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Our Solutions
We've worked on many projects in the past. Here are a some case studies to give you an idea of the sort of solutions we've provided:
Medical distribution company – Project Management
This was a company with an outdated and patchy IT infrastructure. They had many disparate systems with lots of compatibility issues.
Our remit was to analyse the business practices and reconcile the IT systems so that information was readily available for CSA’s, field staff and board level reporting.
The first job was to prioritise work packages and put together a budget and schedule. This involved liaising with 3rd party suppliers to find relevant products and costing.
From this point we built a portfolio to present to the board of directors. In order to get the budget signed off, it was essential that we had complete information about the ideas and systems put forward. Also we needed to make sure that we had comparisons with other products and ROI details.
We organised the replacement of all the IT hardware, integrated a telecoms system into the CRM, and brought the remote workers closer into the system with the use of PDA’s to access the CRM remotely.
A full training package was designed to train the CSA’s on best practices with the new system. This was timed with an HR incentive and a corporate rebranding to make the most effective use of the new system.
All the remote workers/field sales were given a complete training on their new technologies. This was followed up with refreshers at 3 month intervals as new updates were added.
We also helped integrate VoIP technologies for the directors, so that they could work effectively from home whilst still retaining a connection to the office systems.
We worked closely to negotiate support contracts with the relevant 3rd parties and agreed SLA’s and costs.
Construction company – Document management
We were approached by a construction company to provide a document management solution to replace existing paper processes.
After spending time to discuss the exact needs of the organisation and building mock up systems we settled on a solution which automated the whole process from incoming mail to the generation and logging of project specific documents.
The most important part of this project was to build a comprehensive project scope as the client wasn’t 100% sure of what they exactly wanted. The process of building the scope enabled the client to fully understand the capabilities of the software and to gain clearer picture of the solution we were to deliver.
The solution included a fully automated ‘post room’ system where a member of the admin staff would scan the post directly into the system and then ‘allocate’ it to a member of staff. This staff member would get an e-mail with a link to their post, and the system would secure it so that only allocated people could see their items.
The system was then sub-divided into each one of the group member companies, allowing only that company to see their data. Within each one of the company sites there was a project launch pad. This allowed relevant end users to create new areas dedicated to specific projects. These areas contained documents, contacts, tasks, and any project specific information subdivided into the relevant areas of the project.
Any new documentation added to the system had to go through an approval process in order to be accepted into the system. This approval process was designed after consultation with the client.
We then spent several days with the client training their IT team on the administration and management of the system. We followed this with training programmes for all staff on effective use and management of the system.
As with many of our projects, we review them every 3 months for the first 12 months in order to make small functional changes, identify any new training needs and look for new opportunities with the client.
Insurance brokers – Client web portal
We had worked with a client designing their new web sites when we got into the discussion of document management. The client had a problem with sending updated policies, procedures and certificates out to clients.
They weren’t sure if their clients were receiving them, understanding them, or even updating out of date information with the new documents.
We suggested that we could build a client portal so that all their clients would have a central portal where they could go and get the latest news and information from the insurers as well as have access to the latest documentation.
In scoping out this project we had to be very aware of the security implications of a site like this. Each client would have potentially sensitive documents online which would need protecting from other people. At the same time there would also be documents in the same folders which would need to be shared amongst some or all of the clients.
All of this would need to combine with an ease of use for both the client to access their information and the broker to be able to upload and manage permission to the information.
We worked closely with the broker to make sure that the system was as easy to use as possible and that it also conformed to all the FSA compliance regulations.
The final step of this project was to make the system completely interactive. Much of the information provided by the clients to the broker can be incomplete or illegible in most cases, so the design of electronic forms to replace the paper-based ones were devised.
These were made available to specific clients and guided them through the form filling process (hiding questions which weren’t applicable, making certain questions mandatory, etc) ensuring that accurate information was captured for the broker.
Combining all this into the system was finished with an alerting system. Every time a new policy document was uploaded to the system, the client was automatically notified of the changes and prompted to action the document. This took away the uncertainty about the receipt of documents, and always meant that the latest version of the policy was available online at all times.
Likewise, the alerting system was also used to notify the relevant department when a client filled in an online form, setting SLA’s and escalating the request if the SLA wasn’t met.
All of this was designed and published to our own hosted servers where we managed and maintained the system for the broker.
We spent some time fine-tuning the system so that it worked effectively and then trained all the relevant internal staff at the brokers so that they were able to not only train their clients, but use the system as a selling tool for new clients.
Alcohol advisory service – Patient management system
Having worked with the drug and alcohol action service and the drug intervention programmes throughout the country on various software projects, we were approached by the Alcohol advisory service in Sheffield to design and build a patient management system.
The service already had a paper-based system, but had major issues each month as all the paperwork had to be collated and then submitted to the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System for processing. This was essential for the service as they received their funding based on the number and type of clients they worked with.
Working with charities can be a challenge as they don’t always have the IT infrastructure or the IT knowledge internally within the organisation. This meant that a great deal of time was spent with the client discussing the specifics of their needs.
A comprehensive spec was designed and the project initiated over several phases. We worked closely with the NDTMS in order to make sure whatever we designed was 100% compatible with their systems.
Making an electronic version of the form presented a lot of potential risks. This was a system which had to be comprehensive enough to fulfil monitoring requirements, yet had to be simple enough for volunteers with little or no IT experience to use. All the while maintaining client confidentiality where appropriate.
Much of this project was in dealing with the client and making sure that they were always informed and assured as they had a large amount of their budget invested in the it.
We decided to include many of their internal processes within the system, such as: consulting room booking, holiday management, patient diaries, and internal documentation.
This mean that the client only had one place to look to find all their information, which in turn meant that the patients were introduced to a more efficient service. We reduced the time overhead on staff significantly, allowing to get on with doing what they do best without worrying about the technology.
Retail computer store – Stock control & POS system
We have a client in Doncaster who had the need modernise their systems and wanted something that would not only handle the till, but also the stock, repairs, quotations, and most importantly their online presence.
We spent a number of weeks working with the client and analysing their processes in order to gain a complete understanding of how the business worked. We then split the project into several modules so that the system could be delivered in a controlled manner.
The system needed to be able to process sales information and present stock order assessments so that stock levels were kept to a minimum whilst making sure that popular items were always available for sale.
Once all the modules of the POS system were complete, We moved on to building the e-commerce portion of the system. This involved looking at established e-commerce packages and seeing which fitted closely with the business processes of the client.
Finally deciding OS Commerce as the best platform, We designed an automated interface between the online and offline system so that there was seamless integration of stock levels, pricing, order information between the two.
The system has now been running (with minor modifications and upgrades) for over 10 years at this client.
We are currently designing the latest version to allow for touch screen integration and modifications such as bonus/loyalty schemes.