Outsourcing
Senior specialists who join your team, work the way you already work, and stay long enough to know your systems as well as your own people do.
Describe the gap rather than the job title. We will tell you what shape we think it needs, who we have, and whether we are the right answer at all.
The Client’s Situation
Capacity is easy to buy. Context is not.
Something has become too large, too urgent or too complicated for the team you have. A regulatory deadline that will not move. A migration nobody has the bandwidth to run. A system that needs a specialist you do not employ and cannot justify employing permanently. The obvious answer is more people.
Capacity is the straightforward part. An agency can have a competent developer at a desk within weeks. What nobody can supply at short notice is someone who already understands what your systems do, why the business rules are shaped the way they are, and which of the undocumented conventions actually matter. That knowledge takes months to build, it is usually built at your expense, and it leaves with whoever built it.
Which is why the request we get is almost never for headcount. It is for someone who can take a problem that has become difficult, understand it, take ownership of it, and still be there next year.
Three shapes this takes
Outsourcing is a broad word covering three fairly different arrangements. Which one fits depends less on the size of the work than on where the ownership needs to sit.
1
Specialists inside your team
One or two of our people join an existing team — typically six to ten, alongside your own developers, analysts, tech lead and project manager. They work to your ceremonies, in your tools, on your backlog. The work belongs to you and we supply the capability. This is the most common arrangement we run, and engagements measured in years are normal rather than exceptional.
2
One named person owning a function
A single senior person accountable for something specific. A project manager running a delivery, a business analyst owning requirements through to sign-off, a domain expert brought in because one regulatory return keeps failing and nobody internally can say why. Full time, or at an agreed percentage where the scope does not warrant more.
3
An independent delivery unit
Our own team with clear ownership and accountability, working alongside yours rather than inside it. This fits where a piece of work can be carved out cleanly, or where you would rather hold one supplier to an outcome than manage individuals.
Where the work has to integrate deeply with systems your own IT department owns, the first is almost always the right answer. Where you want a result rather than a capability, the third. We will say which we think it is, including when that is not the one you asked for.
What you get that a contract alone does not give you
Talk to usPeople who arrive with the context
Our engineers and analysts already understand complex, regulated business logic. The first month goes on learning your environment rather than on learning the domain, and you are not paying for the education.
Continuity you can plan around
Engagements here run for years and occasionally for considerably longer. The person who learns how your systems fit together is still the person working on them two years later, which is the entire economic argument for this model.
They work your way from the first week
Your methodology, your tools, your ceremonies, your steering committee. There is no phase spent introducing ours, and where your requirements arrive as a folder of documents and an email thread, our people work with that rather than asking you to fix it first.
Seniority measured in what someone knows
Roles get assigned by depth of business understanding rather than by job title, which is why a developer here may also be the person designing the data model, and why an analyst may be the person who used to write the code.
The knowledge stays with you
Documentation, code review and hands-on sessions with your own team are part of how the work is done rather than a phase at the end. What our people learn is meant to outlast them being there.
Who we place
1
Data and analytics
Data engineers, business intelligence developers, data modellers, solution designers and architects, data quality specialists.
2
Software engineering
NET and Java developers, front-end developers, API and integration engineers, DevOps engineers.
3
Analysis and delivery
Business analysts, project and programme managers, test managers, scrum masters, quality assurance and test engineers.
4
Domain and platform specialists
Regulatory reporting experts, Atlassian consultants and administrators, digital analytics implementation specialists, Oracle and Microsoft platform specialists.
Turn your data into a competitive advantage.
Whether you’re trying to prove marketing performance, modernise enterprise reporting, or build a stronger data strategy, we’ll help you create analytics that deliver measurable business value.
How an engagement actually starts
We work out what the gap really is
Which of the three shapes it needs, what seniority, and whether the binding constraint is capacity, domain knowledge or accountability. These lead to different answers, and the request as it arrives is often for the wrong one of the three.
We put forward named people
You meet the person who will do the work, not a profile with the name removed. The consultant on your project is the consultant on your project.
We fit in rather than onboard
Our people adapt to your environment, your culture and your technology landscape. Where a specification does not exist, they write one. Where the process has never been documented, they document it. This is not scope creep; it is what makes the first weeks useful instead of expensive.
We write things down as we go
Documentation and knowledge transfer are continuous, which matters more in this model than in any other. In an embedded engagement the risk is not that the work fails. It is that it succeeds and nobody else can maintain it.
We handle the continuity
People move on. When one of ours has to leave a project, the replacement comes from a team that already knows the client, and the handover is ours to manage rather than yours.
Application Development
Why organisations bring us in
Tell us what the gap actually is
Whether you are short of capacity, short of a specific expertise, or short of someone to own a delivery that has stalled, the first conversation is the same. What the work is, what it has to sit alongside, and who needs to be accountable for it when it is done.
What do our clients say?
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Questions we are asked
How quickly can someone join our team and start being useful?
Faster than you are probably expecting, and it is the main reason clients choose us over a staffing arrangement. Because our people already understand the kind of business logic these systems encode, onboarding is about your specific environment rather than about the domain. The honest constraint is not ramp-up time, it is availability: we would rather give you a real start date than an optimistic one.
What happens if the person is not the right fit, or leaves?
Tell us early and we will change it; a poor fit costs us more than it costs you. On leaving: people do move on, and when one of ours leaves a project the replacement comes from a team that already knows the client, with the handover managed by us. In practice clients almost always ask us for that replacement rather than going elsewhere, which is the part we are most willing to be judged on.
Can your people work independently when requirements are unclear or keep changing?
Yes, and it is a large part of what the seniority is for. Unclear requirements are the normal starting condition rather than an exception. Our people establish what is actually needed, write the specification where none exists, and manage changes as decisions with understood consequences rather than absorbing them quietly and hoping.
Do you have someone with experience in our specific domain or technology?
Sometimes, and sometimes not. Our depth is in data platforms, enterprise software, regulatory reporting, delivery management and the Atlassian and Oracle ecosystems. Tell us the domain and the technology and we will tell you honestly whether we have someone with real experience of it, or whether we would be learning on your project — which is occasionally acceptable to a client and should always be their decision rather than ours.
Can one person cover more than one role?
Sometimes, and it depends on the size of the work. Some of our people work across analysis and project management, or analysis and testing. On a smaller change combining roles can work well and saves you money. On a large programme splitting them is usually the better decision, and we will say so even where it means placing fewer people.
Do your people work remotely or on site?
Both, and it is agreed rather than imposed. We adapt to how your teams already operate, including where a security or regulatory position requires certain work to happen on your premises or inside your network.
How long do engagements usually run, and how is it priced?
Longer than most clients initially plan for. Six months to several years is the normal range, and some engagements have run considerably longer than that. Pricing follows the shape and the seniority rather than a single rate card, and it is agreed against a defined arrangement rather than quoted blind.
Tell us what the gap actually is
Whether you are short of capacity, short of a specific expertise, or short of someone to own a delivery that has stalled, the first conversation is the same. What the work is, what it has to sit alongside, and who needs to be accountable for it when it is done.
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Croatia
Tell us the skills or the problem, roughly how long you think you need someone, and whether they would be working inside your team or alongside it. Someone who does this work will come back to you, and if we do not have the right person we will say so.
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