Computing Awards for Excellence: IT Department of the Year shortlist

Berwin Leighton Paisner

The success of Berwin Leighton Paisner’s (BLP’s) IT department relies on its internal communication and its strong links with other departments.

BLP ran a set of “twinning” events between the IT team and other support departments, where team members met in a social environment, boosting departmental links and understanding.

By deploying new systems for human resources, the IT department has directly created benefits for all its users. This enhancement is accompanied by the implementation of ITIL standards, supported by an ITIL-compliant helpdesk. The ability of the varied departmental teams to co-operate on large-scale projects has been demonstrated by the implementation of systems to support remote offices in Paris, Singapore and Brussels.

Canterbury City Council

Canterbury City Council’s (CCC’s) IT department is the link between departmental action and the realisation of the council’s aim to improve the quality of life of the community and its visitors.

The department’s key objective is to ensure that IT-enabled services are designed with the customer in mind to create a positive user experience. Achieving this goal has involved redesigning CCC’s web site, providing public videoconferencing facilities and implementing ITIL standards on the helpdesk.

Council employees have benefited from an improved online call logging implementation and a self-service portal for straightforward IT queries, and feedback surveys have revealed a customer satisfaction rating of more than 80 per cent.

Ealing Homes

Ealing Homes is an arms-length management organisation, working in partnership with Ealing Council. Ealing Homes provides a range of social landlord services including maintenance, rent services and home ownership.

Core technical and infrastructure services are effectively outsourced to the council, allowing the IT department of Ealing Homes to focus on strategy development and introducing new systems.

Ealing Homes is improving accuracy and empowering users, thanks to an integrated mapping interface from OpenHouse which provides geographical reports to senior management and users.

Norton Rose

The IT department of Norton Rose regularly surveys one in 10 randomly selected users in search of feedback, which it regards as the key measure of success. Survey results and general feedback have been very positive for three years running.

Understanding the uncertainty that technology can cause users, the team runs a programme of IT events at Norton Rose’s London office to allow everyone to meet the team and interact with new technology.

The team has completed nearly 70 major projects in the past year, including the implementation of a document management system, when 1,800 users in 20 offices across 16 countries were upgraded.

RBT (Connect)

RBT (Connect), a partnership between Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and BT, was launched in 2003 to modernise and improve services for the residents of Rotherham.

RBT has saved almost £3m over two years, with one of the most advanced e-procurement systems of any UK local authority. Key projects included its emergency planning information management system and Streetpride, a hotline allowing people to report nuisances such as graffiti, litter and fly tipping.

Other benefits include the introduction of the Rotherham Grid for Learning, which provides a fast, secure broadband internet and email system for schools.

Salford Software

This year Salford Software has delivered 28 identity management projects, including implementations at the Universities of Westminster and Nottingham.

The size of the team has doubled from six to 12, in response to growing demand for consultancy services focused on various technologies.

Salford Software has implemented secure remote access at Kingston University and is keen to ensure that universities have the best technology available. The University of Dundee praised Salford Software for its “complete understanding of the urgency with which the problem needs to be addressed”.

TNT Express ICS

In 2004, TNT began the ambitious rollout of its Express BackOffice project. By delivering a global SAP finance and purchasing system, TNT aimed to introduce consistency in the processes of 64 countries across its Express division, combined with a single support structure.

To manage the implementation in 13 countries in Australasia, a project office was opened in Malaysia, to which a few key UK staff were deployed to form the core of the team. This ensured that quality standards were met and cultural and time-zone difficulties were overcome.

By early 2007, the project team had successfully implemented in 55 countries, meeting all deadlines.

For more details, visit: www.computing.co.uk/awards