In the beginning...
In 1996 Simone Nelson took on Dundonnell Smoked Salmon, a small mail order business very successfully run since 1982 entirely by hand. The original owners were convinced that the introduction of a computer would damage the personal image of the business. Of course this created a problem; they could not grow this very seasonal business, as they could not physically process any more paperwork. A back office system was urgently needed...

Back Office System
Simone knew right from the start that she would need to computerise the business. She enlisted the aid of Peter, an IT specialist newly arrived in the area, to help her start the development of a suitable back office system. An early task was to create a handwriting font for all printed communication with customers.

Evolution
During and after each busy period, especially the frantic Christmas season, Simone would often say to Peter, ‘it would be more helpful if ...’ The software reached version 29!

'Now' Culture
Given that 85% of the mail order business happen at Christmas, it was vital that the new back office system allowed all the snail-mailed, faxed and telephoned orders to be entered as they arrived and held until dispatch time. The ‘send it now’ nature of Internet orders means that when they arrive, invariably at the last minute, it is important to be able to integrate them quickly into the Christmas shipments with confidence.

New Business
Over time the majority of new business came from the Internet and it grew by 30% each year. All those orders were met, and the goods dispatched in time for Christmas. However, it became clear that there was a need to be able to operate the new back office system from outside the actual office in Wester Ross, as Simone was now having to do a lot of travelling.

New Needs
It became increasingly clear that the software would need to be re-written from the ground up, to enable it to be run as a browser-based online service - the ability to run a back office system from any networked or internet-connected computer was becoing more necessary. The new system is designed also to run as before, as a local installation on any pc.

TOPS - A Real World Solution
TOPS thus evolved as a real world solution to the real world problems of running a mail order business handling orders coming from the Internet and over the telephone. TOPS is not the creation of computer programmers or a large and impersonal e-commerce organisation. Rather, it evolved to help a businesswoman handle the actual day-to-day business of running a small company and managing her back office.