Page 29 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 10

ECONOMY

We talked to Dillys Mundrugo, the founder of Open Markets East Africa, Uganda,
about a new platform, OpenEA, which provides Afrikans with the opportunity to
scale up their business operations instantly and connect markets across the conti-

nent in one simple solution. Please read on.
Chioma Phillips

Tell us a little bit about Dillys. get to observe a lot of things on tually woke us up. We tested a cou-
My name is Dillys Mundrugo and I the ground like situations where ple of solutions over the years and
grew up in Kenya, but I am Ugan- businesses come to new malls then we now settled on one that is easy to
dan. Most of my career life I’ve a year later they shut down. When use and very nice for businesses.
been in IT. I did a few IT courses you check properly you find it
but then after that I realized there was actually a lack of clientele and Please tell us about the solu-
are a lot of things missing and I businesses are paying high rents in a tion that you settled on?
like research, so on my normal days nice mall but people are not buy- We have two solutions current-
you’ll find me testing things, re- ing. I realized that the shortcut to ly; one is for online stores, which
searching solutions online on what that would probably be embracing means that you can have a site like
I call Google University, and then online business so that one can sell eBay for your own company. If you
once in a while I may sell the solu- online and their websites becomes have an IT backing it can take 20-30
tion the next day. I like to see how more than just a brochure. They can minutes to set up and your shop is
solutions can be applied because we become management tools. I found live. If you don’t have an IT back-
really do need a lot of solutions for that people don’t know where to ground, with training it will take 1-1
our business people locally. Many start because they are not essentially ½ hours. The platform is so easy
people are not IT literate and they IT people and there are so many to use that anyone even without IT
need someone who has already solutions around that one can easily knowledge should be able to create
gone through the solution so that get confused. and manage their online store even
when it’s being implemented you from a phone.
bring them on board and are able to Open Markets was born to try and The second solution is a solution for
explain it such that they do under- help people migrate online as part food vendors and hotels and restau-
stand. of a strategy to reach more clients rants to allow them to take orders
in a very easy way. Initially, we had and sell online or their customers to
Tell us about Open Markets envisioned an online community make reservations. This is a system
East Africa. connecting east Afrika so that one which can be added to an existing
Open Markets was initially concep- doesn’t have to travel for meetings website, if you have a website. If
tualized because we realized a lot and can showcase their products and you don’t have a website we can
of people don’t have the skills to services. That vision is still there, help you set one up.
market. You find somebody is a pro- but we realized that you can’t talk to Both solutions can connect to
fessional in what they are doing, like people about the online community Facebook and other social media
you can be a cook, a chef and you’re and they don’t even have the basics websites so you can get your orders
good in the kitchen but you have a like websites, they don’t have online from Facebook probably boosting
little bit of a challenge with other shops and they don’t know where to your advert on Facebook many peo-
skills. A business needs a full system, start. So we had to retrace our steps, ple get to see you and contact you
not just a product, in order to run. and research products and solutions for the products you have to offer.
At the end of the day the product that can be easily implemented by
and the vision can be very good but anyone out there. Let’s say I’m in Ethiopia, can I
if you don’t have the marketing and This year (2020) has been a bit inter- use this solution for my business,
PR in place and can’t connect all the esting, because with the lockdowns for my clients in Ethiopia and
systems in a business then you have of Corona people have discovered outside?
a very big problem. that they need to work from home Yes, it’s possible because it’s a global
Having run businesses and being and can’t be paying bills out there solution. You can customize and
self employed for some time you when they’re not even supposed to localize it to your language and what
step out. That was the thing that ac-

WWW.MSINGIAFRIKAMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 10 JAN/FEB 2020 29