South Africa's small and medium enterprises (SMEs) collectively form one of the country's biggest economic foundations. Enterprises need them as suppliers and partners. SMEs need the cashflow, exposure and development that enterprises can provide. Where the two meet well, both grow.
Smoothing enterprise-SME management
SMEs struggle to stand apart and attract enterprise clients, and enterprises spend significant resources vetting and managing SMEs. Hepsy Mkhungo, CEO and co-founder of One Linkage, encountered these issues first-hand in her corporate and consultant careers, and decided to create a platform that helps both sides.
"If you look at a corporate, there are different divisions that interface with small businesses from very different perspectives," Mkhungo told ITWeb TV Biz. "Some divisions manage their data and their engagement from spreadsheets or from a siloed view. But when it's time to report on impact, we need an organisational view of how the business interacts with and supports local small businesses."
The result can sometimes be duplicated vetting, fractured data and no single line of sight from sourcing to funding to development to impact reporting. And when these programmes have to prove their worth, the impact and ROI need defensible evidence that stands up against multiple frameworks at once. Evidence scattered across divisions and spreadsheets rarely holds up to that scrutiny. SMEs, for their part, rebuild their credentials from scratch for every new engagement.
One passport, read across every use case
One Linkage was built to close that gap. It is a multi-tenant, cloud-based platform that lets corporates and small businesses work together in secure, ring-fenced environments, and its core is the SME digital passport.
"At its core is the SME digital passport: a single, verified business profile that each SME builds once and re-uses across every enterprise interaction, whether that is sourcing, funding, procurement or development of the SME," said Mkhungo.
The passport is not a static profile. Every engagement an enterprise runs through the platform reads from it and adds to it. Verifying a supplier, funding a deal, running an enterprise and supplier development programme, each interaction contributes evidence and lifts the SME's verified standing, so the profile grows richer and more bankable over time instead of being rebuilt for the next engagement.
For the corporate, that is the real prize: enterprise and supplier development that runs end to end, across every use case, in one organisational view, with defensible evidence built in as programmes run rather than reconstructed at reporting time. For the SME, one credible, growing reputation opens more doors.
Building it enterprise-grade with AWS EEIP
Building something corporates could trust at that scale required more than a good idea. "One can't just stick business and technology together," said Mkhungo. "The combination requires more."
The AWS Equity Equivalent Investment Programme (EEIP) proved to be a game-changer. EEIP backs Black-owned technology companies, helping them scale with AWS technical skills, certifications and business capabilities, from fiscal discipline to marketing and engaging new markets.
"What we learned was how to build a well architected enterprise-grade solution from the start, not to bolt scale on later. Security, multi-tenancy, and the ability to grow had to be designed in from the foundation, because that is what corporates need to trust the platform,” she said.
Mkhungo had initially left the technical detail to external developers, then realised she needed a strategic view that combined business and technology. "It was very important for me to bring that skillset in-house so that we can all learn together and build this platform. That's where AWS really came on board, to help us focus on capacitating the business with the right skills, resources and support."
Building skills, employment and homegrown services
AWS EEIP's insights turned One Linkage into an enterprise-grade, multi-tenant cloud platform, and built careers along the way. Mkhungo and her co-founders strengthened their technology skills, and EEIP enabled them to recruit technical resources and interns, some of whom have gone on to more elsewhere.
"Enabling the development ecosystem is core to who we are; it's our philosophy," said Mkhungo. "We want to create opportunities for growth at an individual level, an organisational level and a country level."
The team is now migrating users to the new, cloud-native OneLinkage platform, and looking beyond SA's borders to SMEs and enterprises across Africa. With the right entrepreneurial spirit and a partner like AWS, there are many opportunities to bring enterprises and SMEs together.
You can view the full video here.
* ITWeb TV Biz episodes are sponsored.
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