Microsoft 365
Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Entra ID, Intune and Defender, licensed monthly or annually and administered by us.
Business software and applications for South African organisations
Business software is the set of applications an organisation runs on: email and collaboration, accounting, ERP, CRM, telephony and document management. Arke Technologies, in Johannesburg, selects, licenses, implements, integrates and supports these business applications for mid-sized and large organisations, public bodies and schools across South Africa, under one contract.
The business applications we select, run and support
Business software is one of the seven disciplines in our services, from Microsoft 365 to custom business software and the integrations behind internet of things business applications. One team covers all eight families below, so it understands how your email, finance, customer and phone systems depend on one another.
Google Workspace
Gmail, Drive, Meet, Vault and Chrome device management, including Google Workspace for Education.
Microsoft Teams, VoIP and telephony
Teams meetings and Teams Phone, cloud PBX, SIP trunks, handsets and contact-centre call flows.
SharePoint and intranets
Intranets, document libraries, retention and permissions that stand up to audit.
Accounting software
Sage, Pastel, Xero and QuickBooks: implementation, migration, integration and multi-entity reporting.
ERP
SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Odoo and NetSuite, rolled out in phases.
CRM
Salesforce, HubSpot and Zoho: configuration, automation, reporting and data quality.
Software licensing
A licence register, usage reviews, renewals and audit readiness across the vendors you use.
Platforms we license and run
Microsoft 365
Google Workspace
Microsoft Teams
SAP
Salesforce
HubSpot
Zoho
Xero
What our work covers on every platform
A subscription can be bought in minutes. Its value depends on how it is chosen, set up, adopted and run over the contract term, so our work on every platform spans five stages.
Choosing. A written comparison of what each option can and cannot do, how it connects to your other systems and what it will cost over the term, including the case for keeping what you already run. For the most common choice, read Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace.- Licensing. A plan matched to each role, on monthly or annual terms, recorded in a licence register you can inspect.
- Setting up and moving in. Configuration, security baselines, data migration and a cut-over timed away from month-end, year-end or exam periods.
- Adoption. Short, role-based sessions for staff and administrators, and written guides your team keeps.
- Running it. User changes, security settings, updates, fault-finding and escalation to the vendor, under a service-level agreement (SLA).
Business software architecture: making the pieces work as one
Business software architecture turns a collection of subscriptions into a working system. It answers four questions: who is allowed in, where each record lives, how data moves, and how leaders see the result.
- Identity. One directory, Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace, controls sign-in, multi-factor authentication and access to every application, so a leaver is removed once and everywhere.
- One home for each record. Customers in the CRM, the ledger in the accounting or ERP system, documents in SharePoint or Drive; other systems read from that home rather than keeping copies.
- Integration. REST and GraphQL APIs, webhooks and event-driven links move data between systems, so nobody re-keys an invoice or a customer address. Our systems integration team designs and monitors these links.
- Reporting. Data from each system feeds dashboards and management reports, including Power BI, through data, analytics and business intelligence.
Our team brings experience across managed IT, enterprise software architecture and cybersecurity to these decisions, and we record each decision so your team, or any future provider, can follow the reasoning.
Internet of things business applications: putting device data to work
Internet of things (IoT) business applications use readings from connected devices, such as water and electricity meters, vehicle trackers, cold-room sensors and building systems, to drive business processes. The devices are rarely the hard part. The value appears only when their data reaches the systems that bill, schedule, maintain and report.
Our role is on the business software side. Where devices or their platforms expose data through an API or a webhook, we connect those readings to your ERP, billing, maintenance or reporting systems, check them against existing records and raise exceptions for people to act on. For municipalities, the same discipline underpins municipal revenue enhancement: reconciling billing, metering and property-valuation records so revenue stops leaking. The same pattern applies in agriculture and distribution and mining and industrial operations.
Licensing, done properly
We supply Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace licences on monthly or annual terms, and Microsoft 365 annual subscriptions are also listed in the catalogue of our hardware division, Server Hub. Genuine licences carry the vendor's support entitlements and stand up to an audit; unauthorised keys can be revoked.
Licence management matters as much as the purchase. We keep a register of what you own, assign and use, reclaim licences from leavers, right-size plans before renewal and prepare you for vendor audits and true-ups. For current plan costs, see Microsoft 365 pricing in South Africa and Google Workspace pricing in South Africa.
What business software costs to run, and what drives it
Last reviewed: September 2026.
Over a contract term, a business application costs far more than its licence line. A credible budget names each component.
- Licences. Priced by the vendor per user per month. Monthly terms give flexibility; annual terms commit you for the year, usually at a lower rate.
- Implementation. Configuration, security settings and testing, quoted per project after an assessment.
- Migration and data. Moving and cleaning records from the old system is the line most often underestimated.
- Integration. Each link between systems needs design, testing and monitoring.
- Training and adoption. Time for staff to learn the new way of working.
- Administration and support. Managed IT, including platform administration, is priced per user per month after an assessment. For context, published South African managed IT rates run from about R180 to R400 per user per month (matnet.co.za, September 2026), with some providers listing R450 (MiBOT, September 2026).
We do not publish rates. We quote in writing after the assessment, with licences, projects and support as separate lines, so finance sees what is fixed and what scales with headcount.
Risks we plan for
Most business software problems are predictable, so we design against them from the start.
- Licence sprawl. Prevented by a licence register and usage figures in every monthly review.
- Data you cannot get out. We confirm export routes before you commit to a platform.
- Failed migrations. Pilots, reconciled record counts and a rollback plan for every cut-over.
- Oversharing. Permission reviews, sensitivity labels and data-loss prevention in Microsoft 365; sharing policies in Google Drive.
- Shadow IT. We give staff a sanctioned route to the tools they need and make it the easier one.
- Key-person dependency. Documented configuration and admin credentials held by you, so no single person is a point of failure.
- Upgrade breakage. Customisations documented and tested against each vendor's release cycle.
Governance, compliance and procurement
Boards, audit committees and procurement officers need evidence, not assurances.
- Governance and reporting. A named service lead, an escalation path, written change control and a monthly service review and report.
- POPIA. Access controls, retention settings, audit logging and data minimisation configured in each platform, so your Information Officer can account for how personal information is held. See the POPIA compliance checklist.
- King IV. Principle 12 places technology and information governance with the board; our licence registers, configuration records and service reports give it something to govern with. See King IV and technology governance and IT governance, risk and compliance.
- PFMA and MFMA. For departments, public entities and municipalities, we work to their procurement and reporting disciplines and keep audit-ready documentation.
- Security. Platform settings aligned with ISO/IEC 27001 and the CIS Controls, with hardening and monitoring through our cybersecurity services.
- Procurement fit. Arke Technologies (Pty) Ltd is a Level 1 B-BBEE contributor (sworn affidavit available on request), which gives buyers 135% procurement recognition. Company documents, a bank confirmation letter, our CSD supplier number and SARS tax compliance status are available on request, and we complete standard bidding documents when a bid requires them. Buy through a proposal and purchase order, an SLA or a tender response; start with our company facts.
Continuity: your tenant, your data, your keys
You own your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenant, your data, the global administrator credentials and the documentation we write. Delivery is remote-first on our own tooling: every remote session is approved and logged, and everyone with access to your systems is bound by confidentiality and our security controls. The contract scales by seat as you grow, and if you move the work elsewhere, we hand over configuration records, credentials and runbooks in an orderly exit.
Business software can also sit inside one managed IT services contract with your devices and network infrastructure, and our AI consulting and implementation team builds on the same platforms when you are ready.