Derby, Derbyshire, 21st October, 2009: Soutron Limited, a long established supplier of library automation systems for corporate and special libraries, announces that the first customer to take up their new library system SoutronSOLO is award winning London-based organisation Women Like Us.
Winners of a Queen's Award for Enterprise in 2009, Women Like Us was founded by two women, Karen Mattison and Emma Stewart, who developed a dynamic social enterprise to help connect employers to talented part-time staff, of all different job types, from all industries. ‘Women Like Us' is so-named because its talent-base is made up of ‘women returners' – women with children who want to find quality, flexible work that fits around family life. Staff – who are mostly women returners themselves – actively go out to schools in London to meet other parents and talk to them about the return journey to work.
There are 500,000 unemployed mothers in the UK, who want to find work but who just don't know where to start. Women Like Us recognises the unique needs of parents who have been away from the workplace for a long period – or who have perhaps never worked, and so provides career coaching to parents in some London boroughs. Help with building back confidence and finding career direction is combined with practical workshops on CV skills and interview techniques.
Women Like Us also runs a consultancy specifically for London-based employers, who want to know more about part-time and flexible work (how to go about structuring job shares, how much to pay, where to find staff etc). With 12,700 talented women on its books, from every background imaginable – magic circle, square mile, teaching, administration, design, marketing… - the Women Like Us recruitment service provides an invaluable service to the hundreds of small businesses across the capital who need talented and experienced staff, but at a reduced cost.
Rapid expansion created the need to provide greater access to accurate and streamlined information to employees in the office or consultants out in the field. Data previously stored in many Excel spreadsheets needed structuring and indexing with a thesaurus facility to ensure control over terminology and accurate and validated data entry.
SoutronSOLO was selected for its excellent search capabilities, its integrated thesaurus and its simple yet feature rich functionality. Soutron could also meet the goals, budget restrictions and timescales that the organisation needed.
Sally Ryan, Project Manager with Women Like Us, said that "opting for Soutron to host our application eliminated the need for us to involve our internal IT staff or invest in any hardware. Since ‘going live' with SoutronSOLO, access to information has been simplified and greatly improved."
Graham Beastall, Managing Director at Soutron, says, "The Women Like Us project illustrates the essence of SoutronSOLO. We designed and built it purposely for smaller organisations who want a database solution that is easy to use, making information accessible via the web with minimum effort."
Women Like Us' information is now available 24/7 from any location via the web and the data is now structured and entered easily with validation and control over terminology. They now have the security of a system that will continue to support company expansion without additional investment.
"We have greatly enjoyed working with Sally to put this system in place. It demonstrates how library science can be applied to solve business problems in a cost-effective manner and without protracted implementation times," says Graham Beastall.
Soutron will be demonstrating SoutronSOLO at Online Information 2009, stand 602.
About Soutron Limited
Soutron, established in 1989, is the longest established supplier of software solutions exclusively for Corporate and Special Library Management in the United Kingdom. The company is the developer of SoutronGLOBAL and SoutronSOLO Library automation systems, SoutronTHESAURUS software and has been the sole representative for Inmagic, Inc software in the UK and Ireland since 1991, selling and supporting the full range of Inmagic's products. Soutron's clients represent all sectors including government, charity, legal, industrial manufacturing and service industries.
About Women Like Us
Women Like Us was set up by two working mums in 2005, who realised what incredible talent there was behind the school gates. Women Like Us has 12,700 women on its books, partnerships with 192 schools across London (where it actively goes to meet mums who are thinking about returning to work) and the organisation and its directors have won a variety of awards over the past few years (Enterprising Solutions' ‘Best New Social Enterprise', She Magazine's ‘Inspirational Woman of the Year', Prowess' ‘Inspirational Business Mum of the Year' award to name but a few.