Royal Media Scoops Top Prizes in CIO 100 Awards

Engineer Wainaina Mungai from Royal Media was named the CIO of the Year, with his employer emerging as the most innovative company. Royal Media has developed a paperless newsroom using an in-house newsvault application. The system also uses a web-based library search system implemented based on user feedback.

Other IT implementations the firm has include streaming for 8 FMs stations and for a TV station. A tapeless news playout has improved reliability and reduced the task involving searching 12 years of tape footage.

The company also pioneered the use of Google HangOuts on television on the International Womens’ Day. The initiatives have seen Royal Media reach one million monthly viewers on the Internet for Citizen TV.

Egesa FM, which broadcasts in Kisii, is able to reach more than 45,000 online listeners in a month. Printing costs have been greatly reduced too.

JUDICIARY & GERTRUDE RANKED SECON & THIRD

The Kenyan judiciary was ranked second while Gertrude’s hospital was ranked third. Kenya Judiciary has implemented a help desk and ticketing system that supports 112 court stations and includes stakeholders such as the Police, Prisons’ department and Lawyers’ Society of Kenya.The system handles issues such as missing file and corruption complaints.

Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital has implemented a Health Information Management System that has seen elimination of paper in the hospital. Patients and medical staff no longer have to carry papers around departments as all procedures are accessed online from each department.

Running the hospitals has also been made easier with automatic billing including automatic updates of patient’s bill status every midnight. The ceremony also saw firms that were best performing in their industry awarded in PlusOne Awards. Seven PlusOne awards were issued in the financial, communication, hospitality, public, manufacturing and health sectors.

FINANCIAL SECTOR

Paddy Micro-investment topped the financial sector through a solution that issues loans via scratch cards. Dubbed Pesa Pata, potential loan seekers approach agents, usually small businesses such as salons and kiosks. They then fill in a form and are issued with a scratch card. The pin on the scratch card is then send via SMS to a number and applicants get the loan topped up on M-Pesa.

COMMUNICATIONS

Safaricom topped the communication sector with the Kenya Integrated Mobile Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Information Platform that enables Community Health Worker to manage and run their patients, mothers and their children, on an Android enabled app. All information is stored online on Safaricom’s cloud. Sarova Hotels topped the hospitality sector.

The group implemented supply chain automation that helped manage costs and provide transparency on their purchases. Automation revealed that Sarova had 33 different prices for onions. Suppliers were reduced to 6,000 from 30,000. Improved visibility has automated reconciliation and enabled the firm save through better pricing on volume purchases. Resultant cost savings have enabled the hotel maintain employees during low season.

The Kenyan Judiciary also topped the public sector category with their ticketing system. Manufacturing saw East African Breweries emerge the best in their category, with their Distributor Management System. The system tracks movement of stock from distributors to their clients (bar owners). Mobile devices are used to issue receipts and to also conduct periodical surveys. By having information on past sales and from the surveys, the distributors are able to better predict and plan for customer behaviour.

Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital also topped the health category in addition to bagging third position with the implementation of a Health Information Management System.

Below is the ranking of some of the top 100 firms

1 Royal Media

2 Kenya Judiciary

3 Gertrude’s Hospital

4 PostBank

5 Gertrude’s Hospital

6 Sarova Group

7 Nation Media Group

8 NSSF Uganda

9 Paddy Micro Investments

10 Resolution Health

11 Safaricom Ltd.

12 East African Breweries Ltd

13 KEMRI-Wellcome Trust research programme

14 Kenya Airways

15 Makini Schools

16 New Vision

17 Kenya Airways

18 CFAO Motors Tanzania Limited 

19 Old Mutual Kenya

20 Postal Corporation of Kenya

21 City Planning Department

22 Eat Out

23 Directorate of eGovernment

24 Stima Sacco

25 Banque Commerciale du Rwanda Ltd

26 Women Enterprise fund

27 Haco Industries

28 PlusPeople Kenya Ltd

29 MARA ISON Technologies Ltd

30 iLabAfrica

31 Digital Divide Data

32 Retirement Benefits Authority

33 Digital Divide Data

34 Institute of Advanced Technology

35 Scangroup Limited

36 CompuLynx Limited

37 Andy Forwarders

38 Kenya Weddings Ltd

39 Sarova Hotels 40 Rafiki DTM