Curve Group acquires South African Paperless Software to enter mining industry

Curve Group acquires South African Paperless Software to enter mining industry

In its continued bid to empower businesses and end customers to be financially and digitally enabled, Curve Group has acquired South Africa based Paperless Software Solutions, a specialist developer of integrated solutions that cuts down paper-based administration in virtually any business process.

Paperless Software Solutions, founded over a decade ago, works with blue chip South African and multinational brands, with a significant presence in the mining and industrial sectors. It offers services which take companies from being manual process and paper-consuming corporates to being able to benefit from efficient digital processes that deliver, collect, report and analyse large volumes of data in a few clicks.

The acquisition combines the strengths of Paperless Software Solutions, with Curve Group’s global network, engineering and management resources. It will fast track Paperless Software Solutions’ offering to its current clients and broaden its value proposition to future customers. The combined Curve Group and Paperless Software Solutions portfolio can now run every single element of an industrial, mineral or heavy manufacturing business at roughly half of the cost of traditional fragmented vendors. Curve Group will also increase the number of engineers for Paperless Software Solutions. They will be based in South Africa and will help accelerate future innovation from Africa to the group’s customers around the world.

Curve Group plans to expand the Paperless Software Solutions brand into financial services, logistics, and retail in South Africa to facilitate and automate paper processing for major institutions. It also plans to take the solution to commercial and public sector customers that need efficiency and service delivery improvement. Paperless Software Solutions has recently entered into a joint venture with Tim O’Hanlon Strategic Management Services, a regulatory risk management consultancy, to develop the first end-to-end Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) solution locally. The company will continue to operate under Curve Systems, the entrepreneurial development arm of Curve Group, as a separate brand.

Where other companies operating in the same space would be charging 60% to 70% premium for providing inclusive services, Curve Group is entering the market at a discounted rate, which means that we will be 50% cheaper than the average competitor across the portfolio of services. This is crucial for their African growth strategy. The disruptor is breaking the price quality assumption of older, less efficient vendors. It’s very possible to deliver cutting edge process efficiencies to African business that use modern process with double the efficiency at half the cost if the solutions are tightly integrated.

As the newly appointed Group Sales Director for Curve Group, Patrick Schoeman, Managing Director of Paperless Software Solutions, will work not only alongside his retained team from Paperless Software Solutions, but also newly gained resources from Curve Group to expand the company’s product offering to other key sectors in South Africa and the rest of the continent.

“Paperless is critical for the growth strategy in our technology business,” explains Fred Baumhardt, CEO of Curve Group. “Paperless has been selling a compelling set of solutions specifically to mining and industrial customers and in today’s environment the increased need for automated process efficiency and compliance is huge across many markets. This is especially true in the financial services industry, where we will look to leverage this expertise across our client base, as well as expand the relevance of Paperless to its current customers by giving them a much wider selection of cost efficient services from the broader Curve Group.”

“Paperless has been grown by entrepreneurs who have learned all the really tough lessons in the market about doing business effectively in South Africa, and delivering world class technology. Adding their entrepreneurial drive to a proven management team at Curve Group, really allows us to broaden perspectives and drive customer value. Their people are world class, and we’re proud to have them with us. We are approaching the final stages of expansion into Tanzania, where we will be taking the paperless technology into the region’s mines, and heavy industries. We will be able to provide holistic and integrated solutions to address various issues that African companies face.”

“We were progressive in our thinking and created a service that no one else was offering at the time. It has enabled us to deliver a niche service in key sectors and build a strong brand identity in the market,” says Patrick Schoeman, Managing Director of Paperless Software Solutions. “Considering the anticipated commencement date of POPI in May this year we are confident that the combination of their regulatory expertise and our automated solutions will enable businesses to comply timeously and efficiently,” says Schoeman.

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