Our range of services is as wide as the needs of your project. Have a look at the links on the left, which give a bit more information on some of the key areas that we often get involved in.

They are not a definitive list - we like to think we don't have one, in the same way that you don't always know all the things that you want until you need them. No two projects, let alone two organisations, are the same, and everybody has their own in house standards (or their own in house lack of them).

We always start any project involvement by talking with and listening to our customers. From these discussions we agree a list of what they want to achieve, and where we can help. However the requirements normally fall into two key areas, which we refer to as: -

• Strategic

• Constructive

These would typically cover business analysis, or supplier sourcing projects, or often both.

In such projects a client may feel that they have invested a large amount in internal systems, be it management, invoicing, process control or whatever, but then feels that they are not getting the anticipated benefit from it. In such cases there is often a need for someone to take stock of the complete organisational picture and see where bottlenecks or problems are occurring.

We have found instances of whole accounting systems losing functionality because a third party interface was missing a comma at the end of a flat file, and others where the cause was lack of internal training resulting in payments received never getting recorded in the costing systems. Trivial matters, resulting in tens of thousands of pounds of wasted cost in unnecessary reconciliation each accounting period.

Alternatively there may be a new business requirement, or budget approval to upgrade, and it is then crucial to make sure you get what you need, as well as make sure you get what you want. Achieving this can cover a whole range of topics from reviewing and collating internal needs ("must haves", "nice to have", "would have if we can get it at the same price!"), through to finding a supplier or combination of suppliers that are able to satisfy that need.

...back to top

We define constructive as much more "hands on". These would be projects, sometimes only a couple of days in duration sometimes much more, where there is a definite requirement, a known need, and all that is missing is someone to do it.

Typical instances of this would be:-

• Procedures manuals need reviewing/updating/writing for ISO9001 compliance and inspections.

• You can't get the reports you need from your existing system, and need to either get someone to work with your report writer package, or provide a simple alternative such as an Access Database which you can update easily from your current system, and produce reports when you need them.

• You have a payroll system, but occasionally need to issue manual payslips where you have had to make adjustments after the payroll has been run. These may be handwritten and look pretty unprofessional, or take an age to line up on a typewriter, if anyone can find one or knows how to use it. A simple spreadsheet template could be set up to key the details in, and cross check your adding up. At the click of a button it could then print on appropriate stationery. It could even have all your logos and layout contained in the spreadsheet and print a professional looking document on plain paper, leaving you with your own electronic copy that you can file on your network for later reference.

As you can imagine, the list is endless, but whenever it occurs you need good people that can hit the ground running to come in and get the job done.

Give us a call or better still drop us an email to start the ball rolling. If you have some idea of what you need we can discuss where we can help. If you have no idea what you need then definitely drop us a line so that we can have a chat to help clear your thinking!

...back to top