The ripple
How far a small change in what customers buy can swing by the time it reaches the first supplier. With one shared picture, it stays close to 1×.
For businesses that work together · any industry
One picture of the work, shared
Connecting Bridges links the systems of the businesses in your chain. What customers buy travels up to every supplier. Stock, shipments and invoices travel down to every customer. Everyone works from the same picture.
- Less stock tied up
- Fewer stock-outs
- No retyping between businesses
Why it matters
What a disconnected chain costs
When each business sees only the order from the next one along, small changes grow into big swings, stock piles up to cover the guesswork, and the same paperwork is typed in again at every step.
The retyping
How often the same order is typed in by hand as it passes along a typical chain whose systems are not connected. On a bridge, it is entered once.
The cash
Cash a distributor could free from R10 million of stock by planning from shared demand, plus about R440 000 a year saved on holding it.
Work out yours in the free checkIllustrative figures from the models in our free check, not measured results from a client. The cash figure assumes 30% of stock is held as a buffer against swings and that holding stock costs 25% of its value a year. Your figures will differ.
How it works
Four steps
We build each bridge with both businesses, one link at a time, alongside the way you work today.
Sign the agreement
Both businesses agree in writing what will cross, why, who may see it and how long it is kept. Nothing crosses until it is signed.
Connect what you already use
We link the systems, spreadsheets and email you already work with. Nothing is ripped out, and nobody has to learn a new tool on day one.
Let both chains flow
Forecasts become capacity plans. Orders become bookings. Signed deliveries become invoices, and payments flow back. Nobody types anything twice.
Keep the record
Every crossing is logged against the agreement that allowed it, so each side can show what was shared, when and why.
Running by the numbers fails when the numbers only look backwards. Add what's coming upstream and they start to lead.
Sales and invoices tell you what already happened. A bridge adds what suppliers and customers are about to do, so the whole business plans from the same picture.
One business, not four departments
- FinanceSees the cash tied up in stock, and when it frees up.
- OperationsKnows what to make or move, and when.
- PeopleStaffs for the real workload, not last month's.
- ManagementWorks from one set of numbers and decides earlier.
Your data stays yours
What crosses a bridge, and what never does
Each business keeps its own system and its own records. Only what your signed data-sharing agreement allows crosses a bridge, and only for the purpose it names, in line with POPIA, South Africa's data-protection law.
← Up the chain
Demand
- What customers buyReal sales and use, shared early, so stock and capacity are ready before the order lands.
- Forecasts and ordersArriving as complete, structured jobs, not emails to retype.
- Returns and paymentsSo both sides close the loop on the same numbers.
Down the chain →
Supply
- Stock and capacityLive quantities and free capacity, seen by both sides at once.
- Shipments and proof of deliveryStatus along the way, then signature, photo and time at handover.
- Invoices and compliance recordsInvoices follow the completed work; quality, safety and customs records travel with the goods.
Never crosses
Stays home
- Your margins and the prices you agree with others
- Who your other suppliers and customers are
- Personal contact details of your staff and customers
- Anything your agreement does not name
- Agreement first
- Nothing crosses before both sides sign, and the agreement says what, why, who may see it and for how long.
- Your own system
- Every business runs its own system and keeps its own records. We connect them; we do not take them over.
- The old way still works
- People keep their familiar tools until they no longer need them, so the day-to-day never stops.
- Nothing is erased
- Records are suspended, never deleted, so the history stands as evidence.
For regulated chains such as food and pharmaceuticals, that record is the point: an evidence trail of what was shared, when and why, ready for audits, inspections and recalls.
Who it's for
Any business that hands work to another
Wherever you sit in the chain, a bridge replaces guesswork and retyping with the same live picture your partners see.
Suppliers
See real demand early and plan materials and capacity against it, instead of reacting to the latest order.
Makers
Plan production from what customers actually buy, not from the last order that came in.
Movers
Freight, clearing, warehousing and delivery, fed by your clients' own forecasts and orders.
Sellers
Share stock and orders up and down the chain without typing them in again.
Built for chains in
- General goods
- Food and food service
- Health and pharma
- Mining and industrial
- Construction
- Agriculture
And any other industry where one business hands work to the next, in South Africa and beyond.
How we work
Fair exchange
The network runs on one rule: every exchange has to leave both sides better off.
- Backed by supply and demandGoods, data, skills and capacity cross a bridge only where one pier needs what another has to offer.
- Good for both piersPiers trade on terms that work for both. If a bridge helps only one side, we do not build it.
- The same result with lessShared demand and no retyping let each business deliver the same service with less stock, time and effort.
The same rule applies to us: if it doesn't leave you better off, we don't earn.
Worked example
A regional food distributor
BeforeCodes, email and retyping
Readiness 1.7 out of 5, weakest on data. Each of three main suppliers used its own product codes. Orders arrived by email and were typed in twice. Stock ran short before month end and piled up after it.
First 90 daysOne list, one signal
They agreed one product list and code set with the three suppliers. Weekly demand from their sites crossed the bridge, so suppliers planned from real use. Signed deliveries became invoices without anyone retyping them.
Six months onLess stock, more cash
Readiness rose to 2.6. With every supplier planning from the same demand, stock on hand fell by about a sixth, and the cash it freed went back into the business.
Contact
Build a bridge with us
If your business works closely with others and the same order gets typed in again at every step, tell us about it.