On one hand, they’re expected to be the country’s job creation and economic engine, on the other they operate in thin margins with high borrowing costs, uneven demand and borderline ridiculous red tape.

The IFC-World Bank MSME Finance Gap 2025 study puts the global emerging market credit shortfall at $5.7 trillion, with 40% of formal MSMEs credit-constrained. And South African firms are squarely in this cohort.

The OECD Economic Outlook forecasts subdued growth in South Africa without deeper structural reforms across key touchpoints such as regulatory simplification, improved infrastructure and investment efficiency.

It’s a sentiment reflected in the Small Growth Business Index released in June 2025, showing a business ecosystem under immense pressure thanks to costs and complexity. The Index believes that almost half of these SMEs are at risk of closing down.

However, waiting for macroeconomic reform isn’t a strategy. What Braintree has done instead is build a growth engine that supports both its own growth, and that of other companies.

“We started our Business Partner programme over three years ago to diversify risk and build a sustainable sales channel,” says Doug Morrison, VP of Modern Workplace at Braintree. “What began as a sales strategy has become a platform for SME empowerment as we’ve now provided other consultancies with a home where they can grow within the Microsoft ecosystem while still maintaining their independence.”

Braintree’s agent channel supports independent partners in their sales of Microsoft solutions under a shared commercial umbrella.

It’s a smart strategy – Braintree owns the billing and vendor management, so smaller firms are no longer stuck in the cogs of complex admin, debtor control and compliance work.

In return, Braintree’s partners bring relationships, agility and niche expertise, which are invaluable. This reciprocal model turns administrative friction into collective efficiency.

Currently, Braintree works with around 30 active business partners. Some are established consultancies with mature client bases, while others are in the incubation phase. Regardless of size and expertise, they all benefit from the partnership programme.

Braintree provides mentorship and shared delivery frameworks alongside ongoing technical shadowing so partners can build capacity on live projects before taking ownership.

The goal is to take customer engagements and implementations beyond transactional subcontracting towards co-delivery and measurable results.

Another benefit of the Business Partner programme is how it helps companies move away from the limitations of short-termism. Braintree’s approach is anchored in integrity.

“We don’t engage with opportunistic intermediaries or tender-driven middlemen,” Dharashni Naidoo, Partner Manager at Braintree, says. “Our partnerships have aligned, shared ethics and we believe success is mutual.”

Every new partner is screened for commercial viability and for values alignment. The programme’s growth plan focuses on long-term relationships, mutual profitability and consistent delivery standards. And this insistence on ethics has created a network built on trust.

Throughout the programme, Braintree has evolved in how it builds on and supports partners.

The practical playbook of learnings from the model can be easily applied across the SME sector, showing how resilient ecosystems start small but, with systematic thinking can become immensely successful.

Some of the most impactful learnings are:

• Form a compact of equals. Draft a short collaboration memorandum that defines scope, regional reach and shared values.
• Centralise the friction. Nominate one company to own billing, compliance and vendor management, creating a single monthly statement for all network activity.
• Incubate skills. Run co-delivery sprints where senior engineers lead the first implementations while partners shadow, then take the lead under supervision.
• Balance branding. Allow co-branding for credibility while letting partners keep their own customer-facing identity.
• Measure the ecosystem. Track performance by outcomes because factors such as time-to-invoice, churn reduction, and co-sell win rates are better indicators of resilience than headline revenue.

As Microsoft continues to refine and change its global partner structure, many smaller resellers run the risk of losing direct access to transactional channels.

The Braintree model provides a solution, giving smaller companies with niche expertise and unique talents the ability to grow and expand, both locally and abroad. Certainly, for Braintree, international expansion is definitely on the cards.

“Our model’s strategic plan is to start in the UK and Western Europe, creating a bridge for SMEs that want to remain active within the Microsoft environment while maintaining autonomy,” says Morrison. “Our programme is structured around our beliefs and goals, and so we are passing on the same principles that helped us grow with an approach that treats everyone equally.”

Core to this move has been the consolidation of data from a multitude of financial services providers into one Efficient group database – the single view of and for the client.

An initial in-depth needs assessment and Microsoft Cybersecurity Assessment also revealed potential security vulnerabilities that required resolution.

As a Microsoft Dynamics partner, Braintree facilitated the implementation of Azure as a secure, powerful foundation on which to seamlessly integrate all business operations.

What has resulted is a first of its kind app for South African investors that provides a 360-view of all financial services related products and services.

Improvements in productivity and compliance were catalysts for this systems upgrade, with security being the biggest priority.

The Efficient Group has over 500 employees, many of whom operate remotely and in field, in addition to partnering with more than 200 financial advisors across South Africa.

The need to solve complex data sharing challenges and the mitigation of common threats were integral to the modifications undertaken.

With the ageing and increasingly complex infrastructure no longer able to interoperate as efficiently as needed, a wealth of Microsoft opportunities were uncovered, and the Efficient Group were fully onboarded to Microsoft 365 and its data centre transformed and moved to Azure.

The group is now running on a 96% Microsoft Secure score, in line with international best practice.

Other Microsoft capabilities such as Teams were also used as a solution to consolidate vast amounts of emails, online video calls, collaborative spreadsheets and documents shared between employees from multiple locations.

Through this process, Braintree also limited overspending and under utilisation by doing a comprehensive review of all licenses and productivity suites.

“Financial services have historically been technology laggards, but we are building platforms that will make us a pioneer, based on future proof infrastructure,“ says Heiko Weidhase, chief executive officer of the Efficient Group.

The app, which has been a work in progress for ten years, would not have been possible without the advanced digital solutions now available, the scalability of the cloud, improved connectivity and the enhanced security which is now fully incorporated into the system.

Doug Morrison, Strategic Head Microsoft 365 Braintree, says that the interoperability enabled by Microsoft eliminates complicated development.

“As partners, we are reaping the rewards of the investments Microsoft has made over the past 8 years across security for infrastructure, networks, applications and devices – so we have a totally robust solution to take to market,” he says.

Not only has this integration enhanced efficiency and security within the group, but it has provided users with a secure, consolidated and easy-to-use overview of their investments, irrespective of platform or product provider.

Weidhase  says that most South Africans don’t save enough for retirement because they don’t fully understand how much they have invested.

This new app enable investors with instant access to information to enhance their investment decisions.

In line with Efficient Group’s strategy to harness technology to drive value for its clients, this app is just one of the innovations that the company plans to roll out in future, all enabled by the infrastructure and security upgrade to Azure.

Up next will be the launch of their financial well-being app for mobile and desktop, to be released later this year.

The app will integrate with a multitude of product providers, empowering clients and advisors to work together to achieve better outcomes.