Industries

Different sectors, differently weighted.

A commercial bank and a university do not need the same thing from a network, and they do not answer to the same regulator. This is how the five capabilities are usually weighted sector by sector — and where procurement normally starts.

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BankingGovernmentTelecomEnterpriseNGOs & missionsHealth & education

What changes by sector

Regulatory postureWhat a regulator must be able to see, and what evidence has to be retained.
GeographyCity branches, district offices, remote sites — the access problem differs sharply.
Who operates itYour own team, or ours under a managed service. That decision drives the design.
Procurement routeOpen tender, framework, or a negotiated pilot. Each needs different paperwork.

Sector by sector

The same capabilities, weighted differently

A bank and a university do not need the same thing from a network, and they do not answer to the same regulator. Below is what each sector typically buys first, and why.

Banking & Financial Services

Digital onboarding with the evidence trail a regulator asks for, branch connectivity that does not become a single point of failure, and identity checks that stand up to dispute. The pressure is simultaneous: faster customer acquisition and more evidence, not one or the other.

Typical combination

eKYC onboarding with biometric capture at the counter and in the app, protected branch connectivity, and document intelligence for the paper that still arrives.

Where procurement starts

A bounded eKYC pilot on one product line, with the regulator’s reporting requirements captured in the pilot design.

Government & Public Sector

Service delivery across a wide geography with mixed connectivity, an obligation to be verifiable, and procurement rules that reward documented method over marketing. Citizen-facing services must also work in the languages people actually speak.

Typical combination

Identity and biometric platforms, network reach to district and service points, and multilingual service interfaces in Amharic, Afaan Oromo and English.

Where procurement starts

A technical requirement or ToR drafting exercise, often with a pilot at a limited number of service points.

Telecom & ISPs

Coverage gaps you cannot justify building yourself, capacity you need before your own rollout reaches a district, and backhaul for sites where the economics of construction do not work.

Typical combination

Wholesale capacity, interconnection and Layer-2 backhaul, plus outside-plant construction on a contracted basis.

Where procurement starts

A specific coverage or capacity requirement with a defined geographic scope and an interconnection point.

Enterprise & Campus

Consistency across locations. A hotel group, an industrial park and a university all face the same problem: the head office experience and the fifth-site experience are not the same, and nobody can see why.

Typical combination

Tiered bandwidth per site with a defined response path, SD-WAN policy that keeps business traffic ahead of guest traffic, and campus distribution done to a maintainable standard.

Where procurement starts

A site survey across the estate, which usually reveals that two or three locations are driving most of the complaints.

NGOs & International Missions

Head office approval in another jurisdiction, on a procurement timetable set elsewhere, with an expectation of English documentation and clean audit trails.

Typical combination

Connectivity for offices and field locations, and identity verification where beneficiary or staff records require it.

Where procurement starts

A written quotation and technical approach in a format the overseas procurement team can evaluate without a site visit.

Healthcare & Education

Personal data in the scope, staff who are not IT specialists operating the system, and connectivity that has to reach facilities where power itself is not guaranteed.

Typical combination

Identity verification designed around data-protection requirements, connectivity designed for intermittent power, and interfaces usable by non-technical staff.

Where procurement starts

A data-protection review alongside the technical scoping, because both constrain the design and they are cheaper to reconcile early.

Coverage matrix

Which capability each sector usually starts with

“Primary” means the first procurement in most programmes we see. It is a planning guide, not a restriction — sectors move on from the first purchase quickly.

Industry by capability coverage matrix
Sector	eKYC & identity	VISP / connectivity	Biometrics	Telecom infra	AI & data
Banking & finance	Primary	Primary	Primary	Common	Growing
Government	Primary	Primary	Primary	Primary	Growing
Telecom & ISP	Occasional	Primary	Occasional	Primary	Common
Enterprise & campus	Common	Primary	Common	Common	Growing
NGOs & missions	Occasional	Primary	Occasional	Occasional	Occasional
Healthcare & education	Common	Primary	Occasional	Common	Growing

Classification reflects the pattern of enquiries and scopes we handle. It is descriptive, not a statement about market share or installed base.

Procurement path

How public and regulated buyers usually proceed

Most institutional purchases follow the same four steps. Knowing where you are makes the first conversation much shorter.

STEP 01

Requirement or ToR

You publish a technical requirement, or you invite bidders to help draft one. We can contribute technical input under an NDA without any commitment from you.

STEP 02

Technical clarification

We answer in writing, with assumptions and exclusions stated, so that comparison across bidders is meaningful rather than rhetorical.

STEP 03

Pilot or limited scope

A bounded deployment — one branch, one cohort, one site — with pass criteria agreed before it starts.

STEP 04

Scale and operate

Rollout against the results of the pilot, with service tiers and reporting formalised in the contract.

Writing a ToR and need a technical annex? We can supply a vendor-neutral requirement template covering identity, biometrics, connectivity and data protection. It is free to use whether or not you buy from us. See the resources library.

FAQ

Questions we are asked in procurement

Answers written for the people who have to defend the decision internally.

Do you work with organisations outside Addis Ababa?

Yes. Delivery across regions is normal for us, and it is usually the access layer that determines how a project is planned rather than the platform. Where a site needs wireless or microwave instead of fibre, that is a design question we answer from the survey rather than from a product list.

We are at the stage of writing a requirement. Can you help?

Yes, and it is often the most useful point to involve a supplier — under an NDA, with a clear boundary between technical input and commercial influence. We can supply a vendor-neutral requirements template and answer clarification questions through your official channel. You are free to award the work to someone else, and we would still consider it time well spent.

What size of organisation do you work with?

From single-site enterprises needing reliable connectivity, to national programmes with multi-region rollout. The engineering changes with scale; our approach to documentation, acceptance and handover does not.

How do you handle a sector with specific regulatory requirements?

We start by establishing what the regulator must be able to see — what evidence, retained for how long, and who can be asked to produce it. That shapes the audit trail before it shapes the technology, which is the opposite order to how these projects usually begin.

Next step

Bring us the problem, not a specification.

The most useful first conversation is a technical one: what has to work, by when, and what has already been tried. We will tell you plainly whether it is something we should be doing.

Technical first responseA qualified engineer reviews your requirement before anyone calls you.

Written scopeYou receive a documented approach, assumptions and exclusions you can circulate internally.

Local channelsReach us on phone, WhatsApp, Telegram or email — whichever your team already uses.

One point of accountabilityOne contract and one escalation path across connectivity, identity and AI.

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