Custom software development

Most operations reach a point where the spreadsheet, the shared inbox and the third-party tool stop agreeing with each other, and the cost of that disagreement is paid daily by the people doing the work. We build the system that replaces all three. That means enterprise web applications, internal management systems, and — still, and unfashionably — Windows desktop applications where a warehouse terminal or a lab bench needs one. Meridian Freight ran dispatch across two products and a spreadsheet until a single system cut their average booking-to-manifest time from 22 minutes to under four.

• 01

  The system fits the process you have, rather than the process a vendor assumed. We model your domain from how your team describes it and then check that model against what the data actually shows.

• 02

  Working software from week four. You see a running increment every fortnight, in your environment, with your data shape — not a demo built on sample records.

• 03

  One source of truth instead of three. Aurelia Retail Group retired eleven spreadsheets and two subscriptions in the first release.

• 04

  You own the code, the repository and the pipeline from day one. There is no escrow arrangement to negotiate, because there is nothing being held.

• 05

  Built to be handed over: your developers work in the same repository as ours, and the handover is rehearsed before it is real.

1. 01

   Process capture

   One to two weeks sitting with the people who do the work, not only the people who commission it. We record the real path, including the workarounds — those are usually where the requirement actually lives.

2. 02

   Domain model and slice plan

   We agree the entities, the states they move through and the rules that govern the moves, then cut the build into vertical slices that each end in something usable. The first slice is chosen for what it removes from someone’s day.

3. 03

   Build in increments

   Two-week increments, each deployed to a staging environment you can log into. Feedback from a running screen changes scope earlier and far more cheaply than feedback on a document.

4. 04

   Data migration and parallel run

   Existing records are migrated with a reconciliation report, and for anything financial or regulated the old process runs alongside the new one until the two agree for a full cycle.

5. 05

   Handover

   Runbooks, an architecture note, a test suite that passes on a clean machine, and a walkthrough with whoever inherits it. We check the handover by asking them to deploy it while we watch.

• A working application in your cloud account or on your servers, with source in your repository.
• Domain model and data dictionary, in plain English alongside the schema.
• Automated test suite and a CI pipeline that runs it on every commit.
• Data migration scripts plus the reconciliation report proving the migration was complete.
• Deployment runbook and rollback procedure, both executed at least once before handover.
• Architecture decision records for every choice that would be expensive to reverse.

• 01Should we build or buy?

  Buy, wherever a product genuinely fits — we will tell you so, and we have. Build is the right answer when the process is the differentiator, when the product would need customisation that voids its upgrade path, or when three tools are being held together by manual re-keying. That question is settled in discovery, before anyone signs a build contract.

• 02Do you still build desktop applications?

  Yes. Warehouses, laboratories, clinics and shop floors often have hardware, offline requirements or peripherals that a browser cannot reach well. We build those as .NET desktop clients against the same APIs the web application uses, so there is one back end rather than two systems that drift.

• 03What happens if we want to change direction mid-build?

  Increments are two weeks precisely so that a change of direction costs at most two weeks. Scope is re-agreed at every increment boundary. What we will push back on is changing the direction and keeping the date, because one of those two has to give.

• NET

  .NET development

  ASP.NET Core, C# and the Microsoft server stack — our deepest bench, and the default for systems that have to last.

  /services/dotnet-development
• WEB

  Web development

  Websites, web applications, storefronts and portals — the customer-facing and staff-facing surfaces of the business.

  /services/web-development
• UXD

  UI/UX and product design

  Interface and product design for software people use all day — websites, applications, dashboards and mobile.

  /services/ui-ux-product-design