01
Discover
Process walkthroughs with the people doing the work, plus an honest read of current system and data quality.
What we do
One team, start to finish
SmartLink Services works on enterprise systems end to end. A typical engagement starts before a platform has been chosen and continues long after go-live, because those two ends of the work are connected. The decisions made during selection determine how painful year three is.
We cover ERP and SAP, Oracle databases, CRM and HRM, factory and production systems, secure environments, web and portal development, custom SaaS products and AI solutions. Those sit in seven practices, but they are staffed by one team, which is deliberate. Enterprise problems rarely respect the boundary between an application and the data underneath it.
What we do not do is equally clear. We do not sell, supply or install hardware, networking or data centre equipment. On infrastructure we define requirements, review designs and coordinate the vendors you already work with. Saying that plainly saves everyone a wasted meeting.
How we work
Four commitments we are willing to be held to.
These are not values on a wall. Each one changes what we do on a project, and each one is something you can check we actually did.
If we fail on any of them, it will be visible in the documents we hand over rather than hidden in a status report.
The boundary, stated plainly
Software, data and AI: we build, migrate, integrate, test and run it. Infrastructure and networking: advisory and vendor coordination only.
01
Software is the scope
We deliver applications, data and AI. Infrastructure is advisory, where we define requirements and coordinate your vendors rather than quoting for equipment.
02
Blueprint before configuration
Nothing is configured before the functional design is signed. It becomes the document both sides are held to when scope is questioned later.
03
Documented by default
Configuration records, data mappings, interface specifications and runbooks are handed over at close. No knowledge is held back to protect a support contract.
04
Tested restores, tested cutovers
Backups are proven by an actual restore, go-lives are rehearsed, and every release has a written way back that someone has walked through.
Where we work
The layers we deliver
This is the clearest way we have found to explain scope. Everything in green is work we design, build and operate. The bottom layer is advisory, where we define requirements and coordinate your existing vendors.
01
Process & applications
ERP, CRM, HRM, factory and portal software your teams work in every day.
SAP
Oracle
Dynamics
Odoo
We deliver
02
Data & reporting
Databases, migration, warehousing and the reporting layer over them.
Oracle
SQL Server
Power BI
We deliver
03
Integration & APIs
Interfaces between systems, with logging, retries and versioned specifications.
REST
Kafka
File & queue
We deliver
04
AI & automation
Document processing, forecasting, assistants and rule-based automation.
05
Infrastructure & networking
Data centre, hardware and network. We define requirements and coordinate your vendors.
07
Practices
ERP, business apps, data, factory, build, web and AI.
35
Documented services
Each with its own scope and handover.
04
Layers delivered
Applications, data, integration and AI.
01
Accountable contact
One person who knows your project.
How we deliver
How we deliver
The same six steps run on every engagement, scaled to the size of the work. Nothing is configured before the design is agreed, and nothing goes live without a rehearsed way back.
We tell you when the work is not worth doing
The commercially easy answer to any enquiry is yes. It is also the answer that produces the projects everyone regrets, because a system bought to fix a process problem does not fix the process problem.
A fair number of our conversations end with a smaller piece of work than the client expected, or with process, data quality and training instead of software. That is a worse quarter for us and a better year for them.
The same applies mid engagement. If a phase turns out not to be worth building, we say so while there is still budget to redirect rather than quietly delivering it because it was in the plan.
- Advisory work is offered without an implementation attached
- We recommend the smaller option when it is the right one
- Scope we no longer believe in gets raised, not delivered
- No licence commission on any platform recommendation
Scope lives in a document
Most difficult projects are difficult because two sides understood the scope differently and never wrote it down. By the time that surfaces, both are certain they are right, and both have a point.
So the blueprint is signed before configuration starts, acceptance criteria are agreed at the beginning rather than judged at the end, and changes carry their cost and schedule effect in writing before anyone builds them.
It makes the first weeks slower. It makes everything after them faster, and it means a disagreement can be settled by reading rather than by remembering.
- A signed blueprint before configuration
- Acceptance criteria written at the start
- Written change control with cost and schedule stated
- Nothing proceeds on a verbal instruction
The people who did the work are the people you meet
Enterprise services has a familiar pattern: senior people win the work, and a different team delivers it. We do not run that way, mostly because it is the fastest route to a project that loses the thread.
The consultants in your discovery sessions are the ones who write your blueprint and who are still reachable during hypercare. Where we need a specialist we do not have, we say that plainly rather than presenting a generalist as one.
It limits how many engagements we can run at once. We would rather decline work than staff it with people who have never seen the problem.
- Discovery, design and delivery share the same people
- No bait and switch between the pitch and the project
- Specialists brought in openly, and named
- We decline work we cannot staff properly
Your data is handled like it matters
Delivering enterprise systems means holding other people's data: employee records, customer details, financial transactions, and sometimes health information. That is a responsibility rather than a logistics detail.
Access follows least privilege and is time bound where practical, privileged actions are logged, and test environments use masked or reduced data instead of a copy of production wherever the testing allows it.
At the end of an engagement, access removal is a checklist item with written confirmation, not something that happens when somebody remembers. Where HIPAA applies we work under a business associate agreement.
- Least privilege access, time bound where practical
- Privileged actions logged and reviewable
- Masked or reduced data in test environments
- Access removal confirmed in writing at handover
We build so you can leave
A system only its implementer understands is a liability dressed as a relationship. It narrows what the client can change and makes the supplier harder to replace, which is not a healthy basis for either side.
Configuration decisions are documented with the reasoning behind them, administrators are trained properly, and the handover is a real checklist that gets worked through rather than an email with attachments.
Plenty of clients then choose to keep us on a support arrangement. The difference is that it is a choice, made on the value of the service rather than on how much of the system we kept to ourselves.
- Configuration rationale written down, not just the settings
- Administrator and key user training as a deliverable
- A checklisted handover, worked through together
- Support is a choice, never a dependency we engineered
We stay inside what we are good at
We deliver software, data and AI. On data centre facilities, networking, plant hardware, sensors, PLCs and end user devices we advise and coordinate your existing suppliers, and we do not quote for work we would be subcontracting blind.
We are not a tax adviser, a safety consultancy, an audit firm or a law firm. Where an engagement touches those areas, and it often does, we build the systems that hold and evidence the requirement and work alongside your own advisers on interpretation.
Saying this in the first meeting occasionally costs us work. It has never once cost us a project halfway through, which is the trade we would make every time.
- Software, data and AI is the delivery scope
- Infrastructure and hardware are advisory and coordination
- Interpretation stays with your tax, safety and legal advisers
- We are not a licence reseller
Credentials
The accreditations and compliance we work to.
Enterprise buyers ask what we are accredited to do and how we handle regulated data. These are the answers, stated precisely.
A note on wording. HIPAA has no government certification programme, so no vendor can hold a HIPAA certificate. What we can evidence is compliant practice: documented controls, signed business associate agreements and audit ready logging. We would rather say that accurately than claim something that does not exist.
Client words
What the people who own these systems say.
Comments from the people who own the systems we build, run and hand back.
Working with us
Questions worth asking before you engage anyone.
Because doing both well is rare, and because a supplier who earns margin on equipment is not a neutral adviser about whether you need it. We keep the advice and the supply separate, and we work alongside whichever infrastructure partner you already use.
No, and the documentation policy exists to make that real. Configuration records, data mappings, interface specifications and runbooks are handed over at close. A clean handover to your own team is a perfectly good outcome and we plan for it.
Yes. The team is based in Karachi and we work with clients internationally. Most delivery happens remotely with agreed overlap hours, and we travel for the phases where being on site genuinely changes the outcome, such as discovery workshops and go-live.
Mid-sized and larger organisations with real operational complexity, typically several departments or multiple sites. That is where the disciplines we insist on, such as signed blueprints and reconciled migrations, pay for themselves.
With a consultation rather than a proposal. We want to understand the systems you run, where the process breaks and what your deadline is driven by. Sometimes that conversation ends with us saying the work is not worth doing yet, which is a legitimate result.
Want to know how we would approach your system?
Tell us what you run and where it hurts. You will get a considered answer from someone who has done the work, not a brochure.