Are You Being Served?

One of the greatest inventions in the software development world in my eyes was when web services became available. Suddenly a whole world of interconnected processes can talk to each other regardless of geographical location. BACK Consulting's developers no longer spent hours and days figuring out complex network protocols and procedures. Now they use discovery to see what is available and as long as the other side is running and there is appropriate error handling then all is well.

We've managed to design worldwide systems that link all the different markets together and must be able to handle difficulties such as language sets and currencies. Imagine if web services didn't exist? You would literally think someone was mad if they approached you with this idea! Now is a good time to get yourself into this area of development as the technology is maturing nicely and can bring real business benefits to your line of work.

Think Hard About Outsourcing

We at BACK Consulting run many projects for clients which involve outsourcing projects where we guide them through the pros and cons of going down this route. In partnership with our outsourcing resource (Suntec India) we have managed to turn every single piece of work around within budget and within the time scales provided. The key to this ongoing success is to give the client the best possible planning and preparation service possible.

Those that think outsourcing is the golden panacea to all their problems and rush in head first will be badly disappointed. Look what happened when nearly every company and their dogs decided that the low costs of India was a financial haven but totally forgot about the minor issues such as training, staff recruitment, staff retention and most of all customer satisfaction. Nowadays these same companies are reversing those trends as their customers become disenchanted with their service levels.

To sit down and plan a large or small scale outsourcing project takes time. Think about what you are trying to achieve and remember that the people whom you are asking to do the work will literally know nothing about your business processes and the purpose of the end result. You must be crystal clear in your specifications and terms of reference and write “Dummies Guides” to reflect the thinking in your head.

Think clearly about benchmarking and reporting. It's best to make that fine judgment call between being too demanding with reporting requirements and not receiving enough information to make decisions regarding workload and resource planning. We prefer to give honest and open information and allow all our clients to contact us and our partner as they see fit to establish that we do exactly what it says on the tin. Let us help you to think clearly about your outsourcing needs. For more information please click here.

Case Management Advances

This blog is being written in Ireland after a review of two case management systems for companies. After many years of being in the legal (and none legal) case management market it's always good to keep up with the latest advances and approaches to this field. Back in a previous life I was in at the ground floor when case management systems were the big thing in the legal world and went on to implement this for many types of work including RTA/PI, Debt Recovery, Conveyancing, Admin, Litigation and more. I was involved in the pioneering of online systems linking clients with the data stored within this system and appreciate the efforts it takes to make this work properly. Never more has the phrase "garbage in - garbage out" been applicable.

The two systems recently viewed are in sharp contrast to each other. One is an old school system was installed within our client law firm around 7 years ago and incrementally updated as time went by. This leads to the underlying fundamentals having a direct influence on the design issues going forward and boy can you tell. The very principles of workflow with conditional logic is clunky with an accounting like double-entry procedure of having an internal progression system but mathced up with an external tasking system via Outlook. A crazy prospect.

The second such system I reviewed was brand spanking new and developed by a young and enthusiastic company called Documatics (www.documatics.com) who have taken a long look at the flaws of these old systems and made products using the latest technology and unhindered by legacy considerations. Such systems are not a panacea to a companies case management needs as many features taken for granted in other geographical locations such as the UK and US are not in place. The Irish legal system is booming and eevryone charges by the hour at an hourly rate. However, change is in the air and the beginnings of fixed price commodity based work is lying just around the corner and Ireland is set to go through the same changes as those previously mentioned above. Young companies like Documatics have the chance to get ahead of the curve and offer technology that competition just can't live with.

These are exciting times in the Irish legal technology market and it is good to be in at the front line watching the pitched battle between vendors with an impartial brief. Establish vendors have the resources to make changes whilst battling against support issues and on-going client demands. New companies can take a fresh look and offer updated technology platforms and approaches but need the client base and exposure that the older companies take for granted. In a dog eat dog world the companies will sink or swim on the back of what they do in the next 2 years. Good times or troubles lie ahead.

For more information regarding BACK Consulting's legal technology services please click here.

Help The Children

Or should I say "help the teachers". Programming skills are always useful to people with everyday problems. The government puts all sorts of pressures on schools to be pro-active with its approach to data gathering and analysis which aids the school to assess what progress a child is or is not making. This does leave a need for convergence with all this data knocking about. The school had a problem with lots of different teachers all entering data into separate spreadsheets and then someone having to collate all this onto a master sheet. Sounds like an easier solution....

BACK came to the rescue with a simple little tool that merges the data together from disparate sources to give one final output. Mindful of all the office automation issues when programming in .NET the solution does eaxctly what's required. We'd love to plough in and create a fully database driven solution that covers all the schools data aspects but alas funding would not allow it! Until then we look to respond to the aching needs of teachers in despair like knights in shining armour....

For more info on our programming capabilties please click here.

Appropriate Web Technology

BACK has been executing a project on behalf of a client where we were handed someone elses work to modify. Now I am not going down the "these guys a rubbish" road as that is far from the case. The website was brilliantly written with hundreds of lines of PHP and a MySQL back-end. It must have taken an age to get this all right and all done by highly skilled developers.

The question here is: is it necessary? 90% of the website is purely for display purposes only with little need for database driven content or interactivity. Taking the time to select the correct technology can save you time, give you fit for purpose results and ultimately fulfill your requirements with maximum value. At BACK Consulting we review all options with you prior to commencing work so that no-one is left in the dark regarding the desired outcome.

If this client had come to us at the inception of this work they would not be arguing over the £20,000 bill that they were landed with by the original developers. For more info on our web development services please click here

Microsoft Technology Briefing

Today myself (Barry Kemp) and Solutions Design Architect Tuan Truong attended a technology briefing by Xpertise Training with regards to upcoming and existing Microsoft technologies. The highly informative Gary Duffield took us through the existing range of server and desktop technology and highlighted points by adding in market data. For example the main customer focus areas at present are in Powershell (a scripting language for talking to servers) and with the latest version of Sharepoint. Apparently expectations with Sharepoint have been far exceeded and Microsoft have sold 8 times as many copies as they thought they would.

Overall it was good to get an overview of what's going on and we felt the day was well worth the trip. This will give us the chance to focus on our own areas of expertise and see how best we can add to our clients' experience. For more info on our services please check out www.backconsulting.co.uk/consult.html

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the BACK Consulting Times. This is an informal blog of issues effecting BACK Consulting (http://www.backconsulting.co.uk/) and it's clients. We like to touch on issues based on the range of services we supply. Examples are data entry, off-shore projects, business management, software development and much more. BACK Consulting executes projects large and small all around the globe and has a track record of getting to the core of the issues and driving projects onward. We want you to get a feeling for what we do and ultimately to get in touch if you have any comments - info@backconsulting.co.uk.

Happy reading.
Barry Kemp
Director