When it launched its ERP platform for higher education, PSET did not pick a tech expo or a standalone event. It chose Purcon 2026, the annual conference of the Purchasing Consortium for Higher Education in Southern Africa.
For CEO Ebenezer Smith, the reasoning was simple. “Purcon is where you get all higher education institutions, both colleges and universities, in one room,” he said. “Effectively, our entire market is in the room.”
Smith says the decision grew out of early conversations with institutions. One theme kept coming up.
“One thing you would often hear is the excitement that there’s a new player, or an alternative player, in the space,” he said. “There was hunger. There was a desire for alternatives. It is a very constricted space with very limited options.”
Sales and marketing manager Jean Claude puts it more bluntly. “Historically, there have always been two major players, for both universities and TVET (technical and vocational education and training) colleges,” he said.
One thing you would often hear is the excitement that there’s a new player, or an alternative player, in the space.
PSET CEO Ebenezer Smith
At the heart of the platform is a problem Smith says the whole sector recognises: data moves too slowly.
“The flow of data is very slow, from funders to institutions, and to students,” he said. “That’s the problem we set out to fix. We can connect funders like Nsfas [the National Student Financial Aid Scheme], institutions, students and other stakeholders in that ecosystem.”
On the conference floor, the feature that drew most attention was not AI or dashboards. It was integration.
“The big drawcard is that they have everything in one place,” Claude said. “When you speak to people operating different functions in the university, they always say: I must do this, and then go there to pull this.”
Many institutions run a patchwork of products from several suppliers. “Finding everything in one place is such a relief for them,” he said.
Thembi Tabatha, director of procurement at Vaal University of Technology, knows that frustration first-hand. “The systems are not integrated. They’re still working in silos,” she said. “The data you process on one system might not be available in another.”
PSET brings 18 modules onto a single platform, covering governance, risk and compliance, as well as the student lifecycle, finance, asset and facilities management, supply chain, human resources and customer relationship management.
Claude would not discuss specific pricing. But he made a clear claim about value.
“There will be some change left over, versus what they’re currently using, to do a lot more in the institution,” he said. “If you don’t have to use multiple systems, you don’t have to pay multiple invoices at the end of the year.”
Reception on the floor
The launch drew a strong response. PSET won the Purcon Best Exhibition Stand award, and the on-stage presentation brought a steady stream of visitors.
Some of the strongest reactions came from the procurement professionals at the core of Purcon’s audience. “We’ve had a few procurement managers stand here and say, you know, this might be the next big thing,” Claude said.
Sydney Maqoqa, deputy director of ICT customer services at Nelson Mandela University, has not used the platform yet, but says: “It talks to some of the challenges that we have, and the expectations are very high that it should really achieve what it promises.”
The team now plans to run full demonstrations for interested institutions. For a sector that has asked for more choice, Purcon 2026 was where that choice was put on the table.
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