Features from Meantime IT
Grow your business with good systems, and liberate your staff
As businesses grow, so the processes develop. Order forms are filled in triplicate and filed; spreadsheets keep track of customer details; bits of paper are moved from one tray to another in order to ensure that the customer’s order is taken, despatched and replacement stock ordered.
Skip the spec, blow the budget
Fenner Pearson, managing director of Meantime IT, explains why it's essential to know exactly what you're getting for your money when it comes to IT.
It looks good – but does it work?
Slick websites with media-rich features and glossy images may create a good first impression, but if the user can’t find what they want within a few clicks they’ll look elsewhere.
Designing a website? Consider your customers
Our use of the internet is now so engrained in our psyche it barely registers. We wander around with phone in hand following directions on Google maps, or take part in a six-way Twitter conversation about our new favourite album while we wait for a train. Our children learn to use the Peppa Pig iPad app before they take their first steps, and we stream music through our laptops while we cook the evening meal.
Snooze on IT and lose your customers
If you’re over 30, chances are you remember the first time email was introduced into the office. Until then the fax reigned king, and if you visited a friend with a fax machine in their home you knew they must be kind of a big deal. But then email came along, and teams of office workers gathered around a monitor the size of a microwave oven to marvel as the admin manager declared, "So you just hit send and... it’s gone! No need to print!"
10 years in IT
If a week is a long time in politics, ten years in IT should be measured in light years.
That’s how long Meantime’s been creating bespoke software for our clients, and plenty’s changed. This time last decade, Apple had just released the world’s thinnest desktop computer, the iMac G5. But at two inches thick, they weren’t really trying very hard because these days no serious Mac lover would be seen in public with anything over 5mm .
The 10 days of Christmas
Yes, yes, we know the song and and the books say 12, but it’s our tenth anniversary so we’re going with 10. It’s been a theme in our recent newsletter and features: you may remember the 10 things we’ve learnt about business, or our look back at 10 years of IT.
Website woes and how to avoid them
Marks and Spencer has spent a reported £150 million on its new website. For that, as our developer Jack declared, you’d expect the store’s poster girl Myleene Klass to be delivering your orders by hand. But not only does Ms Klass not bring you your socks and sweaters, customers are complaining that the website doesn’t deliver on the most basic of functions.
10 things we’ve learnt about business
When we started operating 10 years ago we had little more than a laptop and a phone line. We did, however, have a plan. We’d become weary of seeing IT being done badly and we committed to prove that it could be done on time, on spec and on budget. We’re incredibly proud to say that we’ve achieved all those things.
Time for a refreshing change
When the nights become longer and weather becomes warmer, thoughts turn to tending the garden, cleaning the house of its winter gloom and getting everything ready for the sun’s glare. With the fresh air comes a natural instinct to freshen up our lives, and our IT systems shouldn’t be left out of the clean-up operation.
Appy new year
Back in 2012 we told you about a new mobile management system we created for a local authority. In the months since, we’ve gone all out when it comes to mobile, focussing heavily on responsive design as well as really ramping up our work on mobile apps.
Responding to future needs now
At Meantime we make it our mission to know about new advances in technology. We read the trade magazines, specialist press and blogs and we go to conferences and exhibitions. Our water-cooler office chat isn't Breaking Bad or X-Factor, it's the hot gossip about the latest server security update. Sad but true.
You have mail - but can you read it?
Although Microsoft's Outlook may be dominant in offices, it’s by no means the standard email client. Ways of accessing mail are ever-expanding, with webmail, cloud services, companies with their own bespoke systems and apps such as the new Mailbox mobile system for iPhone and iPad.
Cloud computing – much more than just pie in the sky
The days of physical hard-drives containing all your data are numbered. With so many mediums used to access information, most of them mobile, accessing data from a single physical source or via a wired network is becoming an increasingly unrealistic option.
Exploding the myths
If you’re going to spend money on IT, chances are you’re shelling out a significant sum, and with every penny counting now more than ever it’s important to make sure you get it right first time.
Time for change
It’s time to look at your business systems and ensure they can keep pace with technology. Fenner Pearson, managing director of Meantime IT, explains how.
How accessible is your website?
If you have visitors to your business – whether it’s a retail operation or simply an office that clients visit - chances are you’ve made it as simple as possible for the people you do business with to get to you...
E-commerce special – the basics explained
Enhance your business with internet retailing
In the age of the internet, everyone’s a publisher. Anyone with a laptop and internet connection can set up a blog with the potential to reach millions of people, but despite the availability of the medium, the majority of the blogs in cyberspace will go unnoticed. Unless the blogger is able to provide content that the big sites don’t have access to, or has a unique flair or style of writing that can’t be found elsewhere, they won’t be enticing visitors away from the BBC’s or Guardian’s websites.
