The person who understands your business is the person who builds it.
Not a business analyst relaying requirements to a developer who has never met you. The people configuring and building your system sit inside your business while they do it, and a senior engineer reviews everything before it reaches you.
Everything got lost in translation, and every change was a round trip.
The old model put a business analyst in the room to write requirements, then handed them to a developer who had never met you. Nothing said in that room survived the handover intact, so every misunderstanding turned into another meeting, another document, another wait. The fix was never a better template for the requirements document. It was removing the handover.
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.
Three roles turn up, not one contractor and not a rotating cast. Each has a distinct job, and none of them is optional.
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.
The review gate is a gate, not a formality.
Writing working software got faster. Knowing whether it should exist in that shape did not, and that judgement does not get faster just because the typing does. So a reviewing engineer looks at every change before it reaches your system: whether it fits the architecture, whether it will still make sense once three other clients have asked for something similar, and whether it quietly breaks something nobody tested. That review is why your implementation consultant can move quickly without you inheriting the risk of moving quickly. It is also, honestly, the part of the work senior time is spent on, rather than on the typing itself.
Where your differences live.
Backbone is not a single fixed shape. There are defined places built for your business to differ from every other client on the same core, without your instance drifting out of reach of the next platform improvement.
| Seam | What it lets you change without losing upgradeability |
|---|---|
| Data model extension | Add the fields and entities specific to your business, sitting alongside the core schema rather than inside it. |
| Workflow and rules | Set the approval steps, thresholds and routing that match how your business actually runs. |
| UI composition | Rearrange, hide or add the screens and fields your teams see, without touching the underlying platform code. |
| Integration adapters | Connect the other systems only you use, through a boundary that keeps the core untouched. |
| Reporting and semantics | Define what a term means for your business, without changing what it means for anyone else on Backbone. |
Your improvement reaches everyone, not just your instance.
When something we build for you turns out to matter to your whole sector, we do not bolt it onto your instance and leave it there. It goes into core Backbone instead, behind the same review gate as everything else. That means the fix is available to you as a platform upgrade rather than a piece of custom code only you maintain, and it means every other client in your sector gets it too. You stay on current Backbone throughout, so none of this requires you to run a project of your own to receive it.
Questions we get asked
What happens if we need something the platform does not do?
It gets built through one of the extension seams: a field, a rule, a screen, an integration, or a reporting definition specific to you. If it turns out to be something your whole sector needs, we propose it for core Backbone instead, so it benefits everyone rather than sitting as a one-off against your instance.
Who signs off on changes?
A reviewing engineer, on every change, before it reaches your system. That review covers architecture, code and the consequences of the change beyond the immediate request. Nothing skips it, regardless of how small the change looks.
When you improve the platform, do we have to upgrade?
No separate upgrade project. You stay on current Backbone, so improvements made for your sector reach you as part of the platform you are already running, rather than as work you have to commission and schedule yourself.