One of the great distinctions of social marketing is the volume of sales data generated. Years and even decades of transaction history are available to help program managers refine existing product offerings and plan for the next generation of products to meet consumer needs.

DKT recently strengthened its sales recordkeeping system by transitioning to an electronic sales recordkeeping system, referred to internally as e-sales.

“E-sales is bi-directional,” says Yishak Ibrahim, an independent IT Consultant in Addis Ababa who designed the system.

“Transactions are streamed to a server using Ethiopia’s 2G and 3G networks.”

“DKT’s Head Office can also push updated pricing and sales history out to field reps.”

One of the advantages of the system is that it reduces duplicate data entry.

“We used to keep records at the individual, regional and national levels, but with e-sales, it’s a single record shared across the organization,” says Negussie GebreTsadik, DKT’s National Operations Director.