Report Writing and Auditing

Our experience and understanding of IT, business and publishing enables us to provide support and technical backup in a wide range of client sectors and technical contexts. Often this means programming and systems support, but sometimes the client's need is for a written report, assessment or specification document. Here are some examples of our work in this area:

The New Economics Foundation, or NEF, are a voluntary-sector organisation which exists to promote and facilitate the "New Economy", an umbrella term describing all kinds of social and environmental economic activity from ethical investment and credit unions to community working and LETS schemes.

NEF needed a website to publicise their work, but had no in-house expertise in web technology or design. They needed our help to find out what could be done, how to do it, and how much it would cost. We worked with them to decide how to organise the site, what the content should be, and how it might be produced. We also helped them plan for updates, and for a practical response mechanism which ensured that email responses to the website were dealt with promptly and effectively.

The end result was a complete site specification document, which they then used in a tendering process.

British Midland's Marketing department approached us to write a report on their website, with a view to recommending specific aesthetic improvements, and to contribute to their strategic development plan. They wanted better control of information on their site, and better service from their web sub-contractors, but did not have the in-house skills to achieve this.

As well as a review of the company's own site, the report also included a comprehensive analysis of how competitors were using the web to promote and to sell bookings, and compared the workings of different online bookings systems.

The report allowed British Midland to plan a medium-term web development strategy, part of which was the recruitment of a web designer to work in-house. We were also invited to act as consultants for that recruitment, providing technical input for the job description and at the interview stage.

PJB Publications are a scientific publisher specialising in the agricultural, veterinary and medical sectors. They asked us to compile a report on how the internet was being used in the marketing of farm inputs, and they were so pleased with the results that they asked us to write a similar report for their journal on animal health.