Business systems

Questions people ask before they commit.

Where should we start if several of these are broken at once?

With whichever one is costing you money now, and almost always with one at a time. Businesses that attempt to replace three systems in a single programme tend to finish none of them, because each one competes for the same scarce resource — the attention of the people who actually do the work. Sequenced properly, the first project also teaches everyone how the next one should run.

Do we choose the platform before we talk to you?

You do not have to, and it is often better if you have not committed. Platform choice turns on how technical your people are, what the licences will cost in two years at your expected headcount, and what the system has to connect to — none of which can be judged before the process is mapped. If you have already bought something, we will work with it where it is a reasonable fit and tell you plainly when it is not.

Why does so much of the time go on meetings and spreadsheets rather than software?

Because that is where these projects succeed or fail. What you are buying is not a set of settings but a change in how the company works that survives contact with habit — so the effort goes on understanding how the work really runs, cleaning data, and getting people to work the new way. Configuration is the fast part. What it is configured to do is the expensive part to get wrong.

Are software licences included in your prices?

No. Subscriptions are bought by you, in your own name, on your own account, so you keep ownership and control of the system and its data. What we quote covers discovery, configuration, migration, testing, training and documentation.

What do we get at the end of a project?

Administrative documentation covering what was built and why, recorded training and one-page reference sheets for each role, a migration record showing what came across and what deliberately did not, a list of access and who holds it, and the outstanding items that were consciously deferred. That last list is usually the starting point for the next phase.

How do we know people will actually use it?

Adoption is designed in rather than hoped for. The system is built from how the work is genuinely done rather than how it is supposed to be done, kept deliberately small at launch, tested by the people who will use it on their own live work, and taught per role on their own records. Where the owner is not visibly involved, we say so early, because habits rarely change without that.