Historically Wilken Telecommunications has been the company that has supported the expansion into service provision and security.

Wilken Telecommunications was established in Kenya in 1962. Since inception, Wilken has been providing customers with telecommunications solutions. Its products have evolved from elector-mechanical PABX’s to modern state of the art communication solutions.

Wilken continues to specialize in the ICT sector and provides a wide range of business communications solutions including Internet Protocol (IP) and legacy voice equipment, structured cabling, development of data centers, data networks and infrastructure. Wilken also provides a comprehensive range of after sales services to its customers.

Wilken is a certified Business Partner of Alcatel, the world’s leading telecommunications solution provider Alcatel Lucent through Bytes Communication Systems based in South Africa.

WILKEN GROUP OF COMPANIES HISTORY

The Wilken Group of Companies, hereafter referred to as “Wilken”, was founded in 1962 as an air charter business based in Nairobi, Kenya.

In the 1970’s the shareholders, Mr Bruce McKenzie, a prominent figure in Government of Kenya and Mr Keith Savage, divided the company into two. They sold Wilken Air to Cooper Motors Limited under whose ownership it still operates today. They retained the other part of the business, known as Wilken Telecommunications which operated as a licensed supplier of telecommunications equipment.

Wilken thrived in a sector monopolised by Kenya Post and Telecommunications Limited (KP&T) providing the first satellite earth station into Kenya. During this period, Wilken was the leading supplier and supplier of choice for telecommunications equipment into the sector. 

Mr. Savage died in 1978, and the business was taken over by his son, Julian. Julian diversified the business during the 1980’s by investing in an English air charter business and an English road haulage company. Julian returned to Kenya to concentrate on rebuilding the core business, which had by this time established agencies in a wide range of products selling telecommunications equipment into the East African market.

In 1991, Lords Valentine and Michael Cecil took control of Wilken with the intention of building up a strategic position in the vital areas of Telecommunications, Satellite and Internet Services.

They established the holding company structure based in Guernsey by incorporating Wilken Africa Limited as the liberalisation of foreign exchange controls removed the need to operate locally.

In 1992 the directors introduced a broader strategy into the region by removing the risk of operating in one country, Kenya. It was agreed that Wilken would expand into Tanzania and Uganda with fully operating businesses managed independently from Nairobi. It was during this period that Wilken also changed its corporate strategy. The strategy was to move towards introducing telecommunications services with its predictable revenues, rather than rely on the traditional sale of equipment in an increasing liberal market and acting as distributors for the large equipment suppliers such as Alcatel, Harris, Rockwell, Philips, Motorola to name a few.

Liberalisation of the telecom sector between 1995 and 2003, the impact of competition and reducing margins required considerable investment and change to Wilken's strategy. The company looked at markets  outside the region and strategically invested into telecom licences in Uganda and Tanzania to become a VSAT and Internet service provider.

Kenya and the East African region has achieved significant growth since 2001 to date. This has had a positive effect on Wilken. Wilken has continued to develop its position in the East African market by expanding its market awareness, service offerings and strengthening its internal structures and business processes.