Software Development

Bespoke software built to support your business

You have explored your options with configuring and integrating your IT, but to take your business processes to the next level you want some custom-made tools.

Watford Consulting are passionate software developers. We love building software to solve problems for our clients. 

Read on for examples of custom-made software and an insight into how we go about development.

 

Example software solutions to help your organisation

Workforce onboarding

If you manage a workforce you may have an onboarding process involving various briefings and agreements that must be made. 

For larger workforces, manually administering this process can become time-consuming and error prone.

A custom made workforce portal can guide your workforce through the onboarding processing, ensuring that key processes are delivered and recorded.

Reporting on the onboarding process can be published by the portal and integrated into management information dashboards.

Discrepancy processing

If you ship products business-to-business, you may need to investigate reports from customers where a delivery doesn’t match their order.

The investigation might involve a questionnaire to the customer to request further information, a report from sales, warehouse and despatch on any deviations from normal procedures, and finally a response to the customer on the outcome of the investigation and any remedial action to the taken.

Bespoke software can manage all stages of the discrepancy process, ensuring all parties provide the information needed.

Annual leave management

Allow staff to track their annual leave allocation and usage.

The software allows staff to raise leave requests which is routed to their line management for approval. Once approved, further actions, such as notifying HR can be triggered.

Roll call

Integrate with your attendance management system to quickly identify all persons currently on site.

Trigger creation of a roll call register for use in an emergency.

Inspections and fault escalation

Frequent inspection of equipment may be needed. Inspection software, accessible through mobile devices, can guide staff on the steps to be carried out in an inspection.

The software can automatically escalate issues in the event of an inspection failure, or advise management to bring forward maintenance if any advisories are reported.

Staff information

Companies often need to distribute information to staff and record that it has been received.

Software can be used to publish documents to staff through various communication channels and request confirmation that it has been read.

Management can then contact any staff that have not confirmed receipt of the information.

Pool car booking

Where companies provide pool cars for ad-hoc staff travel, a bespoke booking system can be built.

Staff can view vehicle availability for their travel date and make a booking.

Following use of a vehicle, the software can prompt staff to provide feedback on the vehicle, including reporting any issues observed.

Vehicle managers can react to feedback and schedule maintenance of vehicles as needed.

Supplier management

Companies often need to carry out due diligence on their suppliers, ensuring appropriate standards of conduct are maintained.

Bespoke supplier management software can track supplier assessments, along with any supporting documents. Relevant staff can be notified when a new supplier assessment is required.

Software can also allow staff who deal with suppliers to provide feedback on their interactions, informing future decisions on whether to engage the supplier again.

Passion and Pride

You need a software development team who are passionate about what they do, who get a kick out of producing elegant solutions for difficult problems, who are proud of what they produce.

Of course we think that describes Watford Consulting perfectly!

A few traits to look for in your software developers:

They are enthusiastic about getting software built to a professional standard. They deploy and support their software rather than leaving the task to an IT administrator. Software is a matter of professional pride.

They are continuously learning, engaging in the community, attending conferences, applying best practices.

They want their software released to users. They crave feedback on their product’s effectiveness. They use that feedback to inform further development.

They are pragmatic, recognising that the commercial concerns of the business must be satisfied. It is no use spending time building purist software if meanwhile the business has lost out to the competition and there is no one left to use it.

They go out of their way to understand the problem fully, learn the terminology of the problem space. The more we know the luckier we get! The more we can understand about the problem space, the more the solution space grows and the greater the chances of finding an elegant solution.