Toyota Tsusho is coming into Seven Seas Technologies at a time when the company is aggressively expanding to offer technology services in the health sector.
The Business Daily recently interviewed the Seven Seas chief executive Mike Macharia on the company’s future prospects.
What does the Toyota Tsusho investment mean for Seven Seas?
From our point of view, the investment shows confidence in the country — that global multinationals are willing to come and look at SMEs and to help them scale up to become globally competitive.
It puts us on a sort of accelerated journey to maturity. A company like ours is always looking for capital for growth.
Are there any specific projects towards which the money will go?
I think one of the areas we will work with Toyota is primary healthcare. We want to use technology to help transform the base of the pyramid in health services.
How can you remove the queues at government hospitals, for instance?
As a nation we have not figured out how to deliver primary healthcare and this is an area where technology can help.
What specific technological solutions do you have in mind?
There is currently no technological hospital referral system in Kenya. The system today is typically manual. It would be more efficient if you had a digital database that kept track of hospital resources and capabilities.
Patients could be referred to the closest hospitals that are best able to serve them. Currently, we all just pitch tent at KNH (Kenyatta National Hospital).
Telemedicine is an emerging area of growth. It is an area that we think is going to be the next flagship and this is going to be driven by lack of labour or rather lack of labour that is not extremely mobile.
It is easier to get a doctor for someone in Nairobi than in Narok, for instance. So I think the telemedicine business is something we want to get into, and part of the project is to deploy infrastructure to do that.
Using technology we can also build more efficient supply chains, whether it is different ways to deliver medicine or equipment to hospitals.
We want to be the person in the middle who does the aggregation, who brings in and maintains medical infrastructure under creative financial models.
You’ve already carried out one such infrastructure project with American multinational GE. Could you give us an update on the progress?
We teamed up with GE on a government project to equip 98 hospitals. We allocated about 70 people to this project. GE provided the equipment. We did project management on the installation of the medical equipment.
We delivered the last hospital today (November 29). We will be providing support for this equipment going forward, for six years.
What informs this aggressive strategy in the health sector?
As a company we’ve looked at areas where we can have significant areas using technology. We’ve selected healthcare and social services.
I also think Kenya is going to become a leader in medical tourism in the next four, five years. East Africa requires capability in healthcare. They will come to Kenya if we build the infrastructure.
What percentage of your revenues is coming from health projects?
About 60 per cent.
What other areas are you pursuing beyond the health sector?
In the area of social services we’ve launched a platform that helps connect blue-collar workers to opportunities. So a typical blue-collar worker in the construction industry is able to connect to jobs on equal and fair terms.
We started with construction and we’re moving into agriculture and the service industry. I think we’re on boarding close to 3,000 people a week.
Are the plans for Seven Seas Technologies to list on the NSE next year still on track?
We said we’ll push listing to 2020. There was a change of strategy and we want to focus on growing our business value first. We are also considering market realities, 2017 is an election year.
You’ve previously said that you wanted to grow Seven Seas revenues outside Kenya. What is the progress?
Kenya still controls a significant part of our business, I think 80 per cent. We’ve focused a lot on Kenya because we want to build our capabilities here before replicating them in other markets.
Ethiopia is the other significant market with about 12-15 per cent of the business.
Are there any specific new markets that you’re eyeing?
We go to markets where there is need. If you look around us in East Africa, Congo requires capability in healthcare as does Uganda. Health is becoming a political imperative. Our politicians are beginning to realise that health is a deliverable.
What percentage of your business comes from the government?
Forty per cent. Government remains the most critical platform to deliver healthcare.
Are you not concerned about bureaucracy and corruption adversely affecting your operations?
Look at it this way, we’ve built our business in Kenya and we’ve grown here. We need to play our role in transforming the government. In these challenges lie opportunities.
It has been alleged that your work with government, particularly in health, is due to a family relationship with former Health secretary James Macharia. What is your response?
First of all, I think they’ve said I am his brother.
Are you his brother?
I am not. We have no connection with (James) Macharia. It is just mere coincidence that there is a Macharia in Health and there is Mike Macharia. Macharia met me in health as an entrepreneur. Any way you can go around and check who my brother is and who my sister is.
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