Young start-up makes inroads in software, messaging innovations

Samuel Kamochu, Meliora founder and Chief Technical Officer. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By LYNET IGADWAH
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Summary

• In the process of companies juggling too many balls, quality may inadvertently suffer. This is where Meliora Technologies Entrepreneurs Ltd comes in.
• The firm develops IT solutions, such as converging messaging platforms, to enable firms to interact more conveniently with customers.
• Established in 2015, the company has designed a system that can be used internally by corporates to manage messaging traffic.
• In the case of a commercial bank for instance, the system connects all internal applications such as ATM system, core banking system, Internet banking, and mobile banking to various mobile network operators and/aggregators in various countries.

As medium and large enterprises innovate to grow market share, the need for timely and efficient communication can easily get overlooked. This is especially so in a technological era, where companies are operating several platforms to capture customers’ attention.

In the process of companies juggling too many balls, quality may inadvertently suffer. This is where Meliora Technologies Entrepreneurs Ltd comes in. The firm develops IT solutions, such as converging messaging platforms, to enable firms to interact more conveniently with customers.

Established in 2015, the company has designed a system that can be used internally by corporates to manage messaging traffic.

In the case of a commercial bank for instance, the system connects all internal applications such as ATM system, core banking system, Internet banking, and mobile banking to various mobile network operators and/aggregators in various countries.

This enables corporates to have simple integrations, while at the same time allowing efficient, reliable and timely delivery of all customer SMS notifications including ATM withdrawals, account balance and loan dues, into one platform across various countries.

Currently, Meliora’s messaging system is deployed in three commercial banks and at four short code service providers — PRSPs (premium rate service providers).

Last year, the company crossed the Sh10 million-mark last year in annual turnover.

“Our approach is simple; we sharply focus on understanding and fixing the clients problems in the most comprehensive way and referrals will naturally follow,” says Samuel Kamochu, Meliora’s founder and chief technical officer.

In its biggest deployment yet, Meliora beat international firms to bag a deal with a leading regional bank after proving that its messaging platform dubbed Unified Communication Manager (UCM) offers a superior solution.

The win, he notes was a combination of “long big investments in understanding the clients need, strategy and God’s favour”.

This was in 2016 when the company had just created UCM and the bank, had published a tender for a messaging solution following customer complaints due to SMS delays.

Seeing that it was just in the process of onboarding its first two customers and therefore had no financial records yet, Meliora approached Dibon Consulting, a tech company that had sampled UCM) and which agreed to partner in the tender.

“We told them we have a product, we got all the qualifications, but we don’t even have financial records. Yet we believe this thing (UCM) can fix the issues” says Mr Kamochu, a software engineer by profession.

Looking back, he supposes the company won the tender because it had a proof of concept (POC) that the product/system was tested and could work. Aside from this, Meliora being a local firm could marshal its machinery to site faster than its global competitors.

This deal earned Meliora Sh3 million. This was the first money the company made and has since grown its customer and financial portfolio through referrals.