In an economic climate where organisations are under pressure to do more with less, Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) has emerged as a powerful model for enabling agility, cost-efficiency and scalability. For South African businesses, especially, the need to limit capital expenditure (CAPEX) while still advancing digital transformation is driving a shift toward consumption-based models. But what exactly is XaaS, and how does it support businesses?

At its core, XaaS refers to the delivery of any IT function or solution as a service. While Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) focuses solely on applications, XaaS spans the full technology stack – hardware, infrastructure, platforms, applications, and managed services – delivered via an operating expenditure (OPEX) model. This allows customers to access end-to-end, secure, connected, application-aware services, all tailored to their business needs without large upfront investments.

Local businesses are facing tighter budgets and volatile market conditions. Traditionally, a CAPEX-heavy approach meant extensive procurement processes, long business cases, and delays in deployment. Once purchased, there was little flexibility to scale or pivot. 

With XaaS, customers can bypass these barriers. Solutions are delivered on a monthly, consumption-based model, allowing for flexibility, reduced financial risk, and faster time-to-value. It frees up customers to focus on their core business, while we manage the technology.

This isn’t just about technology – it’s about partnership. We walk a journey with our customers, understanding their goals, growth strategies, and market shifts. That deep engagement lets us co-create value and pivot quickly to support their evolving needs.

We are working with our customers to deliver XaaS solutions across several verticals:

• • Retail: For one of South Africa’s largest retailers, BCX provides IT hardware bundled with a service layer on a flexible OPEX model. We’ve also enabled application-aware services, using SD-WAN, IoT and orchestration layers to optimise in-store and back-end performance. 
  • Banking: Our Testing-as-a-Service (TaaS) offering helps banks streamline and secure their app development and deployment cycles. 
  • Mining & Energy: For a major fuels company, BCX implemented an end-to-end XaaS stack that includes IoT-enabled monitoring of gas pipeline infrastructure. 
  • FMCG: Using IoT, we helped another well-known retailer manage refrigeration more efficiently, reducing spoilage and improving compliance.

We also provide security services that wrap cyber-protection, compliance and business continuity into our solutions, which is critical in a cloud-first, threat-prone environment. Our Payroll solution, powered by Payspace, is a prime example of SaaS within the XaaS model. Clients can scale licences up or down as needed, with usage-based billing that matches business demand. This is particularly valuable in today’s fast-paced, fluctuating markets.

XaaS isn’t only a customer benefit, but also a strategic shift for BCX. Moving from transactional contracting to annuity-based relationships, enhances customer lifetime value and strengthens our role as a long-term partner. It also helps us to remain relevant and thrive in a commoditised IT services market.

Importantly, XaaS allows us to offer a differentiated, fully integrated IT solution that spans infrastructure and applications to managed services, all while simplifying complexity for our customers.