The Roundtable: Debating quality through strategic leadership

From left: Nadine du Toit (Managing Executive SA), Amanda Dambuza (Non-Executive Director of Inspired Testing SA), Maggie Moonsammy (Account Executive), Carlize Bosch (Sales Executive), Louise Lowman (Head of People), Keletso Moche (Head of Technical Consulting) and Karin van Blerk (Head of Marketing).

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Inspired by Women’s Month, the SA executive committee - where women hold the majority of leadership – came together to do what they do best: speak plainly about the things that matter.

The conversation that followed covered the strategic challenges facing IT services businesses, what the past few years have taught them about leading through uncertainty, and the harder questions that the broader technology industry still needs to answer.

Rather than a scripted discussion, the conversation unfolded as a candid exchange among seasoned executives, grounded in the depth of their experience and leadership.

Q1: What’s the biggest strategic challenge facing IT services businesses right now, and how is Inspired Testing positioning itself to turn it into an opportunity?

Nadine: The pressure to respond to AI and automation without being specific enough about what that actually means for clients.

Generic responses don’t work. Our role is to help clients become genuinely future-proof in ways that align with their actual business goals.

Keletso: Yes, and I’d add that the deeper challenge underneath that is responsible AI adoption: maintaining governance and operational control while organisations are being pushed to move fast.

We see AI as a complement to human capability, not a replacement. That’s a fundamentally different, and more sustainable, position than most of the market is taking right now.

Carlize: Building on that, what I see in practice is that clients are being sold tools when what they actually need is a strategic partner.

The businesses that will win this shift are the ones with specialist expertise to lead them through changes, not a generalist providing them with software and moving on.

Louise: And the opportunity lives precisely in that gap. When clients work with us, they don’t just get testers – they are supported by a full operational capability, providing not only delivery capacity but also specialist expertise, consulting and thought leadership.

That depth is what makes managed services genuinely hard to replicate, and it’s what positions us as a real specialist rather than just another service provider.

Maggie: We’re already quite advanced in that AI journey – and that’s precisely what we want to bring to our clients. That whole consulting layer is often what they’re missing. Sometimes they won’t even know where to start. But we’re already at that stage, which is what makes us genuine industry specialists, not just another service provider.

Amanda: From a governance perspective, I’d frame the underlying risk slightly differently: it’s not technology – it’s complacency. Any service offering in this space can commoditise quickly without continuously evolving capability.

The opportunity is to lead that evolution, and the advantage Inspired Testing has is that this leadership team understands that viscerally.

Q2: Looking back over the past two to three years, what’s the most important thing this leadership team has learned about running a business through uncertainty?

Karin: That our quality thread doesn’t waver, regardless of what’s happening outside. Our expertise sits firmly within quality assurance, and there’s no bargaining on that standard. That precision and consistency is what keeps us relevant.

Louise: Completely agree, and I think that consistency is fundamentally about people. You can’t control markets or economies, but you can control the quality of what you deliver and how you treat the people delivering it. That’s what builds the kind of trust that sustains client relationships through any disruption.

Keletso: Further to this, uncertainty exposes the real strength of an organisation. What this leadership team has done well is foster a genuine sense of community, making sure teams feel supported and empowered to take ownership even when the environment is unpredictable. That cohesion doesn’t happen by accident.

Carlize: And you see the commercial proof of that in the relationships that have endured. Our longest client partnerships have survived uncertainty precisely because the trust was already there before things got hard. Consistency in delivery isn’t just a quality metric – it’s our most important commercial asset.

Maggie: A lot of people will say they can adapt to change – but what really matters is embracing it. The market has shifted enormously even in just the past year, from basic awareness of AI to understanding how to actually implement it. That agility goes hand in hand with the opportunity to be part of the change, and to walk that journey with our clients.

Nadine: That’s the thread that runs through all of it. We’ve been on a six-year journey – originating, establishing, maturing, and now growing – and the consistent thread has been transforming uncertainty into purposeful energy.

Amanda: Uncertainty also has a way of clarifying governance priorities. It forces the right questions: which revenue relationships are truly resilient, whether the talent pipeline can sustain growth, whether culture will hold as the business scales.

The lesson – and one this team has taken seriously – is to keep asking those questions even when things are going well.

Q3: If you could change one thing about how the broader technology industry operates, what would it be?

Nadine: The belief that technology is a silver bullet. Clients buy tools expecting them to solve their problems, but technology is an enabler, not a standalone solution. The industry chases speed over sustainability – and that’s the norm I’d most want to see shift.

Karin: I’d agree with that completely. Clients invest in tools when they should be investing in partnerships. A tool is static – what drives real value are the people and expertise behind it. Getting the strategic partnership right will always deliver more than any tool selection alone.

Maggie: And what I’d add is that any real solution requires collaboration – the tools, the people, the processes, all working together as one. It’s not any single element that delivers; it’s the combination. People are instrumental in making it function as required, and that’s often the piece the industry overlooks.

Carlize: I look at it slightly differently, though I think we’re pointing at the same problem. What I’d change is the tendency to tell clients what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. Real value comes from the partner who challenges your assumptions – and that’s the kind of relationship we try to build. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s more authentic.

Louise: And I’d connect that to the assumption that high performance requires perpetual pressure. It doesn’t. With the right systems, processes and culture, you can operate at a very high level without being in constant crisis mode. That’s sustainable in a way that burnout-driven output simply isn’t – and it produces higher quality work.

Amanda: What I’d add – and it connects to all of this – is the belief that growth at all costs is always a good thing, which we all know is not. Organisations that scale fast without thinking through the impact on people and communities create the very problems they then struggle to manage.

Responsible growth and business success are not mutually exclusive. The industry needs to act like it believes that.

Q4: What advice would you give to a business that knows it needs to evolve but keeps finding reasons to delay the hard decisions?

Carlize: Stop mistaking inertia for strategy. The clients who delay the hardest decisions are usually the ones most at risk – and by the time the urgency becomes undeniable, the cost of acting has risen significantly. I’ve seen it too many times to be polite about it.

Keletso: Yes, and practically speaking, commit to progress, not perfection. Don’t try to big-bang the transformation. Start small, get one area right, then build outward. Little steps, taken consistently, get you to your goal faster than waiting for the perfect plan.

Nadine: Further to that, reframe how you’re thinking about it altogether. See transformation as an investment, not an expense. Most businesses look at the cost of change and say ‘we can’t afford it'. But they’re not calculating the cost of not changing. That’s the number that should keep them up at night.

Karin: A genuine quality partner should be able to say, honestly and without agenda, ‘this is not what you need.’ That kind of candour only comes from a relationship built on trust, not one built on a contract.

Louise: I’d add that you should have the difficult conversations early. Honest feedback is where the most valuable insights live – and the businesses that grow are the ones that have learned to hear hard truths and act on them. It’s a skill, and it’s one you can develop.

Amanda: The cost of waiting is almost always higher than the cost of acting. Markets move, competitors adapt, and client expectations shift – whether you act or not. The businesses that survive disruption are the ones willing to move before it feels entirely comfortable.

Q5: When you think about what makes Inspired Testing genuinely different – as a company to work with, and as a place to work – what comes to mind first?

Nadine: What we’ve built here is deliberate. The culture, the sense of purpose, the way people show up for each other and for clients – none of it is accidental. We are genuinely forward-thinking as an organisation, operating in a space where we can make a real difference in how quality is understood and delivered. People, passion and purpose – that’s not a tagline for us. It’s how we operate.

Karin: What I’d add to that is the way we do business with clients – we don’t deliver a solution and move on; we change the nature of a client’s challenge through our expertise, for the better, and that relationship continues. You feel that both inside the business and in how clients talk about us.

Louise: Absolutely, and what underpins all of that is that we’re all equally driven. Not because it’s mandated, but because we genuinely want this to succeed. You can’t teach that quality of commitment; it comes through in how we operate together every day.

Keletso: And for a consulting organisation spread across multiple countries, the sense of community is remarkable. What strikes me is how much this company believes in people’s potential – matched by genuine investment in career development and real management support. That combination is rarer than it should be.

Maggie: For me personally, it’s the culture. It’s that support – that sense of community Keletso mentioned. You’re not doing this alone; you’ve got people behind you, you can ask questions, and it’s a safe-to-fail environment where you genuinely won’t fail, because there’s a whole team holding you up. That’s what collective and reflective wisdom looks like in practice – learning together, sharing openly and growing through each other’s experiences. But it’s also the forward and future-minded thinking of asking what’s next. I want to work for an organisation that is making a real difference in the IT space – one that is evolving, influencing, shaking things up. That’s what I love about the people, the technology and the mindset.

Carlize: The quality of the relationships says it all for me – with clients and with each other. We’re not coming in to close a deal; we’re building long-term trust on both sides. You feel that in how the business operates day to day, and clients feel it too.

Amanda: What gives me confidence as a board member is that the culture scales. Most organisations have strong values early on – what’s harder is preserving them as headcount grows.

This leadership team treats culture as something to actively shape and influence, not just hope it persists. That discipline is what makes the difference between a company that talks about its values and one that actually lives them.

Inspired Testing (www.inspiredtesting.com) is a specialist software quality engineering and testing company operating across South Africa, the UK and international markets.