Python in the Trenches: From ERP to Everyday Impact

How one stack powers an ecosystem of opportunity and impact

In South Africa’s townships and rural communities, thousands of people rely on direct selling to support their families. At Botle Buhle Brands (BBB) and its fintech spinout, Asuer, we have built tools almost entirely in Python that empower over 55,000 monthly active sales consultants.

This talk shares our journey of moving from legacy tools like Sage Pastel to modern Python-based platforms for ERP, CRM, WhatsApp automation, and insurance sales, with much more in the pipeline. We will show how Python enables us to support both the complexity and scale of our operations, from real-time onboarding to data-driven performance reporting across a network of over 125 internal users and thousands of independent field consultants. Python gives us the speed and flexibility to respond quickly to the needs of our users, experiment safely, and scale new capabilities without major overhead.

You will also hear from our leadership team across engineering, infrastructure, and data, who will share how they use Python every day to build APIs, automate chatbot workflows, maintain scalable backend services, and model incentive structures. More than just a technical showcase, this is a story about impact. It is about how open source tools are changing lives and how Python can help developers build technology that matters in the communities they care about.