03 Nov 2025 Your SME factory need firing up? This is of interest!

Boosting manufacturing is the surest economic booster (case in point: China), but SA’s SMEs are battling to modernise – till this startup came along, that is…

ERPs are positioned as efficiency engines, but often become cost centres: Globally, 50% or more of ERP implementations fail out of the gates, exceed budgets by three to four times and run over timelines by 30%.

It’s no secret that global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions don’t always work for all SA businesses. Aside from the hefty (Euro and Dollar) price tags, they don’t always account for how we work or the people who need to use them (as designed).

Like Spar’s failed SAP implementation that cost the retail group a hefty R1.6-billion.

For SME manufacturers, this becomes a paradox: You need the system to compete, but it’s unfeasible to adopt it. So smaller manufacturers stay stuck on older tech or piecemeal solutions, while the software crunch remains privatised in the boardrooms of big firms.

The startup levelling the ERP playing field

ArcFlow is an AI-enabled cloud-based ERP solution built specifically for the SME manufacturing and distribution industry.

They’re building an integrated operating system that spans the length and breadth of a manufacturing and distribution firm, including sales, manufacturing execution, warehousing, HR, procurement and project workflows: all under one roof (as opposed to bolt-on platforms for each).

ArcFlow co-founder Sam Burditt, explains they’ve stripped away the complexity of legacy ERPs (so you don’t need 50 people to run it) and baked in AI-driven modules like supplier ratings & KPIs, demand and lead time forecasting, reorder timing and crucial decisioning where work happens (not some back office on a spreadsheet).

Making it affordable and accessible

And by offering all-in pricing, they’re avoiding the “number of seats/module” booby traps that make using a behemoth ERP simply untenable for an SME.

And after cutting their teeth in the UK, they launched into the US, pivoting back to South Africa (their home turf), where feedback loops are quicker and the value prop arguably stronger.

Put simply: ArcFlow is giving SME manufacturers the super-powers of big industry without the enterprise-scale budget. Watching this space….

Source: The Open Letter (subscribe to this great resource on all things entrepreneurial and AI-focused in SA) CLICK HERE!