Are you still managing your field teams with WhatsApp check-ins, Excel rosters and monthly device audits? You are not alone.
Many organisations in South Africa continue to rely on manual tools that were never designed to support today’s mobile and distributed workforce.
2026 is the right year to upgrade your operations and deploy workforce management software.
Early adopters in facilities management, security, healthcare industries and municipalities have seen measurable growth in operational visibility, time and attendance, and reduced operational costs.
The opportunity driving growth
Karabo Mothulwe, CEO at Tsukuru, says: "2026 is shaping up as the year where workforce management software becomes a growth enabler rather than just an operational upgrade. By deploying the solution, companies with field service workers in industries such as facilities management, utilities, HORECA, FMCG, can increase the compliance and visibility capabilities."
One of the biggest cleaning and facilities management companies operating across healthcare, corporate and municipal sites in southern Africa faced challenges with time and attendance, which was outdated with manual, paper-based processes, lack of compliance and low visibility of stock and assets.
After implementing workforce management software, they were able to digitise time and attendance, strengthen compliance, enable real-time asset and stock management, leading to improved communication, better quality control and operational efficiency.
The risks of not acting
Reduced profitability and ROI. Without digitised workforce management, organisations face slower growth and raising operating costs which limits scalability and reduces return on investment.
Increased complexity. Organisational complexity increases and teams can lose agility navigating convoluted processes. Transformation becomes increasingly expensive and difficult with each passing day.
Compliance and control risks. Organisations lack the visibility and documentation required for regulatory compliance. From legal to financial, and even reputational risks can threaten long-term operations.
Poor accuracy and lower productivity. Manual work increases errors and amount of costly rework. Without automation and data-driven tools, employees remain stuck in repetitive tasks lowering their productivity.
Competitive bluntness and client loss. Without workforce management software, organisations risk becoming obsolete in clients' eyes. A shrinking market position becomes increasingly difficult to recover from as the competitive gap widens.
Why 2026 is the right time to deploy
Digital workforce management platforms are opening new opportunities for companies with large and dispersed teams through three key differentiators:
Operational cost savings that improve margins. Companies deploying digitised time and attendance systems can eliminate two to three hours of daily administrative overhead per 100 field workers and resolve timesheet instances of fraud that typically costs up to 5%-8% of payroll. One facilities management company managing over 20 000 cleaning staff reduced payroll processing overhead by over 50% through automated time-to-payroll integration.
Increased compliance capabilities. There are significant growth opportunities for enterprises to improve compliance. A digital WMS platform can export complete compliance reports in minutes rather than weeks, providing automated quality control dashboards and local-compliant biometric data handling. One client company reports this capability not only secured contract renewal but positioned it to expand into additional sites.
Client retention through real-time visibility. The ability to provide clients with real-time visibility into operations is changing the nature of client relationships. Instead of fielding queries about workforce deployment or stock levels days after the fact, facilities companies can offer instant transparency: from tracking uniform distribution to service completion reports. This level of open communication builds the trust that drives long-term retention.
The market opportunity is clear: organisations deploying digital workforce systems in early 2026 position themselves to expand into multiple sectors, and demonstrate the transparent operational capabilities that clients and stakeholders are actively seeking.
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Tsukuru is a B-BBEE level one ICT company specialising in rugged devices and locally developed mobile device management software and workforce management software.
Tsukuru's commitment to client experience excellence reflects in 1 500+ reviews with a 4.8-star average on Google Judge.Me and HelloPeter.
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