By partnering with Attenda it has not only achieved this but it has freed up limited internal resources to focus on further development of Staffcare.

With flexibility, online access and Human Resources (HR) self-service, Staffcare is the most advanced employee benefit communication and administration solution available. Through on-demand access to personal details, employees can keep up to date with information on normal benefits such as pay, car allowances, bonus scheme, stock options and pension contributions. They can also view specialist financial data, for example details of pension fund performance. In addition they can keep details of their own financial portfolio, such as investments and mortgages, so that they have a complete picture of their financial position.

A cost effective and convenient solution for HR departments, Staffcare is sold directly to organisations and used by both HR and employees. It is also licensed as a technology platform to independent financial advisers and employee benefit consultancies. In this way, Staffcare enables effective communication with employees and easy corporate administration of flexible benefit schemes.

As a fully managed solution Staffcare can be securely accessed via a corporate intranet or directly over the internet. "We recognised the benefits of software as a service (SaaS) for our clients. This model is great for HR departments" said Phil Hollingdale, Chief Executive Officer of Staffcare. "They get an application that reduces the time and cost of administering benefits and helps to retain staff yet they do not have to worry about managing, operating and upgrading an IT infrastructure".

Staffcare is provided as a service rather than the more traditional software licence that would need to be deployed within a client’s premises. This avoids the need for proof of concept and the lengthy sales cycles associated with a major capital purchase. It also means that Staffcare does not get involved in helping the client’s IT team solve internal issues that are incorrectly diagnosed as issues with the application. An additional benefit is a regular monthly income instead of unpredictable one-off licence sales. However, because this business model relies on recurring licence fees from satisfied customers, service level delivery is critical.

Initially Staffcare was managing the application through a shared hosting arrangement. "With our focus on growth it became clear that we needed to enhance our hosting facilities" said Phil Hollingdale. "When thousands of employees log-on to see their monthly pay slip or to manage their benefits it is essential they get fast access to data in the most secure environment. At the same time we wanted to free ourselves up from operational responsibility and concentrate on developing the business."

The challenge was how to rapidly expand capacity to meet the growing demand for Staffcare; ensure complete resilience with an increasing load and meet the stringent security requirements of large businesses.

After extensive research of the market Attenda was chosen to provide a managed service for Staffcare in June 2005. Working in collaboration with Staffcare, Attenda helped to design the architecture of the 24/7 hosting environment. With availability and capacity as key requirements, this has no single points of failure and has enough capacity should one part of the infrastructure fail.

As part of its rigorous operations experience and ITIL-based methodology, Attenda established appropriate change management processes. These ensure a consistent and agreed approach to new software releases and a position to fall back to if any issues should arise.

Migration from the previous supplier began in late 2005. Staffcare’s service level agreements (SLA) with its customers are based on Attenda’s SLAs with Staffcare.

"It was important to us that Attenda had previously supported financial institutions, understood the SaaS business model and had experience managing and delivering applications for other software providers" continued Phil Hollingdale. "Easy scalability was another factor; we have the scope to grow over the three year contract without paying for extra capacity up front."

Attenda’s streamlined service delivery engine, the Attenda M.O. platform, blends industry best practices and proven technological tools with highly skilled and motivated experts to deliver the highest quality managed service at an affordable price.

"We know that our clients are receiving consistent and reliable service availability, with 24 hour monitoring and the best security checks possible" said Phil Hollingdale. "When large or demanding clients ask for extra reassurance about security and back up, we can show that we have thought of every contingency. In fact Attenda helps by providing customers with the finest details about our environment."

"Attenda is now part of our sales process, giving technical assistance when necessary. This means that we have strong technical credibility; it is very easy for us to demonstrate Staffcare to prospects and implement the application for new clients. This has reduced the length and complexity of our sales cycle, there’s less need to prove the capability of our software."

Through its partnership with Attenda, Staffcare has a sustainable revenue model, which allows the company to predict year on year revenue and growth.

With the IT certainty that Attenda provides, Staffcare has freed up internal resources. The team can now focus on developing, differentiating and marketing its application to meet the business objectives of clients even more closely.

"Our clients get a total solution with no associated costs and responsibilities and we do not have to concern ourselves about providing support, implementing upgrades or managing multiple platforms" commented Tom Webb, Implementation Manager. "We do not get involved in any server related IT issues that clients may face. Apart from running a pro-active monitoring regime Attenda has a 24 x 365 service desk to respond to all calls. We raise any issues and Attenda responds very quickly"