Digital Tide CEO at MWC Kigali: We’re Modernizing Voice for 300,000 Rwandan SMEs

The Mobile World Congress (MWC), which took place in Kigali from October 21st to 23rd, is expected to accelerate development in Rwanda by attracting international technology firms and fostering innovation.

The 3-day conference was opened at the Kigali Convention Center by the
President of the Republic, Paul Kagame, with a focus on mobile development and promoting mobile commerce.

Among the international attendees was Digital Tide, a Dubai-based company that delivers white-label Cloud PBX services for telecom operators. We spoke with CEO Aleksejs Beļakovs at the event to learn more about the company’s plans for the region.

Q: Why is Digital Tide focusing on Rwanda and the broader African market now?

Beļakovs: “We are mostly focused on developing countries, and right here in Africa, we see huge potential for the cloud PBX platform that we develop. (…) We see growth, we see lots of new businesses opening. From a telecom perspective, Rwanda is very similar to many rapidly
developing countries (…), businesses need effective communication with their customers.”

Q: What specific needs have you identified among local small businesses?

Beļakovs: “We see about 200,000 to 300,000 small businesses across Rwanda. They use
phone numbers to make and receive calls, and they need things like call distribution, call huting, and call recording. Additional services and integration with CRM systems are not very popular here yet. So this is what we are going to do (…), launch cloud PBX services that will simplify connection to customers for local businesses.”

Beljakovs shared more details on the company’s plans to partner with local mobile operators and the big demand he sees in the market.

As Beļakovs discussed in the interview, the company’s model allows local telecom operators to empower their offerings with Cloud PBX services for their business clients.

This allows businesses to reinvent outdated voice services into revenue-generating cloud solutions that:

● Unlock new revenue streams
● Retain high-value business customers
● Protect their market position
● Modernize their voice services portfolio

By Digital Tide team