From single point of failure to sustainable platform.

Caters Media Group finds, licenses and distributes news stories, photos and video to publishers and broadcasters in more than 60 countries. Behind the scenes, their entire operation ran on a system built by a single in-house developer.

The system worked. That was the problem. It had become the hub of everything they did, but it depended entirely on one person. Built on ageing technology, it was getting harder to maintain and even harder to recruit for. If that developer ever left, the business would be exposed.

Caters needed to remove that risk before it became a crisis. They needed a modern foundation, and a sustainable way to keep it running.

We started by understanding the risk properly. Working alongside their existing system and their in-house developer, we mapped out where the exposure was and what a modern Laravel architecture should look like in its place.

Rather than hand back a plan and walk away, we got stuck in. We began the migration build directly alongside their team, so the new system grew from real knowledge of the old one.

We also solved the harder problem underneath the technical one. A single developer had been the risk in the first place, so we helped Caters build a team that wouldn't be. We supported their recruitment process, helping them find and select an experienced Laravel developer to join them full-time.

We turned a single point of failure into a sustainable platform. Caters no longer depend on one person to keep their business running. They have a modern architecture, a growing in-house Laravel team, and a plan that will serve them for years.

Along the way, the documentation we produced did more than guide the rebuild. It gave Caters the technical evidence they needed to support their R&D tax claim, turning the groundwork into an added financial benefit.