When Lomo Senoamadi founded Bashumi Instruments and Control Services (BICS) in 2003, she entered a technical industry where access to opportunities, resources and skills could not be taken for granted.
More than two decades later, Senoamadi has built BICS into an integrated laboratory solutions business providing equipment supply, calibration, technical support and laboratory infrastructure to industries ranging from pharmaceuticals and food and beverage to mining, water and environmental services.
The company is 100% Black female owned and a Level 1 B BEE contributor.
A technical business built over 20 years
Senoamadi built her business from experience she gained in the supply and support of laboratory instrumentation, calibration, technical services and laboratory infrastructure.
For Senoamadi, the journey has been shaped by resilience, continuous learning and relationships with clients, colleagues, mentors and family.
Senoamadi said that her early years were dominated by the practical challenges facing many entrepreneurs, including securing meetings and purchase orders, managing payment terms and ensuring that every business decision was made without putting the company at unnecessary risk.
"As BICS has grown, those challenges have changed. Today, expansion into sectors with more stringent compliance requirements requires investment in people and accreditation before the associated revenue is realised," Senoamadi said.
One challenge has remained consistent since the company was established.
The challenge of skills and compliance
"Technical skills remain scarce, particularly when it comes to finding and retaining instrumentation technicians," she added.
One of the biggest tests of entrepreneurship comes when a business becomes less dependent on its founder.
She said she focused on developing systems for calibration, reporting and service delivery so that the company's standards do not depend on one person being present at every stage of the process.
That approach has been supported by disciplined reinvestment, she said.
"In BICS's early years, funds were directed back into stock, equipment and people, helping create the foundations for sustainable growth. I also learned that growth does not mean accepting every opportunity that comes through the door. The company has declined assignments it could not deliver properly, recognising that a missed laboratory deadline can have consequences far beyond one customer," Senoamadi said.
The business owner said that a delay can affect the release of a pharmaceutical batch or contribute to an audit finding, making reliability fundamental to the business.
For Senoamadi, reputation is therefore built through consistency.
Building a technical business as a Black woman has presented another layer of complexity.
She said, "I encountered questions about who the real owner of BICS is and who handles its technical work. In my experience, these questions reflect an assumption that a Black woman owned technical company may have been created primarily for compliance purposes rather than built and operated by its stated owner. These assumptions carry a practical business cost because they can place an entrepreneur on the defensive during meetings that should instead focus on the client's needs," Senoamadi said.
Rather than pointing to one defining incident, Senoamadi described the unequal playing field as something that became apparent through repeated experiences over the years.
She said that her perspective on growth has also evolved.
Growth without overextension
Senoamadi said that scaling is not simply about creating a larger version of the same business.
"Growth brings additional risk, ties up more capital and creates responsibility for more people," Senoamadi said.
Her advice to entrepreneurs considering expansion is to build the foundations first, including reliable systems, disciplined cash flow and at least one person who can run the business when the founder is absent.
She also believes that maintaining a successful business at its current size can be a legitimate decision.
"The important thing is to make that choice deliberately rather than pursuing growth without being prepared for what it requires," she said.
For BICS, the broader purpose extends beyond the business itself.
Senoamadi pointed to the often unseen technical systems that underpin essential industries.
Correctly calibrated instruments contribute to safe drinking water, the release of medicine batches, food inspections and reliable industrial operations.
Weakness in these systems can contribute to recalls, downtime and lost trade.
She believes economic resilience therefore requires greater investment in local technical skills and procurement that provides smaller local suppliers with sustained and meaningful opportunities.
Today, BICS supports clients across food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, water and environmental services, mining, petrochemicals, research and education.
After more than 20 years in business, Senoamadi's journey reflects a broader lesson for South Africa's SME sector: sustainable growth is not built through expansion alone, but through capability, consistency, relationships and the willingness to keep investing in the foundations of a business.
ashley.lechman@nationalmg.co.za