My Speech At Solutech’s 2022 End of Year Party and Awards Gala Dinner

Good evening team,

What a remarkable year it has been!

It has been an incredible year and I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your hard work and dedication in helping Solutech reach the success it has achieved this year. My joy is and has always been sitting in your interview panels, recruiting you, and seeing you grow tremendously to heading departments. It has been fulfilling seeing you grow your leadership skills.

As we come to the close of another year working together, I want to take a moment to reflect on all that we’ve accomplished. This year, we’ve done an amazing job of adapting to a rapidly changing world and staying ahead of the curve. We’ve made strides in improving our technology, launching innovative features, and expanding our customer base. And most importantly, we’ve come together as a team. We’ve supported each other through our successes and our failures, and that’s a testament to this company’s strong culture and commitment to excellence.

We have been able to successfully implement Solutech SAT in three new countries in Africa this year: Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Sudan. As you vividly remember, we began the year with Alexander and I traveling to Dar Es Salaam to train and onboard GSM Group in January. Then in March, Alexander and Tecla traveled to Addis Ababa to train and handhold Pepsico. Finally, in May, Rayyidh, though doesn’t like traveling, joined Julius and did an excellent job in training the Cofftea Sudan team in Juba. All this can be attributed to the great work our sales team and consultants have continued to do to bring onboard new clients, and the amazing team the engineering team; mobile, backend, and security, have done to make SAT international ready through translations and continuously innovating new features to provide more value to our clients.

I would like to reinstate the incredible work our customer service team does in serving our end users. From setting up new accounts to doing training, our customer service team has traversed the country and beyond to get clients up and running with Solutech SAT.

This is only possible because of your commitment to excellence and innovation; from those who have been here long for over five years like Tito, to those who are weeks old at Solutech. Your drive to make Solutech SAT better and to serve our customers better has not gone unnoticed and I would like to personally thank you all for this. The accounts team has ensured we have good cash flow in the business, we are paid on time and our suppliers are paid on time as well. All this is not enough without a second checker and our audit team has made sure that we make the correct financial decisions and we adhere to the government’s regulations.

The marketing and design teams have done an excellent job in amplifying our brand as a company, from participating in the company being accepted into the Google Black Founders Fund, to winning the Best SFA Company in the Digital Tech 100 Awards and the Kenya Beverage Awards. 

I cannot state enough the organization the projects department has brought into how we handle projects for both new and existing clients. With the streamlining the projects team has done, we are now able to deliver deployments on time. We have gone from taking weeks to set up new deployments to taking just a few days, and my wish is to see us decrease this further to hours. That’s the only way we will be able to scale. As of January 2023, we have already set up a quality assurance department and recruited, and this will only ensure that we continue to deliver high-quality services to our clients. We aim to provide data as a service in the coming months, and with the data team, we aim to achieve this. Not only this but also streamlining how clients process orders from supermarkets.

I would also like to appreciate all the heads of departments: Tito, Felix, Magdalene, Tecla, Lilian, Tevin, Preston, Samuel, Maryanne, and Jean in absentia, for the excellent work you have done across the year leading your teams and working in unison with the rest of the departments. I would like also to recognize the dedication of the senior management team from our CEO, Alexander, to Jinal and Rayyidh for the commitment you have given to the company for the last 8 years. You have always put the company and the team first before yourselves and I personally thank you for your perseverance and dedication.

Not only have we remained committed to our core values of Integrity, Teamwork, Family, Accountability, Innovation, and Responsibility, we have remained committed to our sustainability agenda.

This year we teamed up with Cup of Uji, Pwani Oil Products Limited, and Lab and Allied for our Corporate Social Responsibility activity and visited Kumpa Holy Mothers Primary School in Kajiado. Kudos to all of us for being responsible to the community.

At Solutech, we have also made sure we stay true to our Sustainable Development Goals and especially gender equality.

Currently, our gender ratio is 15 male staff and 14 female staff. Since 2014, this year is the first time we have had two ladies on the backend team and they have been incredible.

On behalf of the company, I thank you all for your loyalty and your dedication. Without your dedication, none of these successes would be possible. Every day you come to work with a passion for what you do, which shows in the results. Your enthusiasm and enthusiasm for innovation are contagious and have helped to propel us forward.

It gives me a lot of joy when I see you all hanging out together after work, as Solutech is not just about work, but creating relationships outside work as well and growing together in your passions, be it beekeeping like Milai, or farming, or selling comics like Felix and Mutinda.

As we move into the new year, I want to encourage each of you to continue to strive for excellence and bring your best selves to work each day. Together, we can make Solutech even more successful and continue to lead the way in this industry of field sales force automation. I’m looking forward to another year of great things to come including expanding to new countries, expanding our customer base, moving to our new office, and the Stanford Seed Transformation Program which starts in January 2023, and all of you will be involved in the program.

I wish you and your families a happy festive season and a very happy new year 2023.