The project issues
Socitm Consulting won a competitive bid to conduct a review of ICT use at the Harrogate International Centre (HIC), with a view to creating a set of recommendations for a long term ICT strategy. Our brief was to identify the key area findings and the recommended steps required to create the strategy.

HIC, whilst part of Harrogate Borough Council (HBC), is run as a quasi commercial "arms length" trading company and competes with wholly commercial enterprises in its market sector. HIC is a key revenue generator for Harrogate and the surrounding area.

The Socitm Consulting solution
As a first step, HIC's business requirements needed to be gathered to ensure there were sound facts to support or dismantle the perceived view of what should sit within the strategy.

Lead consultant Vikki Wide created the project structure and gathered requirements via interviews, conference calls and team meetings. Her colleague Stephen Howes then carried out a Visioning workshop with the key stakeholders. This approach provided another level of requirements validation as Stephen could prove or disprove Vikki's findings within the workshop. The result was a set of data that could be used to build the strategy.
The exercise identified three key areas that should be included in the strategy:

• HIC's aspirations - HIC's remit is to offer conference and event services using the extensive onsite facilities, to manage the Tourist Information Centres (TICs) and run a booking office for HIC entertainment events. The Council's directive was to ensure increased income generation into the area.
  
  HIC competes with other UK conference venues and also those in Europe. HIC's unique selling point is the level of personalised service, the ability to run concurrent events, and the town of Harrogate itself and the amenities it has to offer as an overall destination.
  
  HIC wanted to expand the service range to include CAD planning services, multi-event hosting together with ICT developments to create a more dynamic showcase, giving both delegates and organisers one point of information for everything to do with the event and the town amenities (hotels, restaurants etc). HIC was keen to make event management systems easier to use and the whole experience more streamlined.
  
  
• The market demand - organisers wanted better ICT functionality for desktop provision, always-on internet access, a simple method to send and modify presentations, faster turnaround times for shows and easy processes to alter event details. Delegates and organisers alike wanted a simple end to end real time process for accommodation and other amenity bookings and facilities such as online registration.
  
  
• The services within HIC required to deliver the above - HIC needed a more joined up ICT service offering flexibility that met the demands of the HIC rather than the Council. The support offering from the Council would meet some requirements but additional services were required. The latter would have to reflect standards and best practice in order to make support, and ongoing development, cost effective and simple to execute.

In order to address the above areas, a baseline needed to be drawn of the current services so that any changes, additions or improvements would have a clear starting point in terms of measuring performance, functionality or value. The review encompassed:

• Present view of ICT at HIC – users' perception of the service they received
• Present ICT services - the actual systems that supported HIC
• Data management and reconciliation - how data was stored, replicated and conveyed. This included the assessment of the flow of information around the business
• Project Management and Communications – focusing on how development or changes were managed and the business experience of such changes
• Budget setting - how the budgets were allocated and the method of forecasting
• Client services - the types of services both manual and electronic that were part of the HIC package or additional services to purchase
• Organisational structure- the manner in which staff were organised and to what extent they were client facing
• Present HIC systems – the core applications (Finance, Venue Management, Email, CAD etc) that drove the business and managed the service offering
• Communications Technology – unified messaging plus call management into and out of the centre.

The brief was to initially take a blue sky view of what would benefit the HIC and then hone this via the Programme Board's assessment of the priorities. All options put forward included ball park budget figures to assist prioritising.

The resulting solutions were a mix of industry standard based solutions for the ICT infrastructure, delivery and supporting services combined with a large number of innovative client facing services and solutions. All these solutions were defined within a clear plan of people and workflow based initiatives that would ensure HIC retained a leading edge in the marketplace, while following the clear directive from the Council to boost local income generation.

All of the recommendations were accepted and these were phased to fit the financial tolerances in each quarter and the first phase put into action in April 2005.

The benefits to the client
The breadth of the remit was very wide. It covered everything from ICT infrastructure to multimedia and corporate systems. The approach was holistic covering not only the ICT strategy but also the soft skills, such as communication and organisational changes, required to manage and deliver it. This was all delivered using PRINCE2 project methodologies.

The uniqueness of the HIC, which is one of the leading Conference and Exhibition venues in Europe and one of the very few that is a public sector body operating in a commercial marketplace, results in HIC having problems and advantages that are found both in the commercial and the public sector. Socitm Consulting was well placed to combine its solid public sector experience with the commercial background of some of its consultants. This ensured a sound understanding of the unique natures of both types of operation and appropriate recommendations.

Socitm Consulting was able to offer a team-based solution involving a core skills lead consultant and product experts to ensure that technology recommendations were informed and appropriate. This was particularly important in the areas of unified messaging, dynamic signage and security solutions.

Project identification
Client organisation: Harrogate Borough Council.
Client contact: Paul Lewis, Director, paul.lewis@harrogate.gov.uk
Lead consultant: vikki.wide@socitm.gov.uk
Project no: 4778