Tags: Content Management

SynApps’ Top Five Tips For Project Success

29 February 2016 – the head of professional services for ECM leader SynApps Solutions’ James Paton outlines five things he always insists on from his team when they go out to work with any customer.

Proper Project Analysis

Scoping is about confirming what your expectations are as our new customer. We need to probe and really find out what areas of risk there might be that you might not have thought about. We also need to give you options for possible amelioration of these issues, if we find any.

The Right Approach

We are flexible and multi-skilled and never apply one way of working to all our work, so for some things traditional waterfall is best, for others it’s Agile. Central to picking the method is working with you to understand what you’re comfortable with. Once we have defined our methodology, the next element is what the costs are of doing a particular project.

Putting It All In The Best Way

Then it comes to delivery, the biggest factor is having experienced people. We’ve got that – staff with many years’ experience in enterprise content management and ECM heavy-lifting. Plus, our resources are all UK-based, so we can respond to clients instantly.

A Real Partnership

We take a partner approach with our clients. If there is something problematic we need you to be aware of, we insist on telling you straight.

Avoiding The Curse Of The Creeps

Project creep? Horrible – and, perhaps contrary to expectations, it’s not good for your implementation partner if it drags on, because that means we can’t redeploy our people to another engagement. So we both need to define what the finish line is – and what delivery really means.

That’s it – following these five things will deliver the results any client of ours deserves in project success.

Read James’s full blog post for yourself here

SynApps Creates New Joint CEO Leadership Team To Spearhead Next Phase Of Growth

Mark Winstone and James Paton will work together to take the content management leader forward from July

Maidenhead, UK, 8 July, 2015 – Content management leader SynApps Solutions has today announced that Mark Winstone and James Paton, currently Sales & Marketing Director and Customer Services Director respectively, are to forge a new partnership as joint Chief Executives of the growing UK software firm.

Winstone and Paton will assume their new leadership roles later this month – succeeding company co-founder and past CEO Jim Whitelaw, who will retire at the end of 2015 but who will take up, in the interim, a special role as Associate to provide advice, guidance and support to the new management team during a short transition phase.

The Maidenhead-based firm, which employs 35 people, has been a content management leader for some years, since its formation at the start of the Millennium by former UK EMC Documentum senior executives.

The firm has built a strong base for leading-edge content management solutions based on technology from leaders like EMC and Alfresco, but has recently expanded into the growing Health IT space in the form of a dedicated Healthcare Practice in response to the strong demand for its services in that market; in the past six months alone, four major English NHS Trusts have committed to work with SynApps.

“I am honoured to have been elected as SynApps Joint CEO,” commented Winstone. “It is a privilege to run an organisation that delivers high quality services and innovative solutions to clients,” he added.

“I share the sense of honour, and look forward to making a positive and meaningful impact for SynApps customers,” added his leadership colleague Paton.

The new leadership appointments coincide with the company’s decision to move away from the Director titles and embrace a more internationally-standardised CxO nomenclature.

A great next phase

“I can think of no team better to lead us into the next phase of our expansion,” Whitelaw said. “Mark’s experience as Director of Sales and Marketing here for 11 years, combined with his 25-year career spanning managerial roles at EMC and Cimage and other content management specialists make him a great executive, while James’s track record of success as Customer Services Director for 7 years combined with his years delivering transformational enterprise content management solutions at firms like EMC makes him another fantastic appointment to the top table.”

Further management strengthening is expected at the firm, given its solid pipeline and burgeoning opportunities in markets like the NHS.

About SynApps

SynApps is an independent services and solutions company specialising in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies. Founded in 2003 by former Documentum services professionals, the company provides consultancy, implementation and support services for EMC Documentum, and has authored a suite of content integration solutions, ConXApps, that allow businesses to quickly maximise their investment in ECM technologies. Organisations across healthcare, government and commercial markets rely on SynApps solutions and services to capture and share knowledge more dynamically and efficiently.

Find out more at synapps-solutions.com, or follow the firm on Twitter @Synappssol