Author: Hubtel

On the 21st of December 2015, I got a notification on LinkedIn from one of the directors of a certain company. In his email he stated “We are one of Africa’s leading mobile value added services companies with operations in Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, and Nigeria. We’re looking to expand our product offering to include some mobile applications. I’ve been looking at your profile and have realized that you would be a good fit for our team”.

I don’t remember exactly where I was or what I was doing when I got this message but boy, was I thrilled! Anyway, I went for what would be a life changing interview and I got in. What followed, is history.

Last month, this same company rebranded from SMSGH to Hubtel Limited with an audacious tagline – Rethink Customer Service – to help serve our customers better and deliver suitable tailor-fit solutions for all businesses.

In an ideal world, every business should know their customers enough to be able to deliver quality and convenience when it comes to service delivery. The interaction between businesses and customers should be seamless and pleasant.

The journey for most businesses is tough, and we at Hubtel understand this. We believe customers are the lifeline of every business and being able to harness that information is key to survival. Visit our website to get more information.

I’m grateful for the opportunity and privilege to work with such an amazing team of great minds.

We are here to stay, change lives and promote growth for businesses.

Benjamin J. T Sackey.
Benjamin is a Product Designer (UX) at Hubtel. Together with his team, they build payment solutions for businesses. He spends time honing his swimming skills or playing table tennis when he’s not behind his Mac.

A five-man delegation from the Ministry of Information led by Deputy Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah on Tuesday, June 6, 2017, paid a courtesy visit to the Hubtel Offices.

The visit was in part to congratulate Hubtel on its business growth and to officially commence engagement on ways to enhance efforts at growing more technology entrepreneurs.

Key among the discussions was how to drive national development by encouraging the use of engagement tools between public and government agencies and private institutions.

CEO of Hubtel, Alexander Adjei Bram later took the team on a tour of the office.

See highlights from the visit below:

Since our founding on the 12th of May 2005, our mission has been to make it easier for companies to connect with their customers.

Our work helps ease the customer service challenges businesses face. From delivering millions of business-critical mobile alerts to pioneering mobile banking & online payments, we have continuously sought out the most effective engagement channels and crafted solutions around the most important pain points within our environment.

Thanks to our customers, today we have grown beyond Ghana, set up in new markets, and continue to help businesses rethink customer service across the continent. Through it all, we have literally outgrown both the “SMS” and the “GH” in our name.

Today, we become Hubtel.

Hubtel is built on the singular belief that loyal customers build great businesses. We have come to believe in customer service that blends neatly into the busy lives of consumers.

With the help of our customers, we are on a mission to provide businesses with the tools to build lasting relationships with their customers.

Our new brand marks a new era in which we set higher standards and goals for the value we deliver to our customers as we continue to deepen our offering.

As Hubtel we have carefully reinvented our products into intuitive everyday services. Today we introduce our customers to our new Hubtel platform which hosts all our services, on one single integrated and user-friendly platform.

We wish to share this important day with all our users, and in doing so express our heartfelt gratitude for their patience during our transition to Hubtel, and for their support and loyalty throughout the years.

Hubtel has formally opened its new office in Nairobi, Kenya. The move is a commitment to Hubtel’s continued growth in East Africa to continuously improve its product offerings to businesses in Kenya and beyond.

After 3 years of operations in Nairobi, the office opening was yet another thing to be proud of for the company. Hubtel, which has been in operation for over 11 years, with 30 million customers across 4 African countries; Ghana, Kenya, and Cameroon, and Nigeria has seen immense growth and success since.

CEO of Hubtel, Alexander Adjei Bram said, “ It is a great time in Africa. We’ve never been more connected in our history, we’ve never been at a time where you had the freedom to do what our parents used to do. It is a good time for us to dream. For us at Hubtel, our dream is to ensure that businesses are given the simple tools they can have to make their customers happy; and we believe that Africa will be a better place when businesses make customers happy.”

The office was officially opened by its Chairman, Hans Nilsson, who in his address stated that “Hubtel uses mobile communication which one if not the best infrastructure across Africa, using that to drive and improve business processes is a big opportunity for us as a business but is a more important opportunity to businesses and customers to help drive their own businesses and using the power of it”. In attendance were several of Hubtel’s partners and customers, who were given a tour of the office

The expansion of Hubtel to Nairobi, Kenya will allow the company to better serve and more efficiently handle its East Africa operations as it continues to grow.

About Hubtel

Hubtel is a leading technology company, and provider of customer engagement solutions; such as messaging, payments, and loyalty for businesses across African countries. Founded in 2005, Hubtel has a presence in Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, and Nigeria. Its clientele comprises of banks, insurance companies, large enterprises, manufacturers, government and utility providers, and many more.

Hubtel has announced the official opening of its office in Kenya on Tuesday 21st March 2017. By establishing a physical presence in Kenya, Hubtel is committed to enforcing its presence in East Africa.

The official opening is scheduled to take place in its ultra-modern offices on the 3rd Floor of Westcom Point Mahiga Mairu Avenue, Westlands, Nairobi.

The company which has been operating in Kenya for the past 3 years, has within this period, been preparing its systems and getting partners ready for its launch and promises to be Africa’s leading customer service provider for businesses.

Hubtel has been operating in Ghana for over 11 years and is well known for its messaging and payment solutions which have grown its customers to over 30 million across 4 African countries, notably, Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, and Nigeria. Its clientele comprises of banks, insurance companies, large enterprises, manufacturers, government and utility providers, and many more.

Across Africa, businesses of all sizes still deliver nearly all customer services through manual processes and approaches. The manual nature of these tasks limits the number of customers that can be served at any given time without a significant decline in quality of service. Hubtel will help its clients to transform the way businesses connect, engage, and serve customers – saving the business time while boosting revenues.

SMS Global Holdings (SMSGH) has been named the recipient of the Young Enterprise Award for the first time at the Association of Ghana Industries’ 5th Ghana Industry Awards ceremony.

The company was awarded for our outstanding achievements and immense contribution to the development of Ghana’s economy. The business solutions giant was one of over twenty companies to be recognized at the prestigious event.

This year’s event had seven award categories and 21 sector awards. Some of the sector awards included Beverage, Automobile Sector Awards, Agribusiness, Electricals and Electronics, Oil and Gas, Pharmaceuticals, among others.

The glamorous event, held in Accra at the State House, was under the theme: “Growing Local Industry for Export Development and Job Creation”.

SMSGH has this year seen a complete revamp of its organizational and business processes since the completion of our US$1.25 million state-of-the-art offices.

With almost 40,000 corporate clients currently, which include small, medium and large enterprises, and a presence throughout Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Cameroon, plus plans to expand across all of Africa in the very near future, winning this award acknowledges SMSGH’s commitment to building Africa’s most globally relevant business solution offering.

Large amounts of personal data generated in the country are stored across servers, networks, and several filing systems in different locations (electronically & manually), locally and abroad. The information systems used in the collection and storage of such personal data can pose considerable challenges to one’s right to privacy. As this trend continues to grow rapidly with increasingly sophisticated technology with extensive abilities to hold large amounts of data, it is necessary to address privacy concerns with data protection laws.

Personal data include all data on a given or identifiable individual that is disclosed to us or that is generated or collected by us, e.g. the inquiries from a call center, subscribing to and utilizing any of our services, and the contact data respectively provided by you in these cases i.e. particularly your name and your e-mail address.

SMSGH is pleased to announce that it has secured the Data Protection Certificate to support Mobile Money Integration with Telecommunication Service Providers in Ghana such as MTN, Airtel, Tigo etc. SMSGH values the importance of protecting your privacy when handling personal data. Personal data shall only be collected and utilized by us if this is permitted by a statutory provision or if we have received your prior consent.

The Data Protection certificate is awarded by the Data Protection Commission to registered organizations that process personal data.

About the Data Protection Commission

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) is an independent statutory body established under the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) to protect the privacy of individuals and personal data by regulating the processing of personal information. The Commission provides for the process to obtain, hold, use, or disclose personal information and for other related issues bordering on the protection of personal data.

The acknowledgment of the right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data or information led to the passage of the Act.

SMSGH organized fun games for staff at the Lizzy Sports Complex on Friday 15^th July, 2016. The essence of the games was to provide a midyear corporate hangout – a short break from work to unwind, interact in a less formal way with colleagues, and foster team spirit. There was a football match between the technical and operations teams and other fun games.

It was all fun, healthy banter, and an extensive display of team spirit.

No more street hails or waiting outside to find a ride. Uber has launched in Accra, the 11th city in Sub-Saharan Africa and the 467th globally, in a move that marks its growing presence in Africa.

The service is set to provide unrivaled intra-city movement for the over 4 million people using the streets in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA). Uber’s service has already gained massive brand recognition around the world because of its ease of use and the convenience it provides in an increasingly mobile world.

Uber selected to use SMSGH USSD-based mPOS service to enable a mobile money payment that was seamless and easy to use for riders and driver-partners.  According to a recent Bank of Ghana report, mobile money transactions in Ghana have now reached GHs35 billion per quarter.

With the launch of the SMSGH mPOS, Uber riders can now conveniently pay for rides via mobile money. Drivers will simply dial a USSD code containing the driver’s four-digit business identification number (BIN) and the rider’s mobile number (e.g.*713*1234*0244000000#), select the mobile wallet provider and enter the amount to pay. A bill prompt is then issued to the rider to confirm the transaction and complete payment with a wallet PIN. Both driver-partner and rider will then receive an SMS text as confirmation of payment.

In an interview on the solution, a Senior Product Manager at SMSGH, Bubune Peter Adih commented that “….the simplicity of the mPOS application resonates with Uber’s approach to doing business. Being everyone’s private driver Uber strives to breakdown complex interactions into very simple processes and so SMSGH sought to ensure that this payment service works just as well and simple as Uber.“

Free Weekend

Uber is celebrating its launch in Accra by providing free rides. This means that from launch date (Thursday, June 9) until Sunday (June 12, at midnight), guests will be able to request an Uber ride at no charge. In order to activate this discount, a user will need to enter the promo code MoveGHANA on their Uber iOS/Android/Windows application. This will offer users 6 free rides within Accra, each up to GHS 20.

About Uber

UBER is a technology company that connects riders and drivers at the touch of a button.
Available in 467 cities across 72 countries, the UBER platform is evolving the way the world moves. UBER’s mission is to change the way citizens of the world move, work and live. It aspires to transform the way people connect with their communities and to bring reliability, convenience and opportunity to transport systems.

On Thursday May 12, 2016, as SMSGH celebrated its 11th anniversary, Chief Executive Officer Alex Adjei Bram adviced the company’s employees to utilize the years ahead saying, “Whatever our reasons for coming to work every day – let us ensure it is bigger than us. That a good reason – and there are many – is simply not great enough.”

In an email to the company’s team, Alex Bram reiterated his commitment to the vision the founders laid out over a decade ago that technology could empower the world, and asked staff never to forget what it can do to change lives.

Here’s the full anniversary letter to employees:

Dear All,

Just over a decade ago Twitter was a bird sound, WWW was a stuck keyboard, a Cloud was only in the sky, 4G was a ticketing booth at the trade fair, Google was a baby’s burp, Skype and WhatsApp were typos and SMS was simply the Super Morning Show.

Our world is changing so fast and information technology has become so important that it is technology itself. And who can lay a better claim — by 2050 the world will be home to more than 10 billion people, and technology will play a key role in the way we organise and get people to engage.

But before you even think we are well on our way, think yet of how far behind Africa is. Here in Ghana among the many problems of the land, we still battle with availability of the most basic ingredient of the information technology age – electricity.

I remember one of our very first founders meetings to start a company… and after laying out our first set of working policies, Leslie says to us, ‘Gentlemen, let us go challenge the accepted wisdom’. That statement remains true today. It resonates of innovation to re-invent a better way of doing things, of creating useful things and of responsibility in doing so.

Today as we celebrate our 11th anniversary, it is important to remind ourselves why we do what we do.

We do it for a better tomorrow – for our society, our country, for our continent.

Sometimes it takes us years to figure out even the very product of our intended change, sometimes we spend years convincing people and organisations of that change, and other times we are not even as proud of the outcome of our efforts, but throughout all of the past 11 years we always march on — in the single belief that technology applied right will someday contribute to speedy development of Africa.

I believe a company is simply a conspiracy to change the world. And with all the tools, skills, talent and market opportunities we have at our disposal, there exists a real chance for us here to make a real contribution towards a better society.

As I said at the beginning of the year, we are pioneers at this. We don’t want to just build a good company. We want to be a part of the history of a great company. What we do today should it be successful must impact generations to come.

On our trip to Silicon Valley we learned of how a single company started by 2 university roommates, Hewlett and Packard along with the hardwork of many others (just like you), impacted a small community, then a city, then the state and country, and today Sillicon Valley represents the 4th largest GDP and provides employment and opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people and has been a source of great pride for many men and women who help start it.

Whatever our reasons for coming to work every day – let us ensure it is bigger than us. That a good reason – and there are many – is simply not great enough. That the 11th anniversary motto is ‘In Pursuit of a Great Company’.

Thank you all.

Happy Anniversary.

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We’re excited to announce that SMS Global Holdings (SMSGH) was one of a number of global business giants selected by the Stanford University in Silicon Valley, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, for its annual Stanford African Business Forum.

Co-founders of the company, Mr Alexander Adjei Bram and Mr Ernest Appenteng, along with Chief Technology Officer, Mr Kwadwo Seinti and Board Chairman took a trip out to Silicon Valley to present our work to leading entrepreneurs and change pioneers from Africa and the world on April 23, 2016.

The annual Stanford African Business Forum (SABF) is the premier networking opportunity for African business interests for the Stanford and larger Bay Area community. This year, SABF celebrated thought leaders and changemakers on the African continent with the overarching theme of reimagining development through creating local value. The theme “Creating Local Value” captured the rise of African consumers, companies and innovations, and the growth of African economies. The forum showcased how enterprising individuals and organizations across Africa are meeting the growing needs of Africans.

CEO of SMSGH, Alexander Adjei Bram, explained before his trip to Silicon Valley: “Africa is emerging as a hub of start-ups in a wide range of areas and we aspire to take this further. We want the world to see our innovation capabilities in the startup sector. At this event, a group of African businesses will showcase their innovations and forge partnerships with the vibrant American business industry.”

“Personally I think this is one of the best times to be in Africa. There’s a lot of growth. I think in the last few years there has been a lot of capital infusion into the continent, which is providing part of the much-needed seed capital to grow. It’s pretty awesome to see how the African business is developing its own mark on the world and to be a part of that,” he added.

The Stanford African Business Forum had in attendance a number of Ghanaian speakers including Patrick Awuah (Founder & President, Ashesi University College) and Eric M.K. Osiakwan (Managing Partner, Chanzo Capital).

Others from Africa and beyond include Hans Nilsson (Board Chairman, SMS Global Holdings), Paul Mfonfu (Tools and Client Engineering Team head, PayPal), Teju Ajani (Youtube, Content partnerships lead, SSA) and Jessica Vernon (Co-founder & Director, Miti Health), who spoke on topics ranging from the Future of Content Creation and Distribution in Africa, Business Models in Financial Services to Investing in Africa.

As a keynote speaker at the event itself, Alexander Adjei Bram addressed participants on the theme “Driving Business Productivity Through Technology – Enabled Platforms,” expanding on how technology can unlock value for African businesses to better serve customers, run more efficiently, make communication simpler and more affordable, and create employment opportunities.

He shared the SMSGH success story with the Stanford community and results of the technology company’s participation in the Stanford Seed Transformation Program that began in 2014.

Silicon Valley and SMSGH are both leaders in innovation. Silicon Valley, home to major technology companies, start-ups and prestigious universities, is the world’s top innovative hub. Cooperation with Valley-based companies and institutions offers exciting prospects for SMSGH, while expanding business networks for better future collaboration.