Craig Baker
Practical technology consultant, bridging business and technology. Based in Johannesburg, working with businesses across South Africa.
I'm the person businesses call when they know technology could make them run better but are not sure how to get there. I translate between the business side and the technical side, turning operational headaches, manual processes and "there must be a better way" into workflows, tools and systems that actually fit how the business works.
Most of my work is building the practical things off-the-shelf software does not quite do: internal operations workflows, sales and reporting systems, integrations between tools that do not talk to each other, and automation that strips out repetitive manual admin. I look at the business as a whole, not just one department.
Being the translator means working with whoever needs to be in the room, whether that is the owner, the managers, the developers I am building alongside, or the front-line staff who live with a process every day. I work out what is genuinely needed, which is often not what was first asked for, and then go and build it, so nothing gets lost between the people who run the business and the people who build the tech.
Background
- 15+ years building online systems for my own and other people's businesses.
- Over a decade as founder and Managing Director of Kusasa Information Systems, the software company behind the Saleboat CRM platform. Much of that work was customised workflows and online interfaces for clients such as a multinational dental-equipment distributor and a national courier network, alongside running product, software development, project delivery and general management.
- Work spanning courier and logistics, FMCG and consumer-goods wholesale, payments, property, retail and professional services, optimising how the whole business runs rather than a single department.
- BSc in Construction Management from the University of the Witwatersrand, which is part of why I am as at home with hands-on, real-world businesses as with software-first ones.
I run my own businesses too
Alongside consulting, I build and grow my own brands, most notably Fancy Dice, a premium retail brand for collectable tabletop role-playing dice. Running and marketing something of my own keeps me hands-on with the selling side, not just the advising, and I test the same playbook on my own brands before I recommend it to anyone. It also means I bring real web capability, from websites through to SEO, ads and analytics, when a client needs it.
What clients say
“I recently had my website designed and built by The Fancy Gadgeteer and I would like to highly recommend them. Craig really understood exactly what I wanted and executed it perfectly to create precisely the website I wanted. He answered all my questions knowledgeably with the greatest of patience and explained everything I needed to know. He was very responsive and always took the time out to help me. I absolutely love what he did with my products and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking to create a website.”
Get in touch
- Phone+27 68 682 7297
- Emailhello@craigbaker.co.za
- WhatsAppMessage on WhatsApp
- LinkedInConnect on LinkedIn