Wakanda Jollof sensation and multi-talented Nigerian star Olakira is back with another banger “In my Maserati”.

In My Maserati - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEPmDnVkLzg&feature=youtu.be

The song is inspired by his love for the luxury vehicle brand - Maserati, in the song the singer is pouring his heart out to his queen whom he promises a different kind of love and of course a ride in his Maserati.  

The visuals were produced by the renowned award winning director – Clarence Peters.

Hey Lover - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNnKROaiLGA

Early this year Olakira released the visuals to - Aya Mi(My Love), track off his Wakanda Jollof EP under the U&I Music and was well received globally.

AYA Mi - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez27kq1JiXQ

Olakira whose real name is ‘Ade Ebenezer’ officially began his introduction into the Nigerian music scene with two debut singles in 2018 titled Hey Lover and Flirty Signal.

In 2019 he released a debut EP “Wakanda Jollof” with a focused mission into providing quality musical contents while passionately building a fan base of both Nigerian and international inclusion as his career progresses. 

The multitalented artiste is set to tour Kenya before the year ends to showcase his music and also get to meet with both artistes and fans and cook up some Kenyan-Nigerian gengetone fusion.

Store Link: http://smarturl.it/inmymaserati

Rebel Movement's Brainee releases a brand new single – GIRLS.

This is his second release of 2020 following the previous release up-tempo banger "Amala".

This latest jam from the Afro Hip-Hop and pop fusion maestro sees him celebrate ladies as he proclaims his undying love for "Girls", regardless of the size and race; with infectious and humour seasoned lines in several dialects.

The up-tempo track was produced by Vtek.

GIRLS audio on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giZB2i1A72M

Stream "GIRLS" - https://fanlink.to/braineegirls/

Brainee continues to display his praised edgy rap and singing style with this single. In 2019, he released his acclaimed EP "Chapter 1" which birthed singles such as "Na You", "Gbese", “Vanilla”, “Overload” and "Monday".

The project featured collaborations with Zlatan, Chinko Ekun DJ Spinall & K.O.C.

With the 8-track EP and subsequent releases, Brainee continues to exhibit his excellent lyrical craftsmanship as he combines rap and Afro Pop on his tracks.

He has cemented his place as a strong contender for the next big thing on the Nigerian Music Stage.

GBESE music video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jqEL5zIEbQ

MONDAY music video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1qashYNyjg

DOWNLOAD "GIRLS" ON MINO - - Brainee - Girls (Prod by Vtek) » Mino | Mp3 Download

Sarova Hotels and Resort has re-opened its city restaurants,  Thorn Tree and Flame Tree, to the public for indoor dining for the first time this month since restaurants were shut down due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country three months ago in a bid to tame the spread of the virus.

The restaurants located at Sarova Panafric and Sarova Stanley will operate between 7am-7.30pm daily for dine-in and offer take away as well as delivery services in line with a larger strategy of the business to open in phases starting with its restaurants

In recent times the hotel has only been attending to inhouse guests following directives from the authorities and providing take away services and delivery options which it will continue to offer.

Sarova Panafric has also repurposed 80 rooms into office spaces to offer a serene working environment for those seeking some time away from working from home which has become the norm following authorities’ directives in order to flatten the curve.

Speaking on the re-opening, Sarova Hotels and Resorts Managing Director Jimi Kariuki said, “We are delighted to be able to open in the current climate and have reinvented our offering to suite our customers and ensure that they are comfortable and safe as they enjoy our services.”

“We also have firm plans to re-open our other city restaurants including Lido at Sarova Whitesands, Cinnamon at Sarova Woodlands and Thorn tree at the Stanley which are currently in the process of finalizing re-opening procedures and will announce once they are up and running,” he added.

Some of the safety protocols the hotel will employ include, ffrequently cleaned, sanitized and disinfected surfaces after every guest use, linen-less tables in the restaurants, social distancing and spaced seating as per Government’s specified directives, sanitized tableware and glassware after every guest use, QR coded and website menu availability, contactless payment options as well as guest signage reminders on safe hygiene practices.

The restaurant will also offer the option of disposables including cutlery, menus, paper serviettes and condiments provided in disposable sachets and on request.

Sarova has also incorporated novelties to its in-room dining services to minimize contact including digital in-room menus, ccontactless delivery – placement outside room and providing the option of disposable cutlery, crockery and glassware. Gloves and masks to be worn as standard during all room service deliveries.

The Kitchens have enhanced their already existing hygiene protocols in line with the World Health Organization guidelines. This features, reinforcement of our food management safety system, strong procedures on cleaning and sanitizing food contact surfaces, Strong procedures on cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting non- food contact surfaces, Spaced-out work stations in line with safe distancing guidelines enhanced packaging standards for delivery & take-away food items.

In a previous updateTourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala said that restaurants will only be opened after following the laid down requirements saying it is the responsibility of every restaurant to follow the protocols set by the Ministry of Health for both the safety of the customer and staff.

Nigerian singer, songwriter, Fireboy DML (Adedamola ‘DaMoLa’ Adefolahan) , dubbed the ‘future’ of Afrobeats, is back with a new banger  “New York City Girl” via YBNL Nation/Empire.

Fireboy DML who is currently the most streamed Non-East African Music Act on digital platforms across East Africa is famed for the hit song “Vibration”.

Following the success of his debut album Laughter, Tears and Goosebumps, Fireboy teamed up with Type-A for the new single  ‘New York City Girl”  a mid-tempo, feel-good record that  blends R&B and Afrobeats to bring out his unique self-coined “Afro-Life” sound.

Watch : https://youtu.be/J5I55D90RbY 

New York City Girl talks about a whirlwind love affair with a girl from New York he met while on vacation in Lagos, Nigeria. Written during the global lockdown, “New York City Girl” explores the feeling of missing the physical connection with a loved one and longing for the day they will see each other again.

“New York City Girl” is the first single from his much anticipated sophomore project Apollo scheduled for release later this year.

Fireboy DML burst onto the music scene early 2019 with his debut album Laughter, Tears & Goosebumps.

The critically acclaimed project produced a string of stand-out singles - ‘Jealous’, ‘Scatter’ and ‘King’ which captured the attention of music fans across the globe. The album has achieved over 250M streams and won him the coveted Listeners Choice award at the 2020 Soundcity MVP Awards in Lagos.

The album maintained the #1 position across the Nigerian charts for over 12 weeks with ‘Jealous’ becoming one of the most played songs on African radio stations that year.

Following the massive success of her fourth studio album "Woman of Steel” and the music video for SHEKERE which featured multiple Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo; Yemi Alade gears up towards her fifth studio album with the release of a new single BOYZ.

The new song is a racy up-tempo track produced by Vtek, and marks Alade's first official release for 2020 and starts a new era for the diva. The Africa championing diva celebrates the male gender on the new high octane number.

Watch BOYZ music video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZxu1P6GlFQ

BOYZ lyric video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGRshkR-Noc

Stream BOYZ: https://music.apple.com/us/album/boyz-single/1513477811

BOYZ single gets a colourful and a performance charged music video which stars Nigerian Afro-pop star Seyi Shay and is directed by Paul Gambit.

The multiple award-winning African pop diva is already enjoying success with her music video for “Shekere” hitting 10 million views on YouTube within four months of its release. Yemi Alade is currently finishing up her untitled fifth studio album slated for a 2020 release.

By Marko Reis, Regional Manager - East Africa at Infobip

Modern customers are increasingly becoming information seekers rather than passive recipients of information. A great deal more is therefore required from organisations when it comes to the way in which the ‘brand’ communicates to its customer. Consequently, the demand for reliable, personalised content, made available on the channels of their choice has increased tremendously. All of which boils down to a significant increase in the need to improve the Customer Experience (CX).

In response, global organisations are recognising the importance of reaching their customers via holistic communication solutions that include channels such as WhatsApp Business API and other chat apps. However, many of these solutions are underpinned by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and machine learning.

Kenya is a gateway to the rest of East Africa for a number of international companies penetrating these markets. For many organisations SMS is often still the first port of call when choosing a communication channel. However, this a more conventional approach and contemporary channels that enable richer communication are now available to Kenyan organisations and need to be taken into consideration.

There has been uptake of AI and machine learning in Kenya, but not has much that is needed to automate and revolutionise business communications in various industries. Although several start-ups have introduced AI into their solutions, we will only see real growth in future. This means that organisations need to start preparing for this technology and look towards a communications platform that can provide them with a wholistic approach that incorporates AI and machine learning.

Demand for credible platforms

Despite this, there is also a demand to provide a credible platform, which can sustain business expansion and different end user requests, ultimately enhancing CX, especially among companies that deal with a lot of customer interaction.

A technology is needed that can bolster communication automation across channels and ensure that the customer’s intentions are understood. Here, chat apps such as WhatsApp Business API can be leveraged. However, only once this channel is coupled with chatbot technology, will customer intentions be truly be understood without the need for human intervention.

Are chatbots the answer to our communication woes?

As a result, chatbots offer a holistic approach to resolving some of the pain points many organisations experience related to operating large call centres that typically require significant resources and are costly to run. Call centre agents can therefore start to avoid basic and repetitive customer queries and instead focus on executing functions that are more valuable to the business.

An automated communication approach allows them to develop a chatbot for FAQs that can essentially answer any customer queries, especially if coupled with AI and machine learning capabilities.

The chatbot can learn through answering those questions and therefore becomes more expansive and adapts to how people ask questions, until it can understand natural language. At this point the end user will not even be aware that they are chatting with a bot. If the chat bot encounters a question it can’t understand, or is too complex to answer, the query can seamlessly be redirected to a call centre agent.

This is ultimately an end-to-end solution that resolves pain points of the call centres, as well as providing customers with more specific information and a faster way to communicate with the organisation.

The need to embrace

Kenyan enterprises need to embrace such holistic approaches to communication. An increasing number of global companies are turning to data-driven customer experiences, which are constantly evolving to become newer, better and more impactful. It is important for organisations to get on board and realise how critical it is to implement specific solutions that meets customers’ needs, can analyse their behaviour and engage meaningfully with them.

Innovative and forward-thinking companies, that are bold and agile enough to seize the opportunity, will up the stakes on conversational commerce by deploying automated communication solutions to communicate and transact with their customers.

By Andrew Dawson

In the digital age, data is a currency all on its own. The retail sector has lagged in leveraging the value of real time data, due to a number of factors. However, given the current economic climate, they can no longer afford the luxury of remaining in the dark. The power of data is revealed through near real-time analytics, and it can deliver incredible benefits for the retail sector.

Harnessing the power of daily sales and stock on hand data is the missing link in enabling Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing – the panacea where manufacturers produce just the right number of goods that are delivered at the right time to the right place to find their way into the hands of the right consumers.

 Visibility is the key

The daily sales and stock data in retail holds a powerful repository of information, if it can be further enhanced by getting sales through the tills as each transaction happens this data flow, will provide powerful insight into the daily movement of SKUs, categories and sub-categories, to obtain a live view into what is being sold in real-time.

This will allow the retail chains to finally understand product mixes with high levels of accuracy. 

Armed with real-time data analytics, they are able to know exactly what is being purchased at what time, and in what combination with other products. If you can align a loyalty plan to identify and profile the shopper making the transactions then it becomes a game changer in customer experience strategies and the key to finally truly understanding consumer buying patterns, identifying the effectiveness of promotions, understanding basket combinations and gaining insight into exactly when consumers are purchasing certain products.

Streaming analytics enables JIT manufacturing

With the power of streaming analytics, manufacturers are empowered to understand exactly what products are selling in what volumes, right down to specific flavours or pack sizes and in what retail outlets.

With machine learning and advanced analytics, it is possible to build predictive models to start mapping product sales patterns to periods of the month, particular days etc. Additional external data such as changing weather patterns, event calendars will also influence sales patterns and if there is enough historic data it is possible to map the influence of the external patterns to predict the expected influence on future events. This is information that can help manufacturers gear production to cater very precisely to consumer demand.

In today’s challenging market, every cent is critical to the bottom line. This granular level of data analytics is no longer a nice to have, but an absolute essential in ensuring that production planning is optimised. It is also critical to empowering purchasers with factual data to ensure they buy and stock what consumers want, when they want it, and to understanding which competitors are picking up the market when stock runs short.

 Adjusting behaviours on the fly

“Streaming analytics” is the future of real data insight in the retail sector. The first step is to gain line of sight into the market at a ground level, and then the second phase is to understand what can be done with the data.

For partners on the ground, such as merchandisers, store reps and retail specialists, this level of granular data helps to identify challenges such as being under or over stocked versus the expected “days of cover” for that product, or reduced sales versus the category average, all of which make a direct impact to the bottom line.

Data insight is also vital in ensuring that promotions are effective, that operations are competitive, and that any issues can be swiftly identified and promptly dealt with. Deviation tracking, using real-time analytics with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, is the key to tackling these challenges. In the current climate, real-time functionality is critical, as after-the-fact analytics is simply too little, too late.

If ever there was a time for getting real-time data analytics right in the manufacturing and retail sector, it is now. The world is shifting faster than ever, and the future is all but impossible to predict. Harnessing the power of data in real-time is crucial to helping the manufacturing and retail sector survive in a challenging market.

The writer is the Managing Director at Cognizance Processing.