Consulting Manager's Blog (06.08.2010)
With a number of consultancy companies reporting losses and much reduced profits in recent months, it is perhaps surprising how buoyant some parts of the local government are. Here in Socitm Consulting, our pipeline of sales is as healthy as ever, but with an interesting shift in its makeup. Most of the pipeline today is made up of work which will directly contribute to achieving cost reductions for our clients - so work such as business process improvement, shared services, and of course how to achieve channel shift to the web and to encourage customers to serve themselves.
This focus on the central position of the web in most councils' strategy for savings has meant that we have developed a number of key products to help councils to make the savings they need - and remember that the potential savings from a well-designed website are enormous. Investment in the web is the best single investment a council can make - with typical investments of between £250k and £750k for a large council, and returns of £2 - 5 million per annum. What we can offer includes:
- Web strategy - our established framework for a web strategy enables councils to develop their strategy, and the business case to support it, quickly and easily
- Business case - our statistics of the key transactions that councils have successfuly migrated to self service can short-circuit the often tedious task of developing a business case - what better evidence than the savings actually achieved by other councils?
- Integration - pragmatic solutions to integrating the web with back office systems, including the CRM - don't be taken in by claims that integration has to cost millions of pounds - by focusing on those that deliver the highest returns, you can achieve integration that is cost effective and low cost
- Complete websites - we are now offering complete "out of the box" council websites, with all the functionality needed to support self service, and richly functional content management system, even carrying standard information, ready to be tailored to suit the council's specific needs.
So yes, these are hard times for everyone - but sensible use of limited funds can and does generate very signifcant savings.