A process-led systems studio in Preston, working across the UK.
We design and build the systems growing businesses run on.
Drotta is led by Brad and works with two associates. We are based in Preston, Lancashire, work with businesses anywhere in the UK, and run our Blueprint workshops on site, where the work happens.
Talk to usWe start with the people, then build the system around them.
Most processes in a growing business were never designed. They grew around a spreadsheet, a shared inbox, and the one person who knows how it all fits together. That works until the business grows past it.
So we begin by sitting with the people who do the work and mapping how it really gets done. Then we design the system around them, build it in the open with a working version from the first week, and look after it once it is running.
AI is one of the tools we use, where it saves real time, with a person checking the result. Most of what we build is dependable software and plain automation.
Four things we hold to on every project.
01
Start with the people
We sit with the people who do the work before we design anything, so the system fits the job and not the other way round.
02
Build in the open
You see a working version from the first week and every week after, so there is never a big reveal at the end.
03
Sweat the dull details
Permissions, audit trails, backups, and error handling are where systems quietly fail, so that is where we spend our time.
04
Hand you the keys
The code, the data, and the Cloudflare account are yours from day one. If we ever part ways, everything keeps running.
Three stages, and two ways to agree the work.
We usually work on time and materials, so the build can follow what we learn as the system takes shape. Where the scope is clear from the start, we agree a fixed scope with a fixed outcome instead. Either way, you see the work every week.
Blueprint
1 to 2 weeks
We map the process with the people who run it, find where the time goes, and design the system. You receive the design, the scope, and a timeline.
Build
4 to 10 weeks
A working version on a private link from the first week, a demo every week, and your own data migrated and checked before go-live.
Run
Ongoing
Monitoring, backups, updates, and changes as the business changes. Stop at any time and the system keeps running, because it is yours.
Built on Cloudflare, owned by you.
Everything we build runs on Cloudflare's network. We chose it because it is fast, it is secure by default, and it lets each client own their system outright.
Your account
Every system runs in a Cloudflare account in your company's name, with the code in your own repository.
Your data, in the EU
Databases and files stay in Cloudflare's EU jurisdiction, a destination UK data protection law treats as adequate.
Your sign-in
Staff sign in with the Microsoft 365 or Google accounts they already have, and lose access as soon as that account is switched off.
Every change logged
Each change to a record is kept with who or what made it and when, ready for an audit or a question.
Who we build for.
UK businesses with 10 to 250 staff, in four sectors where people and paperwork carry the work.
Membership bodies
Members, renewals, events, and CPD.
Professional services
Client onboarding, AML checks, engagement letters, and approvals.
Recruitment and staffing
Candidate onboarding, screening, timesheets, and umbrella company checks.
Property and lettings
Certificates, deadlines, repairs, and landlord reporting.
Why we are called Drotta.
Drotta comes from drótt, the Old Norse word for a lord's household: the small band of trusted people who lived in his hall and ran his affairs. Its chief officer, the drots, kept the household in order and stood in for the king when he was away. Keeping a business's systems in order, so they run while its people get on with their work, is much the same job.
The word was spoken here too. Norse settlers farmed this part of Lancashire in the tenth century, and Amounderness, the old name for the country around Preston and the Fylde, is named after one of them. In 1840, workmen mending the bank of the Ribble at Cuerdale, just outside Preston, dug up more than 8,600 pieces of Viking silver, the largest Viking hoard ever found in Britain or Ireland. A Preston company with a Norse name seemed right.