NEWS
Sanlam Kenya
banks on IT
to drive post-
COVID-19
growth
Leading Kenyan school plugs
the COVID-19 learning gap
With Avaya Spaces
Sanlam Kenya is planning to leverage on
IT-based solutions to sustain its business
growth as part of its post-COVID-19
recovery strategy.
The Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE)-listed
non-bank financial services provider, has
been on a sustained recovery path in the last
two years but acknowledged that business
slowdown arising from COVID-19 ripple
effects may impact its 2020 performance.
John Simba, Chairman, Sanlam Kenya, said
the company is banking on technology
and partnerships to boost its post-COVID
business recovery that has disrupted
businesses across the world.
Simba said the firm will be banking on its
human resource base and robust IT options
to boost its distribution and customer service
delivery platforms.
“The biggest opportunity in growing the
Sanlam Kenya business lies in tapping
technology to reach new market segments.
This Digital Transformation is opening
up alternative distribution channels while
revolutionising the customer experience,”
he added.
Last year, Sanlam Kenya with interests in Life
and General Insurance business, managed to
bounce back to full-year profitability, posting
a net profit of US$ 1 million.
Simba said that the firm would maintain
a strategic focus on on-going efforts to
strengthen engagements with business
partners while diversifying its insurance
solutions to customers.
As over 17 million students across
Kenya face a third month of being
locked out of classrooms, the country’s
leading schools are turning to video
collaboration technologies from Avaya
to ensure that their students can
continue learning.
Following the launch of the Avaya Spaces
video collaboration app in Kenya – with
the solution offered to educational
institutions and non-profits free of charge
– Avaya has helped a number of Kenyan
schools build virtual classrooms that
students and teachers can access from
anywhere, enabling learners to continue
with their curriculums.
Waldorf Woodlands, a leading family
of not-for-profit kindergarten and
primary schools in Kenya, is one of the
schools using Avaya Spaces to plug the
prolonged educational gap that was
set to impact its students’ ability to
complete the academic calendar. Waldorf
Woodlands follows the Steiner/Waldorf
Curriculum, incorporating artistic work
with a developmentally appropriate,
experimental and academically
rigourous approach to education.
As teachers integrate the arts in all
academic disciplines for children from
pre-kindergarten through seventh grade
to enhance and enrich learning, Avaya
Spaces enables them to provide an
immersive virtual learning experience.
With two campuses in Nairobi, Waldorf
Woodlands is using the cloud-based
app, which integrates chat, voice, video,
online meetings, content sharing and
more, to continue delivering structured
learning to its students through
interactive virtual classes.
10 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com