I attended a Supporters’ Network Event for the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter a couple of weeks ago. It was a great meeting with a really interesting and informative talk delivered by Stewart Lucas from Manchester Mind. As many of you know, I feel quite strongly about workplace wellbeing and have blogged in the past about…
During a meeting with a potential customer last week, we pointed out that there was at least one piece of free software that would suit their requirements very nicely. Not only that, but we have experience of this particular software and could vouch for it being very well built. Five minutes earlier, the discussion had been…
It’s a bit like building a house isn’t it? Back in April, I blogged about how to make a good fix or change request as a result of some, shall we say, interesting ones that had come through to us. This month, I thought I would take a closer look at what makes a good software…
I am always getting asked how much it would be to develop an App – and the answer is, it depends. The cost of developing a mobile App can vary greatly depending on the functionality you want your App to have; which platforms you want it to be compatible with; and whether you need it…
Coronation Street on Mobile Apps So, the boss “accidentally” watched Coronation Street last week and it’s ruffled his feathers a bit. (Spoiler alert) Apparently, Street Cars is in trouble because it is losing all its customers to a rival firm that has a Mobile App. Not to be outdone, Steve and Tim decide to look into…
Frustrating Software Fix or Change Requests Every now and then, a huge groan can be heard from the normally almost silent room that is home to our team of software developers. The cause is usually a poorly worded fix or change request. An unclear request makes it difficult to effect a fix and results in fixes…
So last month, I was talking about the Cloud and how the concept had been around since the late 1960s. It got me questioning just what technology is really new? I was in a meeting a couple of weeks ago and talk turned to how quickly technology is advancing. But is it? Paul, our CEO, maintains…
Everyone these days is talking about the Cloud, but what actually is it? This month I decided to take a look behind the image of fluffy white blobs in a bright blue sky that the word conjures up and explore Cloud Computing. Computing has moved on so much – in my first job the hard…
With the beginning of a new year, people’s thoughts turn to resolutions and predictions. And perhaps it’s a good time for businesses to take a step back – review the old and decide on the new. Self-Innovation. Innovation in this context isn’t about new products or services, it is about innovating the way you do business. Tom…
Businesses seem willing to accept that whatever software package they buy will not be perfect and they expect to have to adapt their working practices to the software – but surely it should be the other way around?? This is where bespoke software comes in. People often ask me what exactly we do at Roar and…
Once again, workplace stress is in the headlines as the number of people suffering continues to grow. Last month, I blogged about how embracing new technologies in the workplace could provide a golden opportunity to improve workplace wellbeing. I touched on Digital Disruption and Digital Transformation as I highlighted research that claims adopting AI in the…
It’s that time when I start thinking about what I’m going to write about for the next blog. Some months, I won’t lie, it takes me a while to come up with a topic I want to write about. This month, however, I have already written nearly 4 pages of notes on digital business automation.…
I keep hearing people talk about scalable technology but what do they really mean and what impact could it have on your business? When we talk about scalable technology, we are really referring to the extent that a system, network, or process is capable of coping with increasing volumes of work – or whether it…
As we continue to expand, we are recruiting again at Roar Software. Sifting through the applications it becomes glaringly obvious that we are lacking something – female candidates. “Why are there no women?” I can be heard asking the room in general. I am met with a puzzled silence. None of us is sure. I’ll…
As a rapidly expanding business, recruiting the right people is key. And for us at Roar Software, that means bringing people on board with the right ability and skills. As part of our selection process, we ask candidates to complete a coding exercise and during this latest round of recruitment, one candidate very honestly told…
Well April and May have been busy months for Roar Software, not least because our illustrious leader, Paul, was away in Rwanda for almost 2 weeks working on a software development and integration project for a live event. You can read more about that here. Even though Paul was over 4,000 miles away, the time…
It is a competitive market out there and to stay ahead of the game, many companies need to radically change the way they work and make better use of technology. Digital transformation may seem like a huge undertaking but it doesn’t have to be. Nor does it have to require a huge financial investment. What…
With stress and mental health issues accounting for a high proportion of absenteeism, many companies and HR departments are putting strategies in to place to support their employees in an effort to reduce workplace stress, and there seem to be a lot of in-house lunchtime yoga classes springing up. Arecent survey by Perkbox found that…
The Situation It is a familiar story. Before you start up your company, you spend time planning and mapping out how you would like the business to progress, what systems you are going to put in place, how you will cope with increased orders. As the business grows, you find yourself becoming increasingly busy and…
In this blog, we look at GDPR and some of the challenges the new ‘right to be forgotten’ may pose, and how Systems Integration may help with compliance. What is GDPR? The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) come into force on 25th May 2018. They are designed to bring together existing Data Protection laws across…
IR35 – Off-payroll working through an intermediary With January and the self-assessment tax deadline rapidly approaching, this seems a good time to look at the off-payroll working rules – often known as IR35. There have been a lot of articles about IR35 recently and it’s impact on individual contractors, particularly within the public sector. This…
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with the guys in the office about the number of different messaging services there are: messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype etc, etc. I was bemoaning the fact that I had to download each one in order to be able to communicate with my friends because they all used a …
Builders, programmers, and the costs of rewriting software systems. I love a good builder analogy when it comes to software development. Often when talking to business stakeholders it is useful to use terms that they are familiar with and concepts they can easily grasp and are analogous to those we use in developing software. As…
As your company grows, your IT requirements change. You may find you need to integrate systems to improve efficiencies or develop bespoke software, and you may come to the point where you need to make use of the services of a specialist software developer. Perhaps you don’t have any software development or systems integration engineers…
.. talk to me about high availability and data recovery A few recent events have thrown into focus the ability for even large well established businesses to handle adverse IT events. Firstly, the recent British Airways outage had many experienced IT professionals scratching their heads. The outage was blamed on a power issue which was,…
One of the problems I have found when adopting an agile approach to developing systems (and I mean truly agile, according to the agilemanifesto.org rules, rather than a particular project management methodology), is that the high level of end user interaction in the development process can sometimes lead to the users, in effect, designing the…
What is open source software (OS Software)? OS Software is software with a source code that has been publicly distributed for other programmers to access, use and learn from, meaning that anyone can inspect, modify and enhance the software. Because of this, open source software is generally considered to be more stable, more secure and…
