Solidsoft Ltd - Approach

	Retail and Wholesale Computacenter Reduces Business-to-Business Order Processing by up to 40% with Solidsoft. Computacenter, one of the largest IT infrastructure service providers in Europe, wanted to streamline its supply chain management by encouraging more suppliers to accept orders online. Computacenter chose Solidsoft to design and implement an order processing system using Microsoft ASP.NET and IIS, with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 as the integration tool and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as the database. As a result, many systems within Computacenter have been integrated with its suppliers with BizTalk Server as the electronic hub. Computacenter has cut the number of orders previously handled manually by up to 40% and minimised the risk of errors in working with small and medium-sized suppliers. To read the full case study click HERE

	Government and Public Sector Liverpool City Council’s Revenues and Benefits department is using Solidsoft's AIM solution with the new GC Register and the Government Gateway to improve internal efficiencies and resident services. Now citizens have more control over their own accounts. They can view their online balance, payments and eligibility for discounts or benefits securely, whenever and from wherever they want. Benefits for the department include reduced calls to the contact centre and less customers visiting the one stop shops, allowing internal resources to be utilised more effectively. Revenues and Benefits is the first department to go live with online services protected by the AIM software, but the council’s IT department expects other departments providing citizen facing services to soon follow. The authentication method used by Liverpool City Council to ensure the security of citizen’s data is enabled by AIM, an out-of-the-box software authentication system, which provides connectivity to the Government Gateway. This AIM-based online service model can be re-deployed by other departments within the Council, and re-used by other authorities. To find out more about AIM click HERE or use our Contact us page. To watch an interview with Liverpool City Council on the benefits it has received click HERE

	Government and Public Sector The Shared Learning Group (SLG) is a collaboration of ten local authorities that develops innovative ways in which local government ICT can make a difference. The group currently runs a number of work streams aimed at making a difference in its chosen area. This information sheet relates to one such work stream: integration. The purpose of the integration work stream is to investigate the feasibility of integrating commonly used public sector systems and services utilising the Microsoft BizTalk integration architecture. The work stream aims to show how a common set of business processes could be implemented within one local authority and then scaled in a simple and effective manner to all members of the SLG, in so doing proving that the solution could scale to a broader audience. With this aim in mind the first project within the work stream was set up to deliver integration between a local land and property gazetteer (LLPG) and a customer relationship management system (CRM). Click HERE to read the full case study.

	Technology Driving greater efficiencies at Lockheed Martin with Solidsoft. Despite Lockheed Martin UK's Merlin Support and Spares Availability system being highly successful the company wanted to extract even greater efficiencies from it, by automating more of its business processes and integrating it with existing government systems. Using BizTalk Server 2004, Solidsoft rapidly designed, developed and implemented solutions for three core business processes, which resulted in significant savings. At the same time Solidsoft was able to transfer its knowledge so that Lockheed Martin could continue to automate over 45 more business processes.

	Retail and Wholesale House of Fraser aims to halve cost of managing electronic supplier collaboration. "By eliminating the configuration required for adding new suppliers on our existing proprietary EDI systems, we expect to achieve significant savings" Andrew Bond, Development Services Manager, House of Fraser. House of Fraser chose Solidsoft as its strategic partner to provide consultancy services to design and develop the supply chain solution in conjunction with its own internal development team.

	Public Sector Kent County Council transforms its Services for Citizens. Kent County Council (KCC) is one of the top 5 performing authorities in the UK. To maintain its position and meet the e-Government targets set for all local authorities in providing its citizens with on-line access to its services, it needed to have all applicable services electronically enabled by the end of 2006. In addition, KCC had to meet the Priority Services Outcomes (PSOs) set by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which defined the standards for the services that had to be delivered. Click HERE to read the full case study.

	Government and Public Sector Accelerating license and permit applications at Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council. Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council had already embraced national e-Government initiatives and started introducing cost effective services for improving efficiency and the services it offers its customers. With the responsibility for issuing almost 130 different licenses and permissions which had grown haphazardly, it recognised that significant benefits could be gained from automating and streamlining the processes involved. Working with Microsoft and Solidsoft it is implementing an integration and workflow solution that will lower costs dramatically while improving the service for its customers.

	Utility Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) Automated retail order management system for selling electrical goods, built using a powerful combination of .NET Framework and BizTalk Server 2002. The solution integrates SSE's diverse legacy back end systems, whilst at the same time enabling SSE to handle more orders for white and brown goods and provide an improved quality of service to the customer. This case study was published in June 2003.

	Retail and Wholesale Securicor Solidsoft has created an EAI solution based on BizTalk Server 2002 for Securicor . This solution links branch based systems at over 70 locations to a head office system. A full case study was released by Microsoft in July 2003 which can be viewed here.

	Government and Public Sector The Government Gateway... ...is the biggest single BizTalk Server implementation for Microsoft. Solidsoft plays the primary role in the Gateway's ongoing development as the main Microsoft partner engaged by the Microsoft Solution Development Centre based at Thames Valley Park, Reading. Follow this link to the Government Gateway Site to find out more.

	Financial Services Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance Firstcheck is a B2B web service that provides online credit references, the development of which required EAI. Developed using BizTalk Server 2000, Solidsoft led the design, development and testing efforts. (Microsoft's case study of the qtr). See also report in Computing from 2001.

	Retail and Wholesale Marks and Spencer (M&S) As part of the ongoing evolution of their HR and staffing systems, M&S is working with Solidsoft on a proof of concept that would link its head office based PeopleSoft HR system with its stores based HR and staffing system (previously developed by Solidsoft - see Company history).

	Media Express Newspapers Fully bespoke XML based content management system. Since the takeover of Express by Northern and Shell, this system is no longer in use, but a full case study was released by Microsoft.

Case studies