More Than the Sum of its Parts

Isn’t it nice when the outcome of a joint endeavour turns out to be more than the sum of its parts? 

IT is a sector that never stays still, old technologies become obsolete and new ones emerge to replace them. It is not a field in which one can be complacent and choose to live off pre-existing skills and knowledge. Staying on your toes, keeping constantly informed on where the industry is going, continuously updating your knowledge and training yourself to keep your skillset up to date are vital traits of anybody who wants to be part of the industry. 

As IT professionals, Solidsoft Reply staff each have their own field(s) of expertise, are highly skilled and keep their industry knowledge fresh, so they are ready to jump in as new projects start. Even so, sometimes, when a project in a new field comes along, it pays to call in IT professionals from other companies to share the burden (and the success). That’s when being part of a larger entity helps. Pay attention to the company’s name: Solidsoft Reply. The “Reply” bit means that Solidsoft can call in expertise from all other companies within the Reply group as needed.  

Why would Solidsoft Reply need to call in people from other Reply Group companies though? After all, Solidsoft Reply people are highly skilled IT professionals, yearning to jump on new projects and ventures. Well, that’s true, they are. If you want health or pharma solutions on the Microsoft Azure platform, they are hard to beat, arguably the best in the world for national medicines verification systems.  

What happens if a project comes along that requires some subject matter expertise outside pharma and health, though? You have most of the required technical skills and just need to close some gaps with specific project expertise. There are two ways to deal with this situation: 

1. Train the people with related skillsets to close any existing gaps 
2. Call in experts from other Reply companies and work together 

Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.  

Training your own people means that you will gain the expertise for future endeavours in the new field, but there is the overhead of finding the right courses or training material, and the time that it takes people to learn the skills they need on top of the ones they already have. There may not be time to do gap-closing learning before a project is due to start. 

Calling in experts from other Reply companies who can cover the gaps means that the project can start right away and your people will learn the new skills on the job, while delivering for the customer, but it requires clear definition of who is responsible for which elements of the project and alignment of potentially slightly different work cultures – although fortunately working within the Reply Group means that the fundamental principles of project delivery and working practices, and expected quality levels, are shared. 

Solidsoft Reply found itself in exactly the situation described above in 2024. The company decided to dip its toes outside of its comfort zone of health and pharma and try its hand at an integration project for the publishing industry, of which it had limited experience. Enter Cluster Reply (now known as Valorem Reply) , experts in integration. 

Solidsoft Reply and Valorem Reply joined forces to allow the project to start without delay and deliver the solution to the customer within the required timelines.  

Did the joint project work out as expected? Why, yes, it did.  

Seated at the table (clockwise from front left) : Abhishek Verma, Phil Cullum, Beckham Tuplin, Gabriel Yang from Valorem Reply, alongside Federica Massagrande and Nanditha Kartik from Solidsoft Reply.

Let me elaborate… 

The skills required to deliver the project were identified and the roles defined, then professionals with the required skills were sourced from the two companies, Solidsoft Reply and Valorem Reply, and the team was put together. Putting a team together is, of course, only the first steps of delivering a successful project. There are other very important elements that need to be in place for a project delivered by a joint team to reach the finishing line. Let’s look at them: 

• Management support fostering a strong collaboration culture. The management’s attitude trickles down to the team members. If the managers of the two companies do not trust each other neither will the team member and the project will not succeed. Within the Reply Group all companies are individually unique, but they all share the same sets of values and attitudes, which iron out the obstacles to collaboration between the companies. 

• Mutual respect among team members. Regardless of which company a team member belongs to, they all know that the other people in the project are skilled professionals who have met the expectations and requirements for working within the Reply Group. This knowledge underpins the trusts that team members have for each other. 

• Learning from each other. With mutual trust and respect also comes the understanding that other team members have been selected for their specific skills and knowledge. Cross-Reply teams are the perfect breeding ground for knowledge transfer and exchange, as well as exposure to new ideas and viewpoints.  

• Trying new things. Curiosity may have killed the cat! But when it comes to developing one’s own skillset it does not pay to be too cautious and to avoid expanding one’s horizons. Working with colleagues from other Reply Group companies isn’t just a means to end – that is to deliver a customer project successfully – but also a learning and development opportunity that will augment the skillsets and expertise available to each of the companies involved. 

• Support from behind the scenes. Different companies have different set ups for different reasons. As Solidsoft Reply works primarily in the highly regulated pharma and health sectors, it sports a highly developed Quality Assurance group with strong and strict standards for documentation and processes, which advised on best practices for the project. Valorem Reply’s technical architects have oodles of integration experience and provided the information needed to help the customer assess the pros and cons of adopting Azure DevOps for their own specific requirements. 

That is all well and good, but were there obstacles to cross-company collaboration? Not really, there were no real obstacles as such, more like quirks of slightly different working practices, but those could easily be overcome since the companies in the Reply Group share a common background. It is not just the values and proactive attitude that is shared by the companies in the Reply Group, practical elements are shared too, such as a common time recording system, CRM and access to shared resources and storage, which contributed to smooth the path to project delivery.  

Those who meet the criteria to join the Reply Group are also professional IT Consultants who are used to putting customer first and to thinking out of the box to find innovative solutions, so even without the aid of the shared culture and facilities, they are accustomed to overcoming obstacles and delivering for their customers. 

In summary, when a customer asks Solidsoft Reply to deliver a project, they are not just getting the expertise of Solidsoft Reply, they also get access to the skills and expertise of the wider Reply Group, that can be called upon and brought into play to support and advise as needed, markedly increasing the probability that the project will be delivered successfully. The outcome of collaborating with other Reply Group companies to achieve a common goal is greater than the sum of the parts and results in the two-fold result of successful project delivery and company growth. 

Solidsoft Reply is a leading technology company creating award-winning solutions utilising the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. As a globally acclaimed Microsoft AI Cloud Solutions Partner, we specialise in GS1 traceability systems worldwide, crucially ensuring the authenticity, legality, and safety of our customers’ products and services. Serving non-profits, NGOs, healthcare, and the pharmaceutical industries, we deliver technology for positive social impact. Your products, safe in our hands.