We offer a suite of software consulting services that are designed to complement each other and address the most pressing issues that slow your back-office operations.
PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Your back-office is infested with time-sucking vampires, a host of inefficient and outdated business process steps. Your employees know where they are, but they have long since stopped asking why things are done that way. “It’s just how we do it around here”, tell each other. These add up to huge losses in productivity and missed opportunity. Our Process Improvement Methodology zeroes in on the core long-chain processes, finds the bottlenecks and pain points, and puts the right tools in place to make them work for you, not against you.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
- Timely – Inefficient workflows slow everyone down and make both you and your stakeholders wait. Good processes let you move fast. They let you spend more time building and improving your business and less time responding to interruptions and putting out fires.
- Cost Saving – Time is money. Time lost to inefficient processes a waste of money. Worse, there’s an opportunity cost to having your best people doing non-value-add tasks when they could be engaging customers, analyzing trends and explorer new business ideas.
- Better Tools – You’ve spent a lot of money on your office equipment but most small businesses vastly underutilize it. Get more out of what you have already spent by selecting the right software and tools that streamline your back-office processes.
- Happier People – Job satisfaction goes up dramatically when you know you are adding value and being efficient. Poor processes sap your team’s motivation, and they expect you to address it. You work hard to get good people. Efficient business processes will help you keep them.
SOFTWARE CONSULTING
There are some great software packages out there, from Accounting to Customer Relationship Management to you name it. Software can boost your productivity immensely. Buying software that doesn’t fit your business is frustrating, wastes money, slows you down and traps you. It is, unfortunately, all too common. Our Software Consulting Services can help. Our Software Selection Methodology captures exactly what you need in a package or portal and makes the vendors prove that they can do it before you invest.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM SOFTWARE CONSULTING SERVICES
- Requirements – Software that fits your business can skyrocket your team’s productivity, but nailing the business part before going in is a must. We help you shake out the hidden requirements by asking the questions the vendors won’t.
- More Functionality – Software isn’t cheap, so why leave functionality on the table? Most companies use about 10% of what the software is capable because they didn’t explore beyond the basics. With a better understanding of your requirements, you can get more out of your investment.
- Avoid Overruns – Few things are more frustrating than shelling out alot of money only to find out what you bought doesn’t work like you expected or is missing features. Additional configuration, upgrades, and customization can double your cost.
- Integrate – All your software investments should work together, but they typically don’t. Vendors know their own tools but not the other ones you use. We look at the whole long-chain business processes and look for tools that work together.
DATABASE DEVELOPMENT
You have plenty of data. It’s just scattered around in paper, spreadsheets, documents and emails. To turn all that data into useful information, it has to be cataloged and captured, then delivered in useful reports and visualizations. We design databases to capture that information and use powerful reporting tools that give you the insight you need to make informed business decisions and spot issues before they turn into problems.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM DATABASE DESIGN
- Less Clutter – Free up space in your facility your mind. You go numb to piles and drawers full of paper, and they take up valuable space. Duplicate documents are scattered around your hard drives and network.
- Data Relationships – A database shows how tables of information are related to each other: customers have orders, orders have line items. They let you drill down, slice, dice, combine, and summarize data. They enforce rules to keep bad data out.
- One Place – All your valuable information gets stored in one place so you always know where to find it. It isn’t scattered across hard drives and offices. There aren’t other copies, so no more wasting time searching for that latest version.
- Where It’s Needed – Databases capture information where it is generated and make it available where its needed. You don’t need data gatekeepers to capture it or be responsible for disseminating it, which means more efficient, cost effective operations and big savings.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Sometimes the right software package or portal just doesn’t exist. Your innovative ideas are unique. We develop custom solutions to implement those ideas. Desktop, web, mobile, we do them all. Our Application Development Methodology uses an agile approach to get the most important features built and in your hands fast. Because we are business process experts, we get it done right. No more back and forth because the developer didn’t really know what you needed. Get the tools that fit so you can go fast.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
- Tailored To Fit – Rather than just automating the existing process, we take a holistic view. Our Process Improvement practice lets us redesign the process, buy what’s available, and fill in the gaps with custom solutions that improve the entire workflow.
- Up and Running – We use an Agile development methodology so you get the most useful functionality in your hands as soon as possible. You get to decide what gets done in what order and when the application is useful enough to deploy in stages.
- Latest Tooling – We are fluent in both open source langugages and frameworks as well as the Microsoft stack. We pick tools that work best with your environment, goals, and existing assets.
- On Time, On Budget – We develop detailed specifications then fixed bid the project so you always know what it will cost. Sometimes you know your budget and want all you can get for that price. We can do that too. Good specs and good development methodologies mean less rework, lower cost, and faster delivery.
RECORDS AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Paper is unavoidable. Even if we turn your own forms, documents and spreadsheets into expertly designed databases, paper comes in from the outside chock full of useful information data. Because we are business process experts, we find the processes behind the records and knowledge, build the right repositories to store it all, and give your team access to information at their fingertips, eliminating over-reliance on a few subject matter experts. Our Software Consulting Services ensures you get the right tools to manage your content.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM RECORDS AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
- Less Clutter – Paper takes up a lot of space and fills lots of nooks and crannies. Space costs money. Capturing document metadata and/or scanning documents to electronic image lets you send originals to cheaper off-site storage or destroy them and put space to better use.
- Disaster Recovery – Fire, flood, smoke: they happen. Important documents can be damaged or lost entirely. Employees sometimes misplace or accidentally destroy documents without anyone knowing until an emergency occurs. Capture the data and documents so you always have them.
- More Data – Combining metadata captured from documents with other data provides a wider view of your organization. Search with data then drill down to see the scanned image without digging through a filing cabinet. Save countless hours and dollars.
- Better Decisions – With more data turned into information you can make better decisions and monitor your businesses core processes, finding issues before they become problems, hijack your day and derail your progress.
Contact the Software Consulting Services team at Vaillus IT today to talk about how we can help you pick tools that fit your company. Call us at 918-734-7215