Background

Strategy and Technology Ltd (S&T) is a specialist software company building and implementing systems based on international open standards in digital TV. S&T is involved in the deployment of digital interactive TV around the world and provides technology solutions for broadcasters and network operators, TV manufacturers and authors and developers of interactive applications. The company was formed in 1996 and now has 25 employees working from Bristol, London, Denver in the US and in some cases from home.

Business Need

S&T’s 25 staff members are not only sparsely distributed across three offices and five home offices on two continents, they are also highly mobile. The company does business in both the US and the UK, and is soon to open a satellite office in Hong Kong. In addition, the sales and accounting functions are on different sites. S&T needed a business software solution that supported remote and mobile access and could handle multi-company and multicurrency transactions. From a technical perspective, as a software development house S&T runs multiple technical platforms including Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux. A truly cross-platform software solution was essential.

Solution

S&T investigated several different business software options and realised that only HansaWorld met its mobility requirements. “Nobody else at the scale we looked at did any kind of long-distance or mobile access,” says director Nick Birch, “but HansaWorld does it admirably.”

Results

S&T implemented HansaWorld in 2001 and has added functionality over time. As of mid-2007 they were using modules including accounting, stock management and virtual warehouse management, and the system was handling transactions in multiple currencies across three companies. The company was also evaluating the contracts module for managing its support contracts. Overall, says Birch, “HansaWorld has fulfilled its promise of keeping everything under one roof. We’ve not had to interface with any other management information systems, the remote access is excellent with low bandwidth requirements, and it works cross-platform. We’ve hosted HansaWorld on both Linux and Mac platforms without trouble.”

Birch says HansaWorld has successfully grown with the company: “Our only problem is finding the time to configure it best. We don’t have a full-time finance person on staff so our enhancements are project-based. As an engineer I find accounting thinking alien sometimes, but once you’re into the HansaWorld mindset it’s very easy to find your way around."