Most of your next system already exists.

Backbone is a working platform built for your industry. It already handles what businesses in your sector have in common, so our consultants can spend their time building the part that makes you different.

In use earlyYou are working with something real while a ground-up build would still be in design.
Built for your industryBackbone arrives already knowing how your sector operates.
One data modelWhich is what makes reporting, insight and AI actually work.

The structure is already there. We build what sits on top of it.

Not a template, not a starter kit, not a set of components you have to assemble. Backbone is a real system that runs, holds your data, and does the work from the first week.

Already built, tested, in use elsewhere Built around your business
Backbone
You

Illustrative. How much Backbone already covers depends on your sector and on how your business runs, and we establish that honestly before you commit to anything.

What Backbone brings

The projects, people, cost, compliance and reporting that most businesses in your sector need, already built and already proven with other clients. None of that has to be specified, designed, built or tested again.

What we build with you

Nobody operates exactly like their competitors. Our consultants work inside your organisation, map how you actually run, and build the difference. That is where your value sits, so that is where we spend the time.

Backbone for
construction construction utilities water infrastructure your sector

There is no single platform that suits every industry, so we do not pretend otherwise. Each sector gets its own Backbone, built on what we have learned delivering software in that industry rather than adapted from somebody else's.

Every improvement we make for one client in your sector strengthens the Backbone that all of them run on. Your system keeps getting better without another project starting.

Most businesses need Backbone. Some genuinely need a blank page.

We will tell you which one you need before you commit to either. If Backbone covers you, paying for a bespoke build is a waste of your money. If your process is the thing that makes you competitive, a product will blunt it. We give you the honest answer early, whichever way it goes.

Shoothill Backbone

Start from a system that already works

You get a proven platform for your sector on day one, and consultants who configure and extend it around how you actually operate.

  • In use early, not at the end of a long build
  • Ongoing improvement, not a fixed deliverable
  • Every client gains when we strengthen the core
  • Reporting and AI ready from the start
Bespoke build

Built from the ground up, entirely yours

When your process is the competitive advantage, or your sector is niche enough that no credible product exists, we build from scratch.

  • Designed precisely around your operation
  • Full ownership of the resulting system
  • Suited to regulated or unusual requirements
  • Same engineering team, same standards

Four stages, and you see something real early.

The long, expensive, high-risk part of a software programme is the part we have already done. What remains is understanding your business and closing the gap, which is work that produces something visible almost immediately.

Diagnostic

A fixed-price assessment of how you operate, what your systems do and where the friction is. You get a clear operating picture whether or not you work with us.

Stand up Backbone

The platform is deployed on your data with your structure, your sites, your people. You are looking at something real, not a slide deck.

Close the gap

Our consultants sit inside your business, work through the differences, and build them. Short cycles, visible progress, your team involved throughout.

Compound

You stay on current Backbone, so every improvement we make for your sector reaches you. The system gets better without another project.

Consultants who build, engineers who hold the line.

The old model put a business analyst in the room to write requirements, then handed them to a developer who had never met you. Everything got lost in translation and every change turned into a round trip.

The person who understands your business is the person who builds it. Senior engineers own the architecture and review every change before it reaches you.

Implementation consultant

On site with you. Learns how you work, then configures and builds the difference directly. Your single point of contact and accountability.

Reviewing engineer

Owns architecture, infrastructure and code review. Nothing reaches your system without passing this gate, which is how speed stays safe.

Backbone team

Develops the platform itself. When we find a gap that matters to your whole sector, it goes into core Backbone rather than being bolted onto your instance.

Most AI projects die in the data plumbing. Backbone starts past it.

The reason AI stalls in most organisations has nothing to do with AI. It is that the information sits across too many systems and spreadsheets and none of it agrees. The work disappears into integration long before anyone sees a useful answer. Backbone arrives with the data model already defined and unified, so that part is behind you before you start.

One unified data store

A single coherent picture of your business that can be queried directly. Everything above depends on it, and it comes as standard.

Live insight and reporting

Answers on demand instead of reports assembled by hand. Forward-looking signals rather than a retrospective at month end.

Agents that do the work

Routine tasks carried out inside Backbone the way your team would: chasing, checking, reconciling, drafting, escalating. With clear limits on what runs unsupervised, and a full audit trail.

Each layer rests on the one beneath it. Without the data store the rest is guesswork, which is why so many AI projects stall before they produce anything.

Stop collecting the data. Start using it.

Most

Of the system is already built, tested and running before your project starts.

Sooner

You are using something real early, rather than waiting for a build to complete.

One

Data model across your operation, which is what makes live insight possible.

Begin with an honest assessment, not a sales pitch.

A fixed-price diagnostic of your operation, your systems and where AI would actually pay off. You get a clear written picture of how your business runs and what we would recommend, including whether that recommendation is us.

If you decide to go ahead with an implementation, we credit the diagnostic fee against it. That way the assessment is worth having on its own terms, and you are not paying twice for the same thinking. Every engagement is scoped and priced on what it actually involves.

What the diagnostic covers

  1. How your organisation actually operates today
  2. Your current systems, and where they cost you time
  3. Where Backbone would fit, and where it would not
  4. What is realistically achievable with AI, and what is not
  5. A costed recommendation with a clear route forward
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