New benchmark aims to measure product readiness in SA businesses
Specno says many scaling companies still lack visibility into whether the systems underneath their digital growth are operationally prepared for long-term scale
South African businesses have become highly effective at digitising quickly. What remains far less clear is whether the systems underneath that growth are actually built to sustain it.
That is the premise behind a new initiative launched this month by Specno, which has introduced what it describes as South Africa’s first structured digital product readiness benchmark aimed at measuring the operational maturity of scaling digital businesses.
The initiative forms part of the company’s newly launched “Fix My Product Month” campaign, through which participating businesses complete structured product assessments designed to identify hidden weaknesses across product operations, delivery systems, governance structures, and commercial execution.
The campaign comes at a time when businesses across sectors, including fintech, SaaS, logistics, marketplaces, and digital services, are facing increasing pressure to scale platforms, integrate technologies, accelerate delivery cycles, and improve customer experience, often simultaneously.
According to Specno, many organisations have become sophisticated at measuring outputs such as growth, platform usage, sprint velocity, customer acquisition, and revenue, while still lacking clear visibility into whether their broader digital operating environments are structurally resilient enough to support that growth over time.
“The market has become very good at measuring output,” says Joshua Harvey, CEO at Specno. “What many businesses still struggle to measure is whether the systems underneath that output are mature enough to sustain growth safely and effectively over time.”
The company says the idea for the assessment emerged after repeated exposure to similar operational patterns inside scaling businesses.
“We kept seeing businesses that were growing quickly externally, but internally there were ecurring signs of operational strain, fragmented delivery environments, unclear product accountability, or decision-making systems struggling to keep pace with scale,” says Harvey. “What became clear to us was that there was no real benchmark for measuring the operational maturity sitting underneath digital products in the South African market.”
Specno refers to the assessment as a “digital product dipstick”, a structured benchmarking tool designed to help businesses evaluate whether the environments surrounding their products are commercially aligned, operationally resilient, and capable of scaling sustainably.
The process begins with a detailed assessment completed by participating businesses before being reviewed by Specno’s product specialists, who then identify recurring operational weaknesses, delivery bottlenecks, product governance gaps, and broader growth risks.
Rather than focusing purely on technical performance, the initiative attempts to examine the wider organisational systems that influence whether digital products succeed or fail at scale.
“We developed the assessment because we realised there was no structured way for businesses to properly evaluate the maturity of their product environments,” says Harvey. “There are many tools that measure isolated technical outputs, but very few that assess whether the wider operational environment supporting a product is actually capable of sustaining long-term growth.”
The findings gathered throughout the “Fix My Product Month” campaign will contribute to The South African Digital Product Readiness Report, which Specno plans to release publicly in June 2026.
The report is expected to examine broader patterns emerging across South Africa’s scaling digital economy, including operational fragmentation, delivery pressure, product governance weaknesses, execution bottlenecks, and resilience gaps inside growing technology-driven businesses.
According to Specno, part of the motivation behind publicly releasing the findings is to contribute broader industry visibility into how South African digital businesses are actually operating behind the scenes.
“One of the things we realised very quickly is that there is still very little shared industry insight into what operational pressure inside scaling digital businesses actually looks like,” closes Harvey. “We believe there is real value in consolidating that information in a way that helps businesses better understand the patterns, capability gaps, and operational risks emerging across the market.” The South African Digital Product Readiness Report will be released publicly in June 2026 and made available to businesses, investors, founders, and industry stakeholders.