Think first, build second

We make our money building software - which is exactly why our consulting will tell you when a project makes no sense. Often an existing tool, a properly configured integration or a changed order of steps solves the problem you are currently asking us to build custom software for.

If custom development is the right answer, we say that too - including the follow-on costs software brings with it: operation, updates, support, further development. A recommendation without that second half is only half the truth.

Your technology choice determines for years how fast changes happen, what operation costs and how easily you find someone able to carry the work on. That last point has a geographic side: if you need someone around Schaffhausen to maintain and extend a system, mainstream technology gives you a far larger pool than a niche framework whose specialists sit in another time zone. We assess your options against those questions, not against what happens to be popular among developers right now.

That includes a sober look at dependencies: how do you get out of a platform again, who owns your data, what happens when a vendor changes its pricing or discontinues a product? We write down where you are locking yourself in and how expensive leaving would be later.

In an audit we look at who has access to what, how passwords and keys are managed, how old your dependencies are, how login and permissions work, and whether your backups have ever actually been restored. A backup that was never tested is not a backup.

On top of that comes the data protection view: which personal data sits where, who can see it, how long it is kept and whether that fits the revised Swiss Data Protection Act (revDSG) and the GDPR. You get the findings sorted by urgency - with a clear difference between "this week" and "some day".

When a business grows, it rarely grows evenly - usually one specific point starts to creak: the database, a manual step in between, an integration that queries once per request. We look for that bottleneck instead of recommending "more servers" across the board.

The opposite case deserves the same honesty: some of the systems we get to see are sized for a multiple of their actual load and quietly cost money every month. We will tell you that as well.