Tanzanian software and applications startup UjuziNet Group has a variety of offerings, but its core brand is Mazao Hub, an SaaS-based digital agriculture and farm ERP platform to manage farmers, farming activities and control complex farm operations.
Founded in 2021 by Adelard Josephat Urassa and Geophrey Tenganamba, UjuziNet is based on the premise that modern customers are demanding quicker services and support, and want to automate their core business processes.
“Our focus is Africa, and we all know that Africa is filled with SMEs. SMEs in Africa and beyond is the fastest growing segment in the cloud-based ERP platform space. They are all looking for solutions which are affordable, customisable, flexible, easy to use, that have close support and fit their business environment,” Tenganamba said.
UjuziNet aims to do just that, with its first core brand being Mazao Hub. The platform helps farmers make data-driven decisions to optimise cost and improve yields. It allows users to map contract farmers, manage an entire farm’s activities and related inventories, and manage and monitor harvest.
Available on Android, the service already has users across Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda.
UkuziNet also runs a second core brand, EMA, which is a complete intelligent enterprise platform that simplifies and automates core business processes in logistics, construction, manufacturing, clearing and forwarding, retail and other sectors.
“We have covered industry-based requirements for each sector starting with their specific business processes and workflows based on their business environments. And we will keep adding more features and requirements based on user requests,” said Tenganamba.
Other UjuziNet brands include social media automation tool AdBox Digital and an e-learning service, with all of these services bootstrapped to date. Securing customers has been the initial challenge, but is one the startup is overcoming.
“It has not been easy, especially for users who are used with other ERP platforms. At some point we were forced to let users use our platforms for one month or more free with support to make them understand. By doing that, we managed to win their hearts, and some of them left these global ERP platforms,” Tenganamba said. “We feel like obscurity may be one of the challenges which we must solve. We need to be known.”
Nonetheless, UjuziNet platforms do have users across a host of countries, forcing it to expand quickly.
“Because of the number of users we were forced to open offices in South Africa and Zambia in partnership with our resellers to serve South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, Kenya and Uganda,” said Tenganamba.
“By the end of 2023 we will strengthen our market-leading position in East Africa to cover the following countries – Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Congo, and Ethiopia – and therefore we are looking for resellers. From 2024 we will be expanding to Nigeria and all other West Africa countries.”
