Matchmaking service offered
• Telkom subsidiary aims to hook up technology entrepreneurs with big business
Telkom’s subsidiary BCX has launched a platform that will connect technology entrepreneurs to potential buyers and resellers. The platform, SpliceWorks, aims to unearth disruptive technologies that could transform businesses.
Telkom’s subsidiary BCX has launched a platform that will connect technology entrepreneurs to potential buyers and resellers. The platform, SpliceWorks, aims to unearth disruptive technologies that could transform businesses.
SpliceWorks CEO Floris Buys said the company’s aim was “to connect amazing innovations from tech entrepreneurs to the opportunities and partnerships that can scale them to transform the future”.
As it stands, the platform is by invitation only and, so far, 70 start-ups are working with SpliceWorks with the potential of joining the platform.
SpliceWorks will work with companies from the concept stage to commercial launch. It will work closely with FutureMakers, a Telkom-led initiative that helps start-ups turn their ideas into commercial products.
“SpliceWorks is more than a traditional incubator,” said Buys. “Think of us as a matchmaking service between tech entrepreneurs and big business.”
In the first three stages of the concept, SpliceWorks will tap into FutureMakers’s expertise to develop that idea into a product. To be listed on SpliceWorks, the product would have to, among other things, be commercially viable and meet other requirements before approval. Once the company has been certified, SpliceWorks will look for commercial opportunities within the Telkom group and also its business partners. Of the 70 companies that have applied to be on SpliceWorks, eight are in the final stages of approval. The companies provide products in areas such as fintech and logistics. Some of the products could be resold by BCX as standalone offerings, or be incorporated in the technology group’s portfolio of products, Buys said.
SOME OF THE PRODUCTS COULD BE RESOLD BY BCX AS STANDALONES OR INCORPORATED IN ITS PORTFOLIO
In a recent report, consulting firm Accenture said the next decade would see the awakening of an entrepreneurial spirit among industry leaders.
In SA, digital collaboration could help elevate current GDP by more than 3%.
A report released in July by global technology firm Dell into digital disruption, said in 2030, every organisation would be a technology group and businesses needed to start thinking today about how to future-proof their infrastructure and workforce.
“To leap ahead in the era of human-machine partnerships, every business will need to be a digital business, with software at its core,” Dell said.