Software Application Support and Maintenance

Dunstan Thomas has provided outsourcing services for software support and maintenance since 1986. With ever decreasing ICT budgets and legacy technology becoming harder to support internally, outsourcing has become the cost effective method of supporting internal applications.

Why Outsource Software Maintenance?

Despite the risk that will arise over time, many businesses have justification for keeping a legacy software system, such as:

• Cost and ROI – re-writing a system in newer technology is not cheap
• "If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it" - the software is doing the job and replacement cannot be justified
• Stability – the software has become stable and works well

Outsourcing your software support can have the following key benefits:

• Reduce total cost of software support and increase product lifetime
• Free internal resources to work on new software development
• Avoid internal resource being trapped on legacy technologies
• Ensure rapid turnaround for issues and changes under defined SLA’s

Dunstan Thomas Software Support Service

Dunstan Thomas conducts its support operation from our offices in Portsmouth, UK with remote connections to customer’s sites. We also have a fully comprehensive support infrastructure that can be tailored to our customer’s specific requirements ensuring that our development teams replicate the target environment as closely as possible.

Our services range from standard 3rd Party Software Support to full 24x7 Helpdesk facilities, operated on behalf of our clients covering business critical systems.

We also work with our Western European near shore development partner in Malta to resource projects thereby ensuring that we are able to offer an extremely competitively prices service to our customers without the cultural issues associated with offshoring software.

With the benefit of our expertise in Software Testing we are also able to implement Automated Testing which will dramatically reduce the risk and cost associated with service releases or roadmap releases containing new functionality. You are provided with the guarantee that software deployed has been through a full end to end regression test whether it contains new functionality or a minor bug fix.

Transition

Dunstan Thomas understand that the process of outsourcing software applications can be complex and work with our Clients during the transitional period to ensure an effective knowledge transfer, generally involving a period of on-site deployment to gather the appropriate level of product knowledge. We are also sensitive to the HR issues that can be present during transition and our consultants always act in a professional, empathetic manner whist working on Client sites.

Legacy Software Support Roadmaps

We have extensive experience with ensuring legacy software systems are migrated to later version of software platform, operating system and database and are able to offer an insurance policy within agreements to maintain a technology roadmap and avoid 3rd party software support issues. Legacy software often requires enhancements to cover change requirements or legislative changes which we also cover under our Software Support Roadmaps.

Delphi Application Support

As Delphi specialists and partners with Embarcadero, Dunstan Thomas provides expertise in supporting Delphi applications across all versions.

Commercial Flexibility

Dunstan Thomas are able to provide a flexible support arrangement including T&M, Fixed Price or Call Off to ensure that the most cost effective commercial structure is put in place and we are able to perform to our customer’s unique Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements.

Our Software Support Service Differentiators

Technology: We have an in depth knowledge of a wide range of development platforms as displayed below:

ALM: Dunstan Thomas are experts in Applications Lifecycle Management Products and best practice and these skills are brought to bear on out Support Services to ensure a robust and reliable process. We can also reduce risk and cost by implementing an Automated Testing strategy on supported systems.

Communication: We deploy an online customised SharePoint portal for each customer for issue management and reporting. This platform was developed for our established support service for our market leading Imago pensions product suite. Issues can be raised, prioritised, tracked and reported online. In addition, SharePoint’s knowledge management features allow us to build a comprehensive library of product information organically generated from on-going activity.

Resource: As brokers for software near-shoring with our Partner development centre based in Malta, we are also able to offer a team comprised of local expert resource with a fully managed offshore operation providing excellent value for money without time zone and language issues.

Our Software Maintenance Clients

Clients we work with include:

Dunstan Thomas also provides Custom Software Development Services as well as training services and Software Process Healthchecks. Feel free to Contact Us by e-mail or telephone 023 9282 2254 to discuss your requirements.