Our Methodology and Consulting Philosophy

Statement

The BMA Group is a firm of business consultants with the technical expertise to provide an end-to-end solution that will meet your business objectives. Our consulting advice can go beyond application design and implementation to assisting our clients to improve associated management practices and business processes.

We work to ensure that our solutions deliver maximum business value. To do this it is vital that the final solution be delivered in a way that ensures user self-sufficiency with the application. This means that you should not need to call upon us, or your technical, IT staff, for normal application maintenance.

BMA's philosophy with each project is to transfer knowledge as an integral part of the project implementation. Client staff can become part of the project team - learning as they contribute to project outcomes. This approach reduces costs for on-going maintenance because our clients can do more themselves. Plus, you take ownership of the solution from the start.

We have adopted this philosophy because we know of far too many situations in which consulting companies bill their customers too heavily. We seek a balance - plenty of consulting, but not too much - that results in satisfied, knowledgeable customers who know that when we advocate new services or projects, we do so to provide maximum value.

While our "knowledge transfer" approach is preferred for reasons outlined below, some companies prefer that BMA takes full responsibility for project results. Often this is because, the client doesn't have the resources to take an active role in the development of an initial solution. In these situations, we have the resources to provide a turnkey solution.

However, we strongly advocate customer involvement in every aspect of the design and implementation. Ideally, a client should dedicate at least one person to the project with some or all of the following skills:

• Knowledge of and commitment to the business objectives that justify the project

• Subject matter knowledge or experience

• Excel expertise

As the implementation progresses, we strive to make you progressively more independent (if you support this approach). We start by drawing out the implications of moving to the type of technology that underlies our applications. This is to create an understanding of the much wider possibilities opened up by adopting the technology. This is particularly important so that the application design is not limited by prior beliefs about what is possible.

After the design stage, we teach you more of the basics of the software tool that supports the application, and any other skills required to take full advantage of it. These skills will improve during the implementation process because we teach you special techniques, and how to overcome unusual challenges that invariably arise.

The best way to become self-sufficient is to be responsible for as many tasks as possible during the project. Therefore our customers are assigned tasks, and involved in all aspects of the design and implementation, either directly, or indirectly. If involved indirectly, we explain what was done, why and how to do it and support it.