Johannesburg – An entrepreneur is taking her software
concept and making it suitable for other small, medium and micro enterprises.
Paula Sartini, CEO of BrandQuantum – which she founded
three years ago – says she is now moving from servicing a blue chip client base
to a enabling smaller companies to use the software.
This is because the branding product will now be hosted
in the cloud.
Speaking from her office in Rosebank on Monday afternoon,
Sartini explains the tool is a toolbar that is currently built into the
Microsoft Office Suite that allows branding to be consistent across the
organisation.
And, as far as she knows, it’s an offering unique to her
company – as no-one else has developed anything similar, in SA or globally.
Sartini explains the built in toolbar has a variety of
customised aspects available at the click of a button, such as letterheads,
logos, terms and conditions, and PowerPoint presentation templates.
It is installed in such a way that only staff who need
access to certain functions can get them, and changes are handled by only those
with permission to update them.
This, she explains, negates what is often a common issue
in companies: having multiple and different versions of a tool – such as a
letterhead – spread across a company’s network.
Sartini also explains the tools can easily be updated if,
for example, a company undergoes a brand refresh, and this is then rolled out across
the system overnight so the change is seamless. This, she explains, negates the
chance of someone inadvertently using an old logo.
“How do you change [your brand] when you don’t even know
what you have?”
The concept for the business, says Sartini, came from her
branding background, when she realised it was ineffective to be micromanaging –
or brand policing – brands at companies. She also didn’t want to be chasing
deadlines until she was 65, she quips.
The company, which started in her dining room, now has 15
staff members and is seeking a bigger office, she adds.
Sartini’s pipeline is to roll out the solution to Office
365 – Microsoft’s cloud-based solution – which is currently happening, and then
to other software providers, such as Gmail.
This, she says, will make it possible for entrepreneurs to
benefit from the offering as they tend to adopt to cloud solutions quicker than
big businesses as these offerings are cheaper, and SMEs are more agile.
Sartini adds the offering can be scaled depending on a clients’
needs and user base. The offering has also been tested to ensure it’s as immune
as possible to hackers, she notes.
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