Office Telephony solutions available in Kenya

Are you looking to add extensions for your office?

Are you looking for a PABX, IP Telephony solutions, IP Phones, VOIP solution across branches or simply want to mordanise the telephony in your office?

There are many option available in kenya today for all sizes of offices, Service providers and SME's.

Most common are the analog PABX especially Panasonic, Alcatel and Siemens PABX. These are very limited on the number of extensions and number of lines that the organisation can have.

The trend is now going towards advanced technologies and IP PBX's are replacing the analog PABX with speed. In between are the Hybrid PBX's that bridge the Migration path from analog to IP. Hybrid solutions are common especially with Panasonic, Alcatel, Siemens and ZYCOO. In Hybrid system, the PBX is IP but the office handsets/extensions

Complete IP Telephony systems have an IP PBX which is a software for call processing loaded on a hardware that has telephone interconnection interfaces. The hardware limits the size of organisation that will use a particular PBX at a time. This is determined by:
The number of incoming lines that you have or need
The type of incoming lines; Mobile, landline, ISDN or Telkom wireless
The number of extensions you need
Branches and inter-connection between branches (WAN or internet links)
Additional services that you need on you PBX like call detail recording, Voicemail, IVR, Call-fowarding and others

A technician ussually, will visit your site and give you a bill of materials as per your requirement.

IP Systems are cost saving in several ways. The most popular being costs saved for interbranch calls, with IP Telephony, branches can call each as extensions with no phone bills. Secondly, IP Telephony systems use the data network infrastructure. Therefore saving companies the need to have two seperate networks (data & Telephone)as done with analog and Hybrid systems. With IP Systems, you also have access to an array of IP Phones, most systems are open standard SIP and you can therefore use IP Phones from several manufacturers with no problems at all.

IP Systems also ease management and reduce staff costs as the IT personnel can manage the telephone system as well as the data system.

Companies investing in IP telephony find that even with a sizeable capital outlay, IP Telephony is cheaper in the long-run.

Hydraform soil block house is now going up

As reported two weeks ago, Kenyans are now using stabilised soil blocks to build cheaper houses that use natural products. As seen on the photos here, their first house is underway and will be complete mid august.

Cost is mainly saved on wall cement. The blocks are interlocked and hence you dont use cement to join them. You also do not have to plaster the inner wall as these bricks are smooth and colourful. if you want to paint there is a special paint that you can use without plastering.

You save upto 40% of construction costs on materials. Labour is also saved as you take a shorter period to build.

In Kenya, the machines sold are mosty manual. You can get them from Makiga Engineering services likoni road telephone 550665. You can also check with Kickstart Kenya. However the Diesel Engine run machine from www.hydraform.com is much better than the manual ones and you can buy it from their factory straight from SA.

Here a group in Syokimau has the engine machine and is able to produce upto 1,500 blocks a day. They are ready to make blocks and sell for any size of a project. The project featured on my blog has blocks made by these guys. you can talk to the builder for more information on building costs...the builder is MaKiri builders.

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Construction in Kenya goes Green

The Construction industry in Kenya has finally gone green with the introduction of stabilized soil blocks building in Syokimau, Nairobi.

A group of young entreprenuers have acquired the latest machine from Hydaform SA and are now producing the stabilized soil blocks commercially. The machine makes 1,500 blocks everyday.

The first building project will take off this week and we will keep you updated on the progress. The house is a maisonette, on a 50*100 ft plot. Including a perimeter wall it is expected that 16,000 stabilized soil blocks will be used in this project. This technology is said lower the building costs by up to 40%.

Stabilized soil blocks interlock with each other removing the need to use cement on walls. which greatly reduces cost and promotes use of natural solutions in building.Depending on the colour of soil used, the final product can be in different colors creating a great aesthetic effect.

Photos and more information will be coming up soon!! meanwhile you can check out the link below for more information on this technology.



Link

Starting a business in East Africa

As in all parts of the world the business idea, plan and win strategy are the first and most important parts of starting a business. Any entrepreneur planning to turn their ideas into commercial productivity will need to register the business in the geographical regions they plan to operate. East African countries are working on common platform of operation with a single currency. However this is not yet ready and each country has its own policy's, legislature and procedures of business registration. We will therefore look at the processes involved for each.

Rwanda has the shortest and easiest business registration process. With the recently launched One-Stop business registration center, it will take 24 hours to complete the whole registration process provided all documents are in order. Plans are underway to create an online service that will reduce the time taken to 12 hours and the system is expected to be operational by December this year. The center incorporates functions of the Registrar, Rwanda Revenue Authority and the Social Security Fund of Rwanda in one center and introduces a payment office in the registrar's general office. Company law no longer requires notarization of documents and publication into the official gazette. Only standard articles of Association are required and a flat fee of FRW. 25,000 is charged.

Other East African countries (except Burundi) have similar procedures for registration that flow as follows with a few specific items to each countries listed further below.

In Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, you can register a business name (liability lies with the business name owner/s, this can be sole proprietorship, partnership or name owned by a company) or a register as company which is a legal entity on itself.

To register a business name one will require to: Do a name search at the registrar's office. When a name is approved, the statement of particulars form is completed and partneship documents are signed, legal fees may apply here. A certificate of registration is then issued. A business name can later be converted into a company as well

To register a company, you start with a name search, once the name is approved and reserved, then stamp the memorandum and Articles of association and nominal capital documents, this costs 1% of the nominal capital plus stamp duty. Then you register with the Tax Department for tax, here you get a PIN/TIN/TIP number depending on country, then register for VAT and other taxes like PAYE, this is free and takes a day. To trade, you will also need to apply for a business permit from the City/town council you are trading on, NHIF and NSSF as well. You will need to make a company seal after the certificate of incorporation is issued.

Matters of cost and other items are specific to country as below.

Kenya

Business name: total cost ksh.900+
Company:Totals cost (appx)
Number of Days taken 30
Number of procedures 11

Uganda
In Uganda the tax department URA will need to inspect the business premise before registration as well as all other procedures above.
Total Cost (appx) USH. 463,000-471,000
Number of days it takes 24
Number of procedures involved 11

Check, doing business in Uganda on the link below

Link


Tanzania
In Tanzania the land or town officer will need to inspect the business premise before registration, you also have to register for workmen compensation at the National inspection corporation or take an alternative insurance policy as well as all other procedures above.

Total Cost(appx) TZsh. 206,200
Number of days it takes 34
Number of procedures involved 18


Burundi

Registering a company in Burundi is much different fro the countries above, the process below is followed. It will take you a minimum of 43days to go through the 11 process and cost you approximately BIF.252,900.

1.Notarize Articles of association and signing of the Notary to be published in the
official journal.
2. Deposit required minimum capital
3. Publication in the legal journal
4. Extraction of criminal records for the first two directors
5. Registration with commercial registry, tax department, local authority, ministry
of trade & industry, ministry of labour department of inspection and the National
institute of social security.
6. Finally one will get a company seal.

Figures given above are based on approximation and most data according to 2008 figures though little has changed since then.