Sarand Services

Background

Although more and more functionality is available in the form of off-the-shelf packages, the ever increasing demands of businesses still continue to outstrip the ability of the market to come up with suitably innovative products. This issue is compounded by technology evolving at such a rate that most vendors struggle simply to keep up to date, let alone introducing more useful features to their packages.

The alternative that we offer allows you to dictate the features that the solution must include and the software that we build will happily sit alongside other applications, exchanging information behind the scenes and enhancing the range of functionality that is available to your business.

In many cases your choice comes down to whether your business can be suitably supported by a package that falls short of your requirements and potentially enforces changes in the way that you operate, or to invite us to build a system that is very closely aligned with the way that you carry out your business and is more easily adapted as your business grows and competes in its marketplace.

We can help you determine which business processes are suitable for automation, how this functionality should interact with other systems that you already have in place, assess the benefits that will result and determine the total cost of deployment.

Case Studies

Sarand has successfully deployed solutions that fulfill a range of customer requirements, including the following:

Ref	Issue	Resolution
1.	Our business relies on a package supplied by a third party against whom we are about to enter competition and as a result will no longer supply the software.	It took 4 weeks to reproduce the essential features of the package to a level where the business could be back up and running and then a further 2 weeks to build further functionality to ensure that the replacement was superior to the original.
2.	We have a basic database to hold job details, but it was written some time ago and our business is changing rapidly.	A wrapper application is built around the database to ensure backward compatibility and to allow the data and functionality to be brought into line with the current business practices.
3.	A multi-national logistics company is entering into a new contract throughout Europe and requires an appropriate system designed and built within 3 months to enter production and be capable of evolving as they learn more about the most effective ways of managing the process.	We deployed consultants with highly relevant commercial experience to help the business determine what the system should do, and were able to build a fully working production version within the limited time available. This system has been in operation since 2001 and undergoes regular enhancements to ensure that it supports best practice.
4.	Patient operations are booked against available theatre times on a board encouraging a constant flow of surgeons and staff to visit the office to view the latest details.	A prototype system is built within 2 weeks to replicate the information displayed on the board and demonstrated to staff. A further 3 weeks allows the resulting comments and additional functionality to be accommodated and the system is installed with large overhead view screens in the vicinity of the theatres to ensure all staff are kept informed.

Approach

By there very nature, all bespoke system are markedly different. However, all businesses and the processes that they carry out have a significant level of common features that have allowed us to build a common platform of functionality and data upon which our solutions are constructed.

All of our bespoke systems are based on a similar design architecture, regardless of technology, that allows them to share our existing libraries of functionality, ensures that we can deliver them promptly and that future enhancements can be implemented without major rework.

A number of the common features of our systems include:

	Intelligent Security System is not only controlled by the user's login, but individual operations and even data elements can be protected by the security profile associated with each user.
Reference Data All systems have a repository of information that is used to validate data entry and populate selections, eg. where a limited range of values can be entered. Where applicable, our systems allow these code lists to be maintained so that the business can independently ensure that the lists are kept up to date.
	Database Interface We have taken a variety of standard database access techniques and incorporated them into a layer of functionality that ensure that all applications are not only consistent in the way that they interact with their database, but that major changes to the underlying data, even moving to a different technology, can be accommodated with minimum impact on the software.
Database Housekeeping A set of database utilities support a range of housekeeping options that include the ability to compact the database (a task that should be carried out regularly and normally requires an application such as Access to be installed) and archive a copy of the database, with the option of compressing the result.