Being seven (7) years behind isn’t always a bad thing, particularly when trying to keep pace with the speed of technological innovation.

DKT Ethiopia, the largest supplier of reproductive health and family planning products to the private sector in Ethiopia, is finding this particularly true as the organization establishes an electronic recordkeeping platform for sales transactions (e-sales).

“Mobile computers were side-lined in many ways by smartphones,” says Ken Divelbess, an IT Consultant assisting with the activity.

“Given Ethiopia’s developing IT infrastructure combined with longer development cycles for handhelds means that earlier generations of handhelds may actually work for our case.”

It’s not yet clear whether DKT will proceed with handhelds or more widely available consumer tablets, which can be easily replaced from the local market.

Whatever the case, DKT expects to begin a wide-scale rollout in 2016.

When fully implemented, sales staff will be able to stream sales and customer records to a remote server while receiving real-time price and product information.