Ari Limited is championing for the use of technology in the day to day operations as the firm supports institutions in finding ways to automate their business processes.
By Brian Yatich
Today, technology has become a big part of the current revolution on how things are done; it has taken over various industries and workplaces infusing every aspect of businesses and the public space.
However, the reluctance to innovate and evolve with the market puts any company at risk of failure and can even be more devastating.
Take, for instance, one of the largest corporations in history, Kodak, Nokia or Yahoo who share a common narrative, they dominated the industries they were operating in. Although, they had it all and showed a huge success.
They failed to see the disruptiveness of technology. They thought innovating would be too expensive and they never bothered to exploit the opportunities they had.
The firms underestimated technology.
As such, businesses, regardless of size and industry, must move towards incorporating technologies to their business processes in order to stay relevant in their industry.
A reluctance to adapt to changing ways and, specifically, advanced technology gradually led to these organizations being overtaken by established competitors or by new players on the scene.
According to IDG’s 2018 report, 89 per cent of today’s businesses are making digital strategies their top priority.
“This underscores the huge business and cultural challenges that must be overcome to begin digital transformation – not to mention the dizzying array of technology options that must be analysed and matched to business goals,” the report read in part.
Adopting technology to business has become paramount, and companies know this all too well, new tech tools are being developed faster than ever.
Over the last decade, Kenya has emerged as a breeding ground of innovation in the area of mobile money-transfer systems and for other types of software and services for mobile devices.
Today, Kenya has become host to a thriving ecosystem where numerous ICT Solutions, software services and even Fintech adoption have emerged.
A new study by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) and Oxford Insights places Kenya first on the continent and 52nd globally, with other African countries lagging behind.
With this outlook, Small & Medium Enterprises, as well as big corporations, are attracted to these solutions to sustain their operations.
One such firm that is capitalizing on the space is Ari limited, a digital technology company offering software solutions and other digital technologies.
The firm has been at the centre of tech revolution since 2012; supporting large and small enterprises build and maintain quality software solutions.
“With increased capacity, experience, skills and knowledge we are able to churn out quality software solutions faster than most tech companies, and pride in the confidence given to us by our customers to deliver quality solutions in the rapidly changing ICT space,” Ndiangui Kinyagia the CEO and Founder of Ari Limited.
The firm started back then when apps and online platforms were not as popular, “The market was green and open. Companies were trying best to move to simple and more agile technologies, big corporates realized there was a new way of doing things that can be cheaper, affordable, faster and easier to adopt, so that is where we came into the market,”
Ari limited targets the Small & Medium Enterprises as well as big corporations, as they offer two main services including PIT-Stop and software development.
“PIT-Stop is basically a Payment, Integration and Tracking. This is a service for integrating M-Pesa and Bank payments into Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Point of Sale (POS) systems”,
Kinyagia notes that they have bridged the Fintech gap where they automatically link to M-Pesa servers to a company’s ERP or POS system.
“We match the payment with the product, where customers will just pay via M-Pesa or the Bank, there is no manual intervention, with pit stop it only takes two seconds to connect from M-Pesa or Bank servers to the back office system,” he says.
With Pit Stop, the firm targets firms that are Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG’s) segment
“We target corporates who are doing retail distribution and have a mass-market reach; doing maybe 100 to 1000 M-Pesa transactions per day,” he says.
Aside from that, Ari also offers ICT consulting and advisory services.
Looking at the industry, Kinyagia indicates that Kenya is one of the most versatile and robust technology markets in the world which has grown larger over time.
“Today, we a lot of businesses deploying technology in their operations, whether it is in agriculture or any other sector of the economy, with the Internet of Things becoming a growing phenomenon; we see large companies spending a lot of money in buying and integrating technology,” Kinyagia says.
Kinyagia, however, says that with such opportunities in the space some companies have not yet embraced technology.
“When you map your operations and processes, you know where the gaps are. When there are gaps you can see what technology you can use to fill that gap. Many people fear that technology will come and finish the job or they think it is expensive, well, that is never the case,”
To set the firm ahead from the pack, Ndiang’ui reveals that they are agile and believe in change.
“When we see a problem, we use a simple and cheap way to solve it, we are agile in pricing and the way we do our operation, we ensure we meet our client in our specific time of need,” he says.
He advises that institutions should try and see that they can use technology and be efficient. “Some people fear the change, they should embrace change and see that technology is here to help and you if they don’t adopt it soon or later it will catch up with them,” he says.
Ndiang’ui Kinyagia is a senior business executive with a dynamic career in the ICT industry spanning more than nine years.
He is also skilled in business analysis, technology solutions design, software development, business development, strategy formulation, building stakeholder relationships and nurturing and developing talent.
He prides himself of being result-oriented with an excellent track record delivering working technology solutions and team leadership.
