FutureNow Technologies and the business of making things work

A pizza order is a small test of a large system. Someone has to answer, understand the request and enter it correctly while the customer is still hungry. In August 2010, according to FutureNow Technologies’ account, five of its agents began supporting Pizza Pizza during peak hours. Fifteen weeks later, the team numbered 45. A long-term contract followed the pilot. The revealing part is the sequence: a limited assignment, an observable result, then more responsibility.

That sequence offers a useful way into FutureNow, whose services stretch from software engineering to answering customer calls. Its website can look like a crowded cupboard: cloud migration beside accounting services, mobile development beside document management. Follow a transaction through a business, however, and the assortment becomes easier to understand. The company sells help with both the machinery and the work passing through it.

Five people, then a contract

FutureNow’s December 2010 announcement reported 99.2 percent accuracy and average conversion above 75 percent during the Pizza Pizza trial. Those are historical, company-reported figures. They describe a particular engagement, rather than a guarantee for the next customer. The company also described screening and training agents before putting them on the assignment.

For a buyer, the interesting lesson is procedural. Choose a bounded piece of work, establish how it will be judged, and let the evidence inform the next commitment. That is our reading of the case. A successful trial earns attention; the broader contract still needs its own scrutiny.

Give the complaint somewhere to go

Earlier that year, FutureNow announced a different kind of phone project with Lahore’s City District Government. The proposed complaint response centre would let people report problems with staff and services at government-run hospitals. Here, picking up the phone was only the beginning. A complaint also needed a record that another person could retrieve and use.

The plan combined two FutureNow products. Intract, its CRM software, would be customised so representatives could add and edit complaint information. Office Connect, an IPPBX system, would receive and route calls. FutureNow’s responsibilities covered customisation, deployment, training and maintenance. The announcement described the intended system; it did not establish a measured improvement in patient outcomes.

This is the useful detail in FutureNow’s broad offering. A caller experiences one service. Inside the organisation, that experience crosses telephony, databases, staff procedures and support. Bringing those pieces into one project can reduce the number of handoffs a client must coordinate. Whether it does so depends on implementation, ownership and the people using the system.

The specialist brings the problem

The same division of labour appears in FutureNow’s development partnerships. In January 2009, it announced work with Continental Utility Solutions, or CUSI, on the next generation of utility billing software using Microsoft .NET. A billing specialist brought the business context; FutureNow brought development capability. It is a more concrete description of the company’s market position than a list of programming languages.

That April, an alliance with Script Tools targeted prescription administration. The announcement described the difficulty of checking drug coverage across insurance formularies and prior-authorisation requirements. Script Tools supplied healthcare knowledge; FutureNow supplied engineering expertise. The stated aim was to simplify the process for medical practitioners. It was an announced development effort, so its ambitions should be read as ambitions.

There was also a product aimed closer to the shop counter. EKarobaar launched in May 2009 with barcode-based sales, inventory, expense reporting and supplier management. Its launch materials named SQL Server 2005 and .NET Framework 3.5. Those version numbers place it firmly in its era. They also reveal the practical target: give a small retailer a clearer record of what was sold, bought and spent.

Buying the work after launch

Today, FutureNow’s published service menu covers application development and management, enterprise integration, cloud migration, contact centres and back-office processing. Its application-management offer allows a client to outsource selected applications or an entire portfolio. Its cloud process describes assessment, dependency mapping, infrastructure design and testing before migration, with ongoing management afterwards.

That places it among IT service providers, systems integrators and outsourcing firms. The useful distinction is the combination of engineering and operating work. A client can seek help changing a system, supporting it or handling a related business process. Buyers considering a specialist development agency or a separate contact-centre operator should ask how much coordination they want to retain themselves.

The commercial menu has three forms: fixed time and cost, hourly assignments, and dedicated teams. As a buying principle, a tightly specified deliverable is easier to discuss under a fixed commitment. Work that keeps changing needs a clear way to approve priorities and spending. With any model, the meaningful cost includes training, integration, oversight and eventual handover alongside the supplier’s bill.

The people who remember

In September 2020, FutureNow reported presenting long-service awards to 58 employees with tenure from five to more than ten years. The accompanying photograph is unusually helpful: people holding plaques, with the years visibly marked. In a service business, experience includes knowing a client’s exceptions, habits and awkward corners. Replacing that knowledge takes work.

“These awards are not so much for long service, but as a reward for their dedication.”Fawad Qureshi / Head of Operations / 2020

There are limits to the model. A poorly understood process can remain confusing after it is outsourced. A dedicated team needs someone empowered to set priorities. A fixed brief becomes harder to manage when requirements drift. These are practical conditions for buyers to consider, not documented failures at FutureNow.

The repeatable idea is modest: trace one transaction, identify the troublesome handoff, and test a specific improvement. FutureNow’s archive makes that idea tangible through calls, complaints and bills. The next useful question is equally concrete: which piece of your working day would you trust a partner to take over first?