2019 is a year where our long-term relationships with clients have kept us extremely busy. With both parties enjoying the benefits. A key factor is our team of experienced developers and designers. We provide highly skilled teams that complement our clients’ needs. As a result, we respond quickly to new demands. Designing, developing and delivering unique applications. This year we’ve worked on many new developments for existing clients.
PwC
As part of a recent global survey (New world. New skills.), PwC studied the changing technological landscape. Their conclusion? Everyone should be able to live, learn, work and participate in the digital world. Jobs are changing, and fast. Many roles are disappearing, while new ones are springing up. The discrepancy between people’s skills and those needed in an increasingly digital world is one of the most critical problems of our time.
Over the next four years, PwC are therefore committing US$3bn to upskilling. They will primarily invest in training, and in technologies for supporting clients and communities.
Pulse – a long-term partnership with PwC
Pulse – is an award-winning application developed for PwC by BSL. It provides thousands of profiled news feeds that are automatically distributed every day, using thousands of news sources. Pulse is a global solution, used in more than 20 countries. Last year we developed new responsive interfaces so Pulse is available on any type of device (mobile, tablet and desktop).
As part of their effort to upskill and keep their consultants up-to-date, PwC invested in more development in 2019. During the first half of the year we upgraded the search technology at the heart of Pulse (Exalead). This brings major performance improvements. And we’ll add more intelligent search features in 2020.
Over the summer we started a new Pulse project, refactoring and improving Pulse backend interfaces and workflows. This gives more flexibility to the system managers, and makes it easier to use. At the same time, we’ve added some small interface tweaks for the end-user. The latest Pulse release was completed in September, and it should be in production before the end of the year. A great effort, involving a team of database designers/developers, Java developers, and Front-end web developers. This demonstrates a key benefit of long-term relationships with clients. We’ve delivered all the new features on time, and on budget.
NBD Biblion
We’ve had a long-term relationship with NBD Biblion for many years. NBD Biblion offers products, services and expertise in the field of media and content. They are the largest supplier of information and purchase advice for Public Libraries and (school) media centres in the Netherlands. They also supply many of the books available in libraries. For this reason, hundreds of new titles of books and other media arrive at NBD Biblion every week. Each title is then classified and reviewed by NBD editors and reviewers. As a result, they can provide up-to-date information about every newly published title.
BSL has been responsible for the development of two state-of-the-art web applications, launched in June this year.
LiteRom: Packed with reviews of literature going back to 1900, LiteRom provides a complete overview of author interviews, articles and reviews of Dutch (youth) literature and foreign literature. Ideal for library and media library visitors who want to find the right book. The LiteRom is an ideal source for teachers to prepare lessons.
Uittrekselbank: The Uittrekselbank offers a versatile overview of synopses/excerpts taken from Dutch and translated literature. Ideal for teachers who are looking for more background information about books and for students who are working on their reading lists, book reports or reviews.
Fully responsive, and supporting a wide range of authentication methods, these web applications are ideal examples of our work. We’ve had a dedicated team working with HTML/CSS/Javascript and PHP, creating new web-services, and integrating complex authentication protocols. Both sites are modern, fast, and easy-to-use.
Alongside this work, we’ve integrated several other NBD web applications with central authentication services. So simplifying the NBD Biblion network landscape. And our work even includes adapting web applications we did not originally develop. We’ve also integrated their MIPS and MOM systems (developed by BSL) with new third party content providers. And if all this wasn’t enough, our Java and Windows developers are currently working on a brand-new NBD Biblion application. More on this next year! But when complete, this software will offer a unique service in the library world.
WCC Website developments
WCC Group is an internationally successful provider of identity management and personnel matching solutions. To meet fast-growing demand for their services, WCC needs more personnel. In 2018 we developed a dedicated recruitment website, using Drupal, and integrated with an AFAS back-office. We built a similar solution for Keylane earlier this year, this time based on WordPress and the Workable recruitment backend.
WCC is a great example of client partnerships – even with new customers. As a result of our earlier work, we’ve delivered two more web developments during 2019. Firstly, a new corporate website, delivered in September. We’re currently supporting WCC with minor design changes, and helping them to add content. The site should go live early in the New Year.
Even before this project was completed, WCC asked us to rebuild their documentation portal. This is the portal that provides their clients with direct access to documentation for their software releases. Created using Drupal linked to Apache SOLR™, this development is also nearing completion. It’s a fairly complex development, due to the fine-grained access provided to customers (based on software products and versions), but also offering advanced full text search, and access to code snippets styled and formatted in accordance with the source language.
Looking for long-term support?
These are just a few examples of projects BSL has carried out on behalf of clients with whom BSL has long-term relationships. Uniquely in the IT sector, we maintain partnerships for many years. This of course says a great deal about our quality of service. And the faith BSL clients have in our expertise. We’ve delivered and developed software for some major clients for almost 20 years, including ABN AMRO, PwC, the KB and NBD Biblion.
We hope that you will be inspired to discuss your next project(s) with BSL. Find out what our highly specialised, dedicated designers and developers can do for your next project.
