Technology

Skhokho Business Management System

Karabo.Mmako

Skhokho Business Management System

Skhokho is an all-in-one business management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform developed by Tati Software to serve small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Designed to streamline business administration, Skhokho integrates essential operations such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Resources (HR), OKRs, invoicing, meeting notes, timesheets, and task tracking into a single, intuitive interface. Skhokho’s mission is to empower SMEs—often overlooked by enterprise-grade software—with professional, accessible tools that reduce operational complexity and drive sustainable growth. The platform is used by entrepreneurs, small teams, and founders who want to run their businesses like enterprises without the overhead.


Customer Challenge:

The company relied on multiple standalone tools to manage internal functions—spreadsheets for HR, third-party platforms for CRM and project management, and separate applications for invoicing, meetings, and task tracking. This disjointed setup created several key issues:

Rising operational costs due to multiple overlapping software subscriptions
Inefficient workflows stemming from the lack of integration between systems
Minimal visibility across departments, hindering performance tracking and decision-making
Administrative overhead that diverted resources from strategic execution
Difficulty scaling operations as the business expanded

The inefficiencies revealed a critical gap in the SME software market: the absence of an affordable, integrated, cloud-native platform that could consolidate core administrative functions into one system.

Recognizing this opportunity, Skhokho engaged Tati Software to design and develop a unified business management platform capable of streamlining operations, reducing costs, and supporting long-term scalability for SMEs.

Partner Solution:

To address Skhokho’s requirements for scalability, integration, and operational efficiency, Tati Software designed and implemented a cloud-native, multi-tenant SaaS platform using Amazon Web Services (AWS). The solution was architected in alignment with the AWS Well-Architected Framework, ensuring high availability, cost optimization, security, and performance.

Core components of the solution include:
  • Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate was used to deploy and manage containerized microservices without server management, enabling modular development and independent service scaling.
  • Amazon EC2 (Graviton-based instances) provided cost-effective and high-performance computing for specific workloads requiring dedicated resources.
  • Amazon RDS Aurora (PostgreSQL) was implemented as the primary relational database, offering low-latency performance, high availability, and automated scaling.
  • Amazon S3 was utilized for secure object storage, supporting user-uploaded documents, invoices, and media.
  • Amazon CloudFront ensured fast global delivery of static assets and front-end content, improving user experience.
  • AWS CloudWatch enabled centralized monitoring, logging, and performance insights across services.
  • Amazon VPC established a logically isolated network, ensuring controlled, secure communication between services.
  • AWS Backup ensured data durability through automated backup scheduling and recovery procedures.
  • AWS CloudTrail facilitated governance, compliance, and operational auditing by tracking user activity and API usage.
  • AWS Secrets Manager handled secure storage and rotation of sensitive configuration data, including database credentials and API keys.
  • Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) distributed traffic efficiently across services, improving system resilience and uptime.

The infrastructure was deployed using infrastructure-as-code (IaC) practices and integrated into a CI/CD pipeline to enable automated testing, deployment, and rollback functionality. This ensured development velocity remained high while maintaining operational stability and reducing deployment risk.

The result was a scalable, resilient platform that supports multi-user access, seamless data flow across business functions, and a consistent user experience—laying the technical foundation for Skhokho’s go-to-market SaaS strategy.

Results and Benefits:

The AWS-based architecture implemented by Tati Software enabled Skhokho to deliver a robust, fully integrated SaaS platform that meets the operational needs of small to medium-sized enterprises with high efficiency and reliability. The solution delivered measurable benefits across multiple dimensions:

  1. Operational Efficiency and Cost Reduction
    By consolidating multiple business functions into a single platform, Skhokho eliminated the need for SMEs to subscribe to and manage disparate tools. Early customer adoption shows a reduction in software overhead costs by an estimated 40–60% per user, depending on previous tool usage.

  2. Platform Scalability and Reliability
    With Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate and Amazon Aurora, the platform supports dynamic scaling to accommodate fluctuating user demand while maintaining uptime above 99.9%. The microservices-based architecture allows for isolated deployment and fault tolerance, ensuring continued service availability as the user base grows.

  3. Improved Performance and User Experience
    Use of Amazon CloudFront and EC2 Graviton resulted in significant improvements in platform responsiveness and load times. Page latency was reduced by approximately 30%, contributing to increased engagement and reduced session drop-off rates among end users.

  4. Accelerated Product Development
    CI/CD automation, containerized services, and AWS infrastructure enabled Tati Software to reduce release cycles from several weeks to a matter of days. Feature deployment velocity improved by over 50%, allowing rapid response to customer feedback and continuous delivery of platform enhancements.

  5. Enhanced Security and Governance
    AWS Secrets Manager and VPC isolation enabled secure handling of credentials and internal services. AWS CloudTrail and AWS Backup ensured compliance with audit and data protection requirements, critical for business continuity and customer trust.

  6. Market Differentiation and Strategic Positioning
    Skhokho’s ability to offer enterprise-grade functionality at SME-accessible pricing—backed by a cloud-native foundation—has positioned it as a competitive alternative to legacy and fragmented business management tools. The architecture supports future feature expansion, including AI integration and global localization.

Together, these outcomes allowed Skhokho to go to market with a high-performance, low-maintenance SaaS offering that delivers tangible value to small business operators, while also setting the stage for continued innovation and scale.

About the Partner:

Tati Software (Pty) Ltd is a South Africa–based custom software development company specialising in the design and delivery of secure, scalable, and purpose-built digital systems for businesses. The company focuses on building web applications, SaaS platforms, and enterprise-grade business solutions that replace manual processes with robust, centralised, and auditable digital workflows. Tati Software places strong emphasis on solution architecture, data integrity, access control, and long-term system maintainability, enabling clients to modernise operations while retaining full ownership of their data and processes.

Tati Software is an accredited AWS Partner operating at the Select Tier Services Partner level. This tier recognises partners with proven customer delivery experience and teams that maintain validated AWS technical expertise. Through its partnership with AWS, Tati Software delivers cloud-based solutions aligned with AWS best practices for security, reliability, scalability, and operational governance.

AWS Partner Tier and Certifications

Tati Software maintains a highly certified technical team, ensuring that solutions are designed, implemented, and supported by engineers with validated AWS expertise across infrastructure, application development, operations, data, and machine learning disciplines. The AWS certifications held by the development team include:

  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (Foundational)
  • AWS Certified AI Practitioner (Foundational)
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
  • AWS Certified Developer – Associate
  • AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
  • AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate
  • AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty

These certifications support Tati Software’s ability to design and deliver secure, cloud-native systems that meet both business and technical requirements across a wide range of industries.