Fighting Fraud & Enforcing Payment

@Anthony Mabonga

Total Utilization Rate Breakdown in Portfolio Dashboard:

What is it: NGUs will be able to see how the different times of ontime (payment, bonuses, manual, enable etc.) have been utilized every month to better explain shortfalls in cash collections.

Why is it important: This dashboard will enable NGUs to explain trends in cash collections by correlating cash collections trends with how the different ontime types have been utilized in a particular period.

 

Credit Check for Upgrades in Sales App - Rwanda

What is it: Sales agents in Rwanda will now be able to sell upgrades to customers recommended by the credit check algorithm in the sales app.

Why is it important: Sales agents will be able to sell upgrades to customers less likely to default resulting in significantly better repayment performance on upgrade customers.

n/a

Extracting Lists in Power BI: Soon, NGUs will be able to export the list outside PBI in csv/Excel for customers impacting their portfolio quality e.g., DP only Defaulters and customers stuck in pending status. This will enable NGUs to get more information on customers they would like to follow up with so they can take necessary actions. This will also reduce the time spent by HQ stuff to prepare the lists manually for distribution amongst staff.

Credit check for upgrades, Phase 2 (Credit check in Pulse Web App): The first phase of credit check for upgrades (implementation in sales agent app) has already been released. In this second phase, we will be introduction credit credit check in Pulse Web App. This will ensure that for NGUs where credit check has been turned on, eligibility for upgrades is determined by the model. This will result in better quality upgrades and low churn rates among customers who upgrade.

DCM for bPower50

This project is intended to convert bPower50 devices from SCM to DCM. This will solve pending disable issues which currently result in the loss of revenues of up to $0.2 per customer per month across the NGUs.

Updates

  • Agreed on the road-map for the project with the POs.

  • Ongoing improvements for bPower20 DCM which will be useful for DCM for bPower50 implementation.

  • Reviewed development work needed for enabling Pulse/ERP to handle conversion of bPower50 to DCM with POs

 

ESF Compatible PULSE

@Gilbert Ishimwe (Unlicensed)

n/a

Filters to access amount remaining before ESF only and ESF only date in the ERP advanced search

What it is: It is a filter that allows NGU to easily filter ESF only customers amount and date details under ERP advanced search and use that information as a trigger for some actions.

Why it is important: This information/data helps to enhance actions like:

  • Proactively connecting with ESF only customer to sell them upgrade

  • Sending congratulations SMS once a customer reach ESF only

  • Provide bonus days when joining ESF-only period, etc…

Note: This is planned to be deployed early March

Updates:

  • Upgrades & pay for repairs for completed/opt-out customers stories in the current system are almost ready for development.

Due to interdependence between ESF only date and amount remaining before ESF only, the “ESF only date” development work had to wait the work on “amount remaining before ESF”

PULSE Product Integrations

@Davis Nteziryayo (Unlicensed)

SMS provider for TOGO, PAS Nigeria, and DRC Goma

  • What is it? above mentioned NGUs will start paying for their own sms messages used.

  • Update: Account registration and configuration for Togo PAS Nigeria, and DRC Goma is complete. Training for NGUs on how to use Africa’s SMS dashboards will follow within the next two weeks.

Orange Ivory Coast payments integrations

  • What it is: Orange NGUs want to start accepting payments through Bboxx payments services

Safaricom Kenya integration (Dependent on Telco)

  • Bboxx will have a direct integration with Safaricom without going through an aggregator (Kopo Kopo).

  • Kenya NGU will launch solar payments using M-PESA paybill

Payments dashboard

  • What it is: have a payments page on finance dashboards

  • Why it’s important: Innovation can have access to payments details i.e. payments per NGU, telco, monthly breakdown, subsidy components, etc

Bboxx USSD application

  • What it is: build a new USSD application that allows Bboxx customers and non-Bboxx customers to have access to Bboxx products and services

  • Why it’s important: customers will have self service option available to them 24/7

Togocel water pump payments integration

  • What it is: Togocel will create a new integration with Bboxx payments services

  • Why it’s important: Water pump customers in Togo will be able to make payments and receive 50% government subsidy

SunCulture - Phase 2 (Integration to automate switch on/off)

  • What it is: Automatic switch on/off for customers with SunCulture water pumps. Follow up from phase 1 to enable Togo to scale water pump sales.

  • Why it’s important: The integration will ensure SunCulture water pumps can be managed at scale by automating the relevant steps in the customer journey.

  • Update: A few stories are likely going to be releases in the next month including:

    • Automatically creating a customer profile in Sentinel once an installation has been recorded

    • Enabling and disabling SunCulture water pumps automatically through Pulse based on their repayment status

Orange Guinea and Senegal payments integrations

  • What it is: Orange NGUs want to start accepting payments through Bboxx payments services

  • Why it’s important: Orange NGUs are currently accepting solar customer payments through servers in Paris. Servers being used for solar payments was decommissioned Orange end of January.

Vodacom DRC integration (Dependent on Telco)

  • What it is: add Vodacom M-PESA payments as new payment option for DRC NGU

  • Update: Vodacom team in DRC has started working on USSD menu customization

MTN Rwanda integration

  • Bboxx USSD application has been integrated with MTN open api. Testing is ongoing

Moov water pump payments integration

  • What it is: Moov will create a new integration with Bboxx payments services

  • Why it’s important: Water pump customers in Togo will be able to make payments and receive 50% government subsidy

 

Complete Care & Repair

@Longin Sebahizi

n/a

n/a

IRT/ ERP synchronization tool

  1. General Updates: The UAT for some of its stories will be completed this next month.

  2. What it is:

IRT to ERP synchronization is a tool that will automate stock moves of spares part into ERP triggered by IRT.

DC repair technicians use IRT to report spares used. This is the data we use to generate the monthly warranty claims. However, DC logistics officers use ERP stock moves to manage inventory of spares. We often have a variance between spare stock moves manually done by the logistics officers and what repair technicians report in IRT

3. How is it important:

The purpose of this synchronization tool is to synchronize IRT and ERP and trigger automatic stock moves when technician reports a part in IRT to capture accurate spare Usage in ERP.

The Test Instance server shut down frequently due to bag and issue pushed UAT within this next month.

Supply Chain Integrated Tool

@Jackline Abagwaneza

@Abdulrazack Karim (Unlicensed)

n/a

n/a

Tracking project

  1. What it is: it is a project to provide ability to track and trace each item back through its supply chain, from point of origin, through distribution and wholesale channels to end user, to repair center and disposal

  2. General updates;

  • Some stories passed UAT, so we can expect a release of the first part of the feature next month

  • Finalized the documentation of the feature and process

  • We will adding more trackable products in March

CNY: We were not able to add more items to be trackable because of the pause in progress surroudning CNY

B2B Systems Migration (From ERP 7 to SAP) - BONSAI Project

@Duarte Ferreira (Unlicensed)

n/a

n/a

n/a

 

Nigeria Market Re-Entry

@Robin Scanlon (Unlicensed)

  • Frank and Ben (Rwanda expats) have arrived in Lagos and are settling in.

  • Campus site identified (Office, Warehouse, Call Centre in one place) but still under preparation until April. Temporary warehouse to be used in meantime.

  • Pulse instance created, now benig configured.

  • Finish Pulse configuration, and test ready for sales.

  • Shop locations to be selected.

  • Stock to arrive, but likely to be late for first sales. Trying to arrange to borrow stock from Togo to ensure we hit original first sales date (March 26th).

  • Payments Integration with firstBank to be completed