This is more like a newbie computer engineering question. I am not asking how to build a complex PCB myself. Our company had a meeting today and I am appointed to look into embedding a webserver onto a piece of PCB.

At a business point of view, I'd guess most hardware companies would just purchase the piece of PCB they need for their application instead of re-designing themselves(considering the piece they need is not the core component of their product).

How does a company hardcode a certain software onto a piece of PCBoard? What is the usual procedure a company has to go through to create a PCB board? Any websites I should take a look?

I have no clue on where to start, what kind of guys to hire, and what should I tell them to do. Well, I guess they picked the wrong guy, but It will be great if I can pull this off.
Please help. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.