By Jordaan Burger, Managing Director, Sage AME

In his State of the Nation Address, President Ramaphosa set out a vision with the potential to unite South Africans around a shared goal: job creation at scale. He highlighted that if every small and medium-sized business (SMB) employed just one additional person, up to three million new jobs could be created. Now, for this ambition to translate into meaningful, sustained action and impact, the President has laid a foundation with clear commitments to increase funding and reduce red tape by empowering SMBs to overcome the operational complexity that holds them back from sustainable growth.

Capacity, Not Ambition, Is the Real Constraint

For most SMBs, especially smaller businesses, the daily reality is a relentless battle against operational complexity. They are not only CEOs; they are the chief accountants, the HR managers, and the compliance officers. Their most precious resources of time, energy, and cognitive focus are consumed by the non-negotiable demands of tax, payroll, and regulatory filings. The IMF and World Bank data confirms that small businesses spend an extraordinary amount of time on administrative and compliance tasks.

This operational quicksand prevents them from focusing on the strategic work that drives growth: innovating, exploring new markets, and securing capital. While government investment in digital infrastructure and services is a welcome foundation, it does not automatically grant an SMB the sophistication needed to leverage it. The critical challenge, therefore, is not only to simplify the operating environment, but to democratise the intelligence required to navigate it successfully.

From Operational Burden to Strategic Advantage

The ambition set out in the SONA invites a rethink of what meaningful support for SMBs looks like in practice. It is not only about easing constraints, but about enabling strategic capability at scale, turning compliance from a drain on capacity into a byproduct of well-‑product of well‑run operations.

In practice, this begins with the growing role of accessible technology in automating the non-essential tasks that consume entrepreneurial energy. Trusted AI isn’t about flashy outputs. It’s about reliable results in mission‑critical workflows. For SMBs, AI only creates real value when it delivers accuracy, control and accountability in areas like finance, payroll and compliance, where mistakes carry real consequences. That’s why AI works best when it’s embedded in trusted systems, turning complexity into confidence, not risk. When these functions run quietly in the background, business owners are freed to focus on their customers and long-term vision, rather than paperwork.

As operational processes become automated, something more powerful follows: data becomes a strategic asset. For many businesses, access to real-time insight has historically been limited by cost and complexity. Today, technology is increasingly placing that same visibility in the hands of SMB owners, enabling more informed decisions around cash flow, risk and opportunity, and moving strategy from instinct to insight has historically been limited by cost and complexity. Today, technology is increasingly placing that same visibility in the hands of SMB owners

Once a business is both automated and date-enabled, its relationship with the wider economy begins to change. With trusted, digitised financial records, access to finance becomes simpler and faster. Participation in formal supply chains becomes more attainable. In this way, technology acts not as an end, but as a bridge, helping businesses move from survival to scale, and from informality into sustained, growth ‑oriented participation in the economy.

The New Currency of Growth is Intelligence

This is not a theoretical exercise. The evidence is already clear. In our recent SME Climate Finance Stocktake report, we found a direct and correlation between digital adoption and access to capital: businesses using digital accounting and trusted AI-powered finance tools were significantly more likely to report formally and secure the funding needed to modernise and grow. In fact, medium-sized businesses with these digital capabilities were accessing finance at a rate 4.1 times higher than their smaller, less-digitised peers.

What this points to is simple. Growth accelerates when SMBs are equipped to be compliant by design and transparent by default. Through trusted platforms, secure digital networks and a longstanding commitment to data protection and privacy, Sage has spent decades building the infrastructure that allows businesses to operate with confidence, turning complexity into clarity and compliance into a natural outcome of well-run operations., compliant by design and transparent by default standing commitment to data protection and privacy, Sage has spent decades building the infrastructure that allows businesses to operate with confidence run operations.

President Ramaphosa has set the stage, equipping South Africa’s entrepreneurs with trusted, intelligent tools is how we ensure this moment delivers inclusive growth, sustainable scale and millions of dignified jobs.