Why choose Infoworks?

Benefits of Infoworks

Our development workflow ensures your software meets the requirement first time, on time, and on budget.

Our management ethos and well-defined roles and responsibilities keep the ship running tight and provide you with a stable supplier.

Understanding - We bring to the table an in-depth understanding of around fifty business processes (e.g. case management, contact management, project management, workflow automation, etc.) that have come up again and again in different guises and degrees since our team formed in 1988.

It's this understanding that enables us to provide the critical review of your thinking and, when appropriate, the leadership to steer you to a successful system.

Expertise - Our team has technical strength in depth, and is used to tackling large systems development projects using the best software currently available.

The range of not-for-profit applications experience in our development team is broad, and there is a good team spirit - all but two have been Infoworks developers for over three years.

We have developed software to generate large parts of the our systems straight from the design - this saves you money, and makes larger projects possible.

Architecture - The PaperBuildDB, the Slotsa architecture - massive. They give our systems the flexibility of bespoke systems with the reliability of packages.

Reputation - We regularly write, give interviews, and present on information systems, e-services and trends in information systems web applications for not-for-profit sector publications and seminars (e.g. Virtual Promise, VolCom Internet Task Force, NCVO ICT Strategy magazine, Voluntary Sector Insight column, etc.)

These activities help us bring a broader perspective to your project. They also - when taken with our reputation as a centre for excellence in information systems and web applications development - give us a high standing in the sector which we would be foolish to jeopardize. Small, unknown software companies do not worry about the occasional horror story: we depend on our reputation, and you benefit from knowing that we will always act to maintain it.

Inside - We get inside you. We get so close to our clients we become a part of them - we're the information systems team you can boss around without internal politics, we do what you ask, and we don't complain!

Safe - With everything mentioned above in place to bring a successful outcome, we think we are probably the safest pair of hands you could find.

Benefits of an Infoworks solution

The right thing - Our PaperBuild process is good at revealing the underlying requirement.

We have long experience of implementing the business processes at issue here - we understand their nuances to a degree that other developers may not.

These factors combine to give a high degree of confidence that the resulting system will do the right thing - a less rigorous approach may, on the surface, appear cheaper, but may miss the target.

The thing right - We have a strong team of developers with a high level of experience in the technology we will be using for this application.

The nature of this application is familiar territory for our team.

We have a high level of confidence that our system will be well written - we do the thing right.

Flexibility - Our systems are not a fixed package - every Infoworks system is purpose built without compromise for other clients or trying to fit you to an existing template. This enables us at the outset to be very flexible, in that almost anything is possible.

And when we design it with you, we anticipate likely future changes/extensions, and make room for future growth, so the system remains easy to adapt.

But because this is just your system, if your operating environment changes, we keep the flexibility to quickly change it to meet new requirements in future.

You're in control - You control us absolutely.

We don't start until you say, "Go!"

Every stage is subject to your sign-off, and any stage payments are dependent on your sign-off.

And we don't stop development until you say the project is complete - and then we start support.

Long term - Our first phase of development has to dazzle you - it must be economical, fast, and profoundly effective.

When we complete the first phase you'll be really pleased with the system you have, and the value for money, and you'll be thinking positively about extending it deeper into the business process once it's proved itself. Our survival depends on this, so we have to make sure we do a good job.

The initial implementation is the beginning of a long term information systems partnership relationship, where over time we become a part of your organisation - we are your software development team.

Real, concrete benefits for you

• First and foremost, our systems make the jobs of users easier and more efficient. We build in “usability” to speed up the way users work - for example, one-click access to the last ten records they have viewed in a module, enabling them to run regular searches or reports with one click on a drop-down menu, enabling them to write a report and “promote” it to the Reports menu, so any user with the right access can run it any time, and so on.
• Secondly, they will facilitate better internal management of your whole operation - you'll be able to see bottlenecks, under-performing teams, monitor pipeline throughput, and take action before problems become crises.
• Thirdly, they deliver management information - the reports that take days to compile now will be able to be produced at the press of a button.
• Built-in automated workflow can guide staff to their next assignments, and remind them what needs to be done.
• Staff need very little training to use our systems effectively, and they can't damage them through an inadvertent key stroke.
• All our systems are web browser based, so you don't need a high spec PC - they can be used from almost any PC. Should you wish it, they can be used from home or, in future, from mobile phones.
• There are no license fees - when we build your system, you own it.
• All our systems are written using industry standard tools and best-practice project documentation. If you ever wanted to switch to a different software company, or bring development and support in-house, you could, and we would make it easy for you to do it.