A quiet, listening posture rendered in deeper purple light, soft, attentive, unhurried

Build the right thing, before you build it right.

Planning, architecture, and qualified business cases, the part of the work that decides what the build is actually going to cost, how long it will last, and whether the problem was worth solving in the first place.

Our Methodology

Explore 3 fundamental questions.

Get us involved at any point of your digital initiative, from unsure where to start to helping to polish your plan.

01 · Understand

What's actually going on here?

We talk to your people, review your documents, and watch the work happen. The output is a current-state brief in your language, that both technical and business teams can sign off on.

02 · Assess

What's true, what's ready, what's worth it?

Structured assessments measure AI-readiness and application-modernisation maturity. We define the use cases worth pursuing, build the ROI case, and rank them by impact. The output: a portfolio of qualified process and agentic opportunities with numbers attached.

03 · Recommend

Here's the solution, and here's who'll co-fund it.

An architecture that combines code, no-code, and emerging technology, sequenced so the highest-value moves ship first. Where the use case fits, we tap vendor and partner pre-sales funding to offset upfront cost. The output: a build-ready brief that hands directly to Build and Evolve.

our work

Our customer stories from your world.

A generative-AI sales assistant for Eurolux

Eurolux

A bespoke, Azure-hosted RAG chatbot called Lighty that helps Eurolux sales reps match a client’s requirement to the right products in seconds.

Capability

Practice

Modernise Apps with Azure AI

Azure AI ServicesAzure AI FoundryCosmosDB
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A generative-AI knowledge assistant for African Alliance

African Alliance

African Alliance

A company-grounded AI assistant that answers policy and procedure questions and turns messy Excel reports into consolidated management accounts.

Capability

Practice

Modernise Apps with Azure AI

Azure AI ServicesAzure AI FoundryCosmosDB
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Harvey, a generative-AI assistant for First Technology’s legal team

First Technology

First Technology

A cloud chat assistant, Harvey, that lets legal and paralegal staff check contract terms, dates and notice periods in seconds instead of digging through documents.

Capability

Practice

Modernise Apps with Azure AI

Azure AI ServicesAzure AI FoundryCosmosDB
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Bringing home-office inverters into view with IoT and AI

A financial services provider

A low-cost device that retrofits to home-office inverters and, with generative AI on top, gives a financial services firm a live view of agents’ backup power and battery health.

Modernising Apps with Azure AI & IoT

ESP microcontrollerMQTTAzureAzure AI
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Smart monitoring and agentic alerting for WFS’s backup-power fleet

WFS

A custom ESP device that retrofits to thousands of basic 24V inverters, giving WFS live visibility of its remote backup-power fleet and an AI tool to interrogate the data.

IoT and Agentic Alerting

FDX - Custom Electronics logo
ESP microcontrollerInverterBackup PowerSaaS BI
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Keeping pharmaceutical fridges in spec at Capital Hospitals

Capital Hospitals

Capital Hospitals

A bespoke, five-year-battery monitoring device that watches pharmaceutical fridge temperature and humidity, and reports breaches to the right people automatically.

First Digital IoT

FDX - Custom Electronics logo
ESP32MQTTInfluxDBGrafana
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Keeping Frey’s Foods running with submersible water-level sensors

Frey’s Foods

Frey’s Foods

Submersible LoRaWAN sensors that keep Frey’s Foods’ on-site water tanks topped up, so a plant of more than 2,000 staff never runs dry.

First Digital IoT

FDX - Custom Electronics logo
LoRaWANInfluxDBAzureGrafana
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A long-horizon digital transformation strategy for Transnet

Transnet

First Digital took Transnet from an honest read of its digital maturity to an executive-aligned transformation roadmap, then helped embed it with targeted skills and change programmes.

Capability

Practice

Digital Transformation Strategy

FDX - Strategy & Process logo
Digital Maturity AssessmentTransformation RoadmapOperating Model DesignCapability Mapping
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Taking public servants from Zero to Copilot Chat Hero

Multiple public sector clients

Our First Campus Zero to AI Copilot Hero programme, run with Microsoft, took public sector teams from AI fundamentals to confidently using Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot and their own agents, with a managed-service follow-up so the adoption stuck.

Copilot Adoption & Enablement

FDX - Train & Certify logo
Zero to AI HeroCopilotCopilot ChatCopilot Agents
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Making Agri & Food teams go from Zero to AI Hero

Multiple agri & food clients

Our First Campus Zero to AI Copilot Hero programme, run with Microsoft, took agri and food teams from AI fundamentals to confidently using Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot and their own agents, with a managed-service follow-up so the adoption stuck.

Copilot Adoption & Enablement

FDX - Train & Certify logo
Zero to AI HeroCopilotCopilot ChatCopilot Agents
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Bespoke Power Apps and Microsoft 365 training for a national hotel chain

National Hotel Chain

National Hotel Chain

We built and delivered training tailored to a national hotel chain’s own Power Apps and Microsoft 365 setup, and trained the team on Power Apps governance and best practice, so staff could use the tools the business had rolled out and keep the estate secure and maintainable.

Power Apps & Microsoft 365 Training

FDX - Train & Certify logo
Power AppsMicrosoft 365Governance & Best PracticeHands-on Labs
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Private inference, local currency, global impact

International Marketing Group

We moved an international marketing group’s generative-AI inference off public cloud onto our private NVIDIA GPU cluster, so their data and token generation stay local, they pay in local currency, and they run cheaper after hours.

Private AI Inference

FDX - Apex (GPU) logo
NVIDIA CUDAPyTorchOpen-source LLMPrivate GPU Cluster
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Private token, no per-seat cost, company wide impact!

First Technology

First Technology

We gave First Technology staff local AI chat and agentic desktop agents running on our private NVIDIA GPU cluster, so the data and token generation stay local, the bill is in local currency, and responses come back fast.

Private AI Inference

FDX - Apex (GPU) logo
NVIDIA CUDAPyTorchOpen-source LLMPrivate GPU Cluster
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ISP automates routing diagnostics via AI

Urban Connect

Urban Connect’s agentic diagnostic agent works a network fault out for itself, pulling the logs, querying the routers and upstream providers, then writing the call-centre ticket, so support is proactive instead of a manual scramble.

Agentic Diagnostics

FDX - Apex (GPU) logo
Private Hosted ModelGemma 3 27BQwenHigh-speed NVLink
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Mapping HR processes to prepare for automation

Property & Assets Group

We ran our Process Practice to map, optimise and govern a property and assets group’s HR processes in Nintex Process Manager, giving them the visibility they were missing and a clear path to automation.

Process Mapping & Optimisation

FDX - Strategy & Process logo
Process MappingProcess GovernanceNintex Process ManagerAutomation
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Mapping deep-shaft HR processes for automation in Nintex Process Manager

Deep-shaft Mining Company

We mapped, optimised and governed a deep-shaft mining company’s HR processes in Nintex Process Manager, turning fragmented manual workflows into a navigable, automation-ready set of processes.

Nintex Process Manager

Nintex logo
Nintex Process ManagerProcess MappingProcess GovernanceDashboards & Reports
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A secure SDLC for a US local government’s in-house dev team

US Local Government

We reviewed a US local government’s in-house development practices and helped them stand up a secure software development lifecycle, so the team writing their public-facing applications builds security in from the first requirement rather than bolting it on later.

Capability

Practice

Secure Development & SDLC

FDX - Strategy & Process logo
DevOps.NETReactXamarin
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First Digital creates a full digital experience for blood donors

WCBS

Over five years, First Digital turned Western Cape Blood Services into Africa’s first fully digital, end-to-end blood-donation ecosystem, a Microsoft-recognised, AI-powered platform that registers donors 60% faster and answers them around the clock.

Digital & App Innovation

.NET MAUIAzure OpenAIAzure Cognitive ServicesAzure
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A life-recovery mobile app for Project Exodus

Project Exodus

A cross-platform mobile app that brings Project Exodus’s life-recovery methodology to a potentially global audience, on both the App Store and Google Play.

Cloud-native app development

.NET CoreXamarinAzureAzure DevOps
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One App for a national shoe retailer’s 400+ stores

Leading Shoe Retailer

A modular, cloud-based One App that rolled out to more than 400 stores at once, pulling stock takes, sales tracking and ticketing into a single place.

Cloud-native app development

Azure.NETAzure SQLBlob Storage
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A full e-commerce channel for Staffwear in three months

Staffwear

A full online shopping and fulfilment experience for Staffwear, built on nopCommerce and Azure and live in three months to keep sales moving through lockdown.

Cloud-native app development

AzurenopCommerceAzure SQLPayGate
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Modernising line-side quality control for MAHLE

MAHLE

A modern .NET solution that prints product labels from automated quality checks on MAHLE’s South African lines, with central configuration and full traceability.

Application modernisation

.NETBespoke IoT
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A Microsoft Teams colleague gateway for a leading bank

Leading Bank

Leading Bank

A personalised colleague portal that lives inside Microsoft Teams, giving the bank’s staff across Africa one place to find news, company services and the people they work with.

Microsoft Viva employee experience

Microsoft TeamsMicrosoft VivaSharePoint OnlinePower Platform
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Consolidating PPC onto one Microsoft 365 environment across five countries

PPC

An Active Directory consolidation and Exchange Online migration that brought PPC’s separate country domains and mailboxes onto a single Microsoft 365 environment.

Microsoft 365 & Exchange Online

Microsoft 365Exchange OnlineActive DirectoryEntra ID
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Listening to patients at Busamed with a Power Apps discharge survey

Busamed

A custom Power Apps solution that captures patient feedback at discharge across Busamed’s hospitals, with SAP integration and live Power BI insight for managers.

Power Platform

Power AppsSharePoint OnlinePower BISAP
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A low-code vaccination management system for Sasol, in four weeks

Sasol

A Power Platform system that ran Sasol’s staff Covid-19 vaccinations end to end, from consent to follow-up, built with low-code in four weeks.

Power Platform

Power AppsMicrosoft FormsPower AutomateDataverse
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Modernising a complex retail integration landscape through a structured BizTalk uplift

Pharmacy & Retail Group

A phased BizTalk uplift that stabilised a national retailer’s legacy integration estate across point-of-sale, warehouse, finance and supplier systems, without disrupting daily trade.

Application Innovation

BizTalk ServerEnterprise Service BusOrchestrationAPI enablement
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Enabling scalable integration through ESB rationalisation and phased decomposition

A logistics provider

A structured ESB rationalisation that untangled a logistics provider’s organically grown BizTalk estate, cutting duplication and technical debt while keeping the business running.

Application Innovation

BizTalk ServerEnterprise Service BusOrchestrationAPI exposure
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Modernising operational workflows with a low-code enterprise application platform

Global Agri & Supply

A low-code OutSystems platform that digitised complex multi-geography logistics workflows end to end, giving field and office users one governed system for web and mobile.

OutSystems Low-Code Platform

OutSystems logo
OutSystemsReactive Web & MobileRBACIntegration
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A Microsoft Fabric data warehouse for Talksure

Talksure

A secure, scalable Microsoft Fabric data warehouse on Azure that gives Talksure a single, accurate view of their data to drive decisions.

Data & AI

Microsoft FabricPower BIAzure SQL
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A central data warehouse for Belgotex on Microsoft Fabric

Belgotex

A central, modelled data warehouse that pulls Belgotex’s scattered data into one place to report from, with room to take in factory IoT data later.

Power Business Decisions with Cloud Scale Analytics

Microsoft FabricAzure SQLPower BI
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A modern data warehouse for an agricultural supplier

Large food to fork biz

A modern, centralised data warehouse on Azure that gave an agricultural supplier a single, trusted source of data and a way off QlikView.

Power Business Decisions with Cloud Scale Analytics

Microsoft FabricAzure SynapsePower BI
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Get in touch

Got a problem worth solving?
Let’s talk.

Send us the gist of what you are trying to do. The right person from First Digital will be in touch within a working day.