We are an IT services company that enables enterprise transformation through IT consulting, system integration, custom development and enterprise mobile solutions in Burundi and the East African Region with offices and staff in Burundi, India and South Korea.
One area of interest for Hewe is the finance industry, especially microfinances. Though MFIs play a crucial role in making sure Burundians have access to proper finances, these institutions have few choices when it comes to Management Information Systems. Hewe intends to tackle this issue by relying on Mifos X platform to provide affordable, easy to use and easy to integrate platform that can be used by MFIs to financially serve communities.
BUSINESS SERVICES
IT Consulting
We listen first. We engage business executives in a two ways conversation where we try to understand their business operations and daily challenges. We then propose innovative solutions that will transform their businesses and help them gain a competitive edge on the market. Moreover, considering the challenging economic environment of the country and the lack of expertise in IT, we propose to business cutting edge technologies that are mostly open source, cloud based and mobile, and are affordable and suitable to the business environment. This way, we lower enterprises upfront capital investment in IT, reduce them maintenance and IT operations cost, we allow them to focus on their core competencies and finally we leverage on the pervasiveness of mobile to create new market opportunities by reaching people in remote areas. In a country where 90% of the population is still rural, we believe that it makes a difference.
Business Applications
At Hewe, we tap into existing prepackaged applications that have proved their superiority elsewhere in the world. Partnering with multiple companies across the World, Hewe proposes local businesses robust solutions developed by partner companies that can solve complex issues and lower products and services costs. This is possible because most of business operations share similar patterns across industries. Hewe customizes such applications by adding a local touch by adapting them to local conditions and preexisting regulations, making them fit to our clients.
Cloud Service Brokerage
Cloud computing presents small and medium firms with tremendous opportunities to leverage world class hardware, software and other tools to improve their businesses. Hewe intends to support enterprises in selecting the right applications candidate for migration to cloud and also integrating cloud based applications with their existing business applications.
IT Services
Management Information System for Micro Finances Institutions
One of our areas of specialty is MicroFinance Institutions (MFIs) Management Information Systems. Though playing a crucial role in the country’s financial systems and being the most accessible way for the common man to get a loan or make his savings, MFIs have been neglected by the IT industry in the country. MFIs have limited choices in terms of Management Information Systems (MIS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and IT services they can rely on. Hewe aims at leveraging this lack of interest from the existing IT services providers and provides state of the art, proven and open source MIS to MFIs in Burundi first and aim at expanding it across the east African region later on. Customization and adaptation to the local realities of the MFI industry in Burundi is being done on the Mifos x platform to ensure its suitability and usability. Moreover, we are looking at integrating the platform with mobile payment solutions, a gaining popularity system for money remittance and transfer in the country.
Mobile communication platform
Leveraging high mobile penetration rate, we provide SMS based communication services to insurance companies, enabling them to reach out to their clients for any kind of communication needed to be conveyed. HeweSMS solution provides a friendly, easy to use web based application which allow our clients to send SMS notifications to their clients, grouping contacts, broadcast or multicast, checking balance, a comprehensive analysis of their account status, message sent logs and business analytics tools for visualizing the company activities.
Jean Pierre Gashami
* Years of experience: 2 years
* Focus: Business development, company strategy, sales
Auguste Niragira
* Years of experience: 2 years
* Focus: Operations, technology
Hewe s.p.r.l focuses on the following core strengths
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Out of the box solutions: we operate in a very challenging, resource constrained environment. Finding bold solutions to unique problems is our everyday task
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Excellence: we incorporate excellence in our daily routine
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Ubuntu: while serving our customers and doing business, we keep the highest moral standards and we make sure we pursue inclusive goals that benefit the communities around us
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Thrive: We enjoy what we do and we make sure we have fun while keeping professionalism to the maximum
Supporting Microfinance Institutions for financial inclusion: 2 years
We got on board with Mifos when one of our partners requested support after launching a microfinance institution in Burundi. After doing research, we realize that the sector is underserved in Burundi and we decided to look for an alternative to very expensive solutions offered to MFIs. We later discovered that Grameen Koota in India has been supported and is using Mifos 2. and we decided to get to know more. That was the beginning of our journey with Mifos 2 and Mifos X platform.
Over the next three years, we plan to extend our Mifos X partners’ base to include more MFIs in Burundi. We initially target starting MFIs with no need for migration. Moreover, we intend to integrate Mifos X with a mobile communication platform that allow MFIs to communicate with their client through SMS. Finally, an integration with local mobile money applications offered by telcos is being explored to further make the system convenient for end users.