System Design & Integration
Most businesses do not have a software problem. They have an integration problem: a CRM that disagrees with the accounting package, an inventory count that is right in one system and wrong in two others, and a person whose actual job is copying data between them. System design fixes the structure underneath rather than adding a fourth system to the pile.
Model the data before writing the code
Almost every expensive software failure traces back to a data model that was wrong from the start. We spend real time up front on entity relationships, defining a single source of truth for each piece of information, and establishing the rules that keep it consistent. Getting this right is unglamorous and saves entire rebuilds.
Integration that fails safely
Third-party APIs go down, rate-limit you, and change without notice. We build integrations that expect this: retries with exponential backoff, idempotent operations so a retry never double-charges anyone, dead-letter queues for messages that cannot be processed, and alerting that tells you something broke before your customers do.
Documented, not tribal
You receive architecture diagrams, data dictionaries, API contracts and sequence diagrams for the critical flows. The goal is that a competent engineer who has never met us can understand the system from the documentation alone. Knowledge that lives only in someone’s head is a business risk.
What you get
- Systems analysis and current-state process mapping
- Data modelling and single-source-of-truth definition
- API design, documentation and versioning strategy
- Third-party integrations (CRM, ERP, accounting, logistics)
- Event-driven architecture and message queues
- Legacy system modernisation and strangler-fig migration
- Architecture diagrams and data dictionaries
- Monitoring, alerting and reconciliation reporting
System Design — common questions
System design decides what to build and how the parts fit together — data models, service boundaries, integration contracts, failure behaviour. Software development is the implementation of that decision. Skipping the design phase is the most common reason projects need expensive rewrites eighteen months in.
Yes. We regularly integrate Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho and SAP alongside custom platforms. Where a system has no usable API, we work with database-level synchronisation, scheduled file exchange or screen-level automation as a pragmatic fallback.
Yes. Design-only engagements are common. You receive the architecture, data model, API contracts and implementation roadmap as a deliverable you own, which your internal team or another vendor can build against. Several clients use this specifically to get comparable quotes from multiple developers.
Usually with a strangler-fig approach: the new system takes over one capability at a time while the legacy system keeps running, with both kept in sync during the transition. Risk is contained to one slice at a time, and there is a rollback path at every stage rather than one high-stakes cutover weekend.
System Design across South Africa
We deliver system design & integration remotely to businesses nationwide. Each area page covers the sectors we work with there.
Ready to talk about system design?
Send us the problem in plain language. We will come back with the questions that matter, a realistic sense of scope, and an honest view on whether this is the right thing to build.