Professional Website Design and Development
Kane Koval Associates is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based
team of Information Technology consultants specializing
in the design and development of database-driven
high-performance websites and
mission-critical information management systems. We
provide high-quality, business-class software developed
by a select group of highly-
experienced, senior-level engineers.
We take pride in building intuitive and
performant software solutions that address
each of our clients' unique information
technology needs – from the simplest to the
most sophisticated and complex website,
application integration, and business process
automation projects.
We've been serving all of Southeastern
Michigan (Detroit, Southfield, Livonia, Ann
Arbor, et al.) since 1996, and we recently
began serving clients in both the Greater
Chicago, Illinois and Toledo, Ohio areas as
well. We're proud to have Microsoft® and
Oracle® Certified Professionals on staff.
Note:
Custom Software Development
KKA has extensive experience in website design and development,
business process automation (BPO), enterprise application integration (EAI), custom software development, and
database design, development, and performance optimization. The value we provide to our
clients has more to do with our highly-skilled software engineers than
experience in any specific industry, but that said, we do have
significant experience in the energy, retail, and construction verticals.
We take a holistic approach to custom software development
because just as no business is an island, no software application is
an island – or at least shouldn’t be. Undertaking any software
development project without a thorough understanding of an
organization's entire information management structure, its business
objectives, and the business itself will invariably reduce the
application's useful
lifetime and increase its total cost of ownership.
Large or small, all successful software and website development
projects have one thing in common: there
were talented, experienced engineers behind
each of them; naturally, the converse is also
true. The reality is there are not
enough truly experienced and
engineers to go around; consequently, finding
even one is exceedingly difficult. We know
from first-hand experience – it has
taken us
to build our software and website development teams.
Ultimately, it boils down to this: great work
is the by-product of great talent; start with
less than that and the results will be,
invariably, less than satisfying.
Note:
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Application Integration
In an effort to automate their workflows and business
processes, many companies look to new software applications
for salvation. For larger companies, enterprise-wide systems
promise true end-to-end process automation by integrating
all aspects of a business from sales and accounting to
inventory management and shipping. In addition, these
systems can be extremely flexible, usually giving companies
the ability to uniquely customize the solution to their
particular needs and business processes.
Unfortunately, implementing a new ERP, MRP, or CRM system
is a very costly and often overwhelming project even for
large, well-established companies with considerable
financial resources; for lesser companies, a poorly
managed implementation can – and very often does – lead to
significant trouble. Customization of these systems comes
at a very high price as well.
For companies without the resources to even consider an
enterprise-wide solution, the obvious alternative is to
purchase separate, function-specific software programs
for sales, order processing, accounting, etc. The good
news here is that at the very least this approach provides
each individual department within the company the benefits
that their particular application has to offer (e.g.,
common task automation, centralized data, ease of retrieval,
information sharing
amongst department employees, etc.), and gains in departmental
efficiency and productivity ultimately benefit the company as a whole.
The primary problem with function-specific software,
however, is precisely what ERP systems were designed
to address: information on departmental 'islands',
effectively cut-off from the rest of the company.
For companies in this situation, almost invariably
the same customer information (to use one example)
is being keyed into several different function-specific
applications in different departments and by different
people, resulting in duplicated effort and an increased
likelihood of error.
We suspect that, if your business is like most other
small- and medium-sized businesses, it's unlikely you
can afford or necessarily even need an enterprise-wide
software system. It's very likely, however, that you have
two or three software applications that, if integrated,
would streamline your business and reduce your costs
significantly.
Before you buy yet another software product in an effort
to achieve automation enlightenment, contact us to find out
how we can help you get the most out of the systems you
already have in place.
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Database Design and Database Development
A properly designed database will maximize data integrity,
speed data retrieval, simplify
ad-hoc querying and reporting,
and provide years of responsive, reliable service.
Database design is as much an art as it is a science,
and – as with any development project – should only be
undertaken with not only a thorough understanding of
the objectives for the database itself, but also with a
complete understanding of the business and its existing
information management infrastructure.
If you and your staff are working with a website
or application built on an improperly designed
database, you're no doubt struggling with
application performance and/or data integrity
issues. Remember also that a poorly tuned
database – even if properly designed – can
exhibit some of the same
symptoms of a poorly designed one:
lengthy query response and data update times, including
the increased likelihood of 'timeout' errors.
Beyond performance and integrity issues related to poor
design, however, is the critical issue of data security.
However unfortunate, poorly designed systems are highly
vulnerable to security threats – internal, and depending
upon the security of your IT infrastructure overall,
quite possibly external as well. And while the costs of
dealing with performance and integrity issues on a
day-to-day basis are not always easy to quantify (they
of course negatively affect your bottom line nonetheless),
an insecure database that is subsequently compromised
could threaten your business itself.
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Contact Us
If you're in the market for an honest and reliable software or website development partner,
we'd love to discuss your needs with you. If you'd like to submit a
project brief, please send it as an attachment (no more than one
page, please) via e-mail to info@kanekoval.com. In your brief, please be sure to include
the amount you've budgeted for software
development.
Our offices are located at 610 Phoenix Drive,
Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Our office phone is
(734) 502-3210, and our business hours are
M-F, 10-6 Eastern time. If we don't answer when you
call, we're either in a design meeting or immersed in
code – please leave a message and we'll get right
back to you. If you'd like to send us a fax, our fax
number is (734) 956-9766.
Please note: We do not answer RFP's.
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